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Opening Statement:

"I thought Michale Kyser was really good. I also thought Alex Hamilton and Raheem Appleby were really good. Three of the four have to be good for us to have any chance right now. We are searching. We are swinging and missing with some of our newcomers unfortunately, not only with their physical effort, but with their mental effort. I said three of four, I am leaving out Speedy who rolled his ankle. You know that any second he is between the lines, he is going to give you everything he has. Unfortunately from five to 13 it seems like every time you take a step forward, you take a couple back. You hate to be so negative, especially after a win, but I am trying to be as realistic as possible. We have a long ways to go. I have not done a good enough job with our newcomers. We all have to look at ourselves in the mirror, not just me, but our entire staff. Maybe we have to say things a little bit differently. Our press attack was as bad as it gets. Our inability to rebound the basketball, both offensively and defensively, is going to cost us. It is going to cost us in a big way if we do not figure it out. I am trying to find a guy or two that is less concerned with shooting the ball, or turning the ball over, that wants to do the dirty work for us and get a rebound."

On Speedy Returning:

"I know it was definitely a lift for me. When Justin came to me and said Speedy wanted back in the game that made me, our players and our staff a lot more confident. He is one of our leaders who makes us go offensively and defensively. Let's just hope that it is not that serious and he is ready to go and get back to work over these next couple of days."

On Raheem Appleby:

"I thought he had a couple of real good looks early. I was joking with our guys, he is coming off the all-time Louisiana Tech practice scoring record, where he scored about 150 points. We were screaming at our freshman `You may want to find Raheem' because he was going ballistic. He is such a competitor and he treats every practice like a game. I was a little surprised that one of those did not fall early. Sometimes it is an odds deal, where you know that eventually he is going to get it going. He has so much confidence in himself. He can miss 10 in a row and then make eight of the next 10. He stepped up and hit a big deep three at the end of the first half. In the second half he really stepped up and converted for us in the middle of the zone and at the end of the break. He just did a really good job. He played under control in our press attack and made some good decisions."

On Northwestern State:

"I am going into it like we are the underdog, especially after the way we just played. Northwestern State is very good. I have a lot of respect for their program and Coach McConathy who is a great man and a great coach. He was a great player here. I have heard all the stories. I wish I could have seen him play, the way he shot the ball here. We have similar styles, kind of like tonight. They are comfortable playing up-tempo. They are going to press and really push it, especially offensively. We are trying to do the same thing. They are guard-oriented like we are. I know they will be really prepared and hopefully we will be equally as prepared. Jalan West and Zeek Woodley are two really good guards. They are not good guards in the Southland, they are good guards in the Big 12, Conference USA or anywhere. We will have to try and slow those guys down to put ourselves in a position to hopefully be competitive. Transition defense will be huge. We have to value the ball at a much higher level than we did tonight."