Nov. 24, 2002

Recap| Final Stats| Notes| Photo Gallery

Miami Head Coach Charlie Coles:
"We don't have that much leadership on offense. We could be better if we took better shots. I thought we played very, very hard. I thought we took their explosiveness away. I think they were very intent on getting the ball inside, which I would have done if I were them."

On Steve Blake: "I think we did a good job on Blake, but he still gets eight assists. I think he's great, I think he's phenomenal."

On taking away the 3-point shot from Maryland: "I don't know if we took it away or if Gary [Williams] took it away. They were only 2 for 10."

On unfurling of Maryland's NCAA championship banner: "It was a great, great time for us to see [the unfurling]. When we get a chance to dream wildly, we dream about winning a championship. To see the banner was beautiful."

Maryland Coach Gary Williams:
"Tonight we played a team that is very well-coached. They really wanted to play, and I think we found out what it was like to be defending [national] champions in terms of how a team gets ready to play against you...what it means for them to say they played well against you. Hopefully we learned quite a bit from that."

"It was an unusual day with the unfurling of the banner and the emotion that was involved before the game. That's not a normal situation, so we had to get through that, and I thought we did OK with that."

"When you look at the stats and see that they were even with the rebounds, and you shoot 2 for 10 from 3-point range and 40 percent [from the field overall] for the game, it's hard to get too excited about how we played. We've got to get more consistent; we made some great plays, but we made some bad plays, too. It seemed like we could not get on a run. We would always not get a loose ball, or give up a second shot, just hustle plays that hurt our momentum at times. It's November, there are some things we can work on over the next couple of days. We need to get ready for our next game Wednesday, and hopefully we can do a better job in some areas. That's what this team is about this year. We're not a veteran team like last year. Our veterans have to play different roles, and so everything is new."

"Obviously the new players are learning something. We didn't have to go through that last year. We were pretty well set by now in terms of who was doing what on the team. There are still some questions we have to work on. At the same time, I think we can play with a little more intensity than we played with today."

"I think our veteran guys know how to play defense. I just think we were spotty; we would run a good play and then we wouldn't run a good play for two or three possessions."

"It looked like we thought we could do whatever we wanted out there when it came time to score. It doesn't work that way against a team that is playing hard against you. I think we paid for that. We know how to play, it's not like it was terrible or anything like that, but we just want to get better at this time of year and not think that just because we won everything is OK."