Dec. 1, 2008

Recap |  Box Score

Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III

(On defensive effort -- Jessie Sapp vs. Greivis Vasquez)
"I thought that they did a very good job because he's such a terrific offensive player. He puts so much pressure on you because he keeps coming, he keeps coming, he keeps coming. As good a job as they did individually, I think there's a group effort - everyone was cognizant of what was going on, so they did a good job individually but I think our team as a whole had good defensive efforts."

"I'm not sure how emotional it was - well, I take that back - you know, you play a team that's from your hometown and everyone on our team is friends, not just knows but is friends, with the guys on that team, so that comfort level, that familiarity with each other raises the stakes. You know, being here all week you're kind of separated form what's going on back home. The stars just aligned themselves for us today."

"We were able to get them some and were going to need Henry (Sims), Nikita (Mescheriakov), Jason (Clark), Julian (Vaughn) - we need to expedite their comfort level, we need to bring them along quickly, because for us to be successful they're going to be key to what we do."

(On whether Maryland let Georgetown get comfortable)
"I'm not sure about that, I don't think they were letting us be comfortable, I think we did a better job. Our team improved this week, I think we learned a few lessons from that Tennessee game, I think we learned a few lessons from this game. But it was much different. You have to try to be able to adjust. The way Maryland tries to defend is different than the way Tennessee tried to defend. I think we were better today."

F Austin Freeman

(On being a team leader)
"Well, like coach said before, he expects that from me. But I just want to be consistent, I want to get better. Being consistent is what I have to do to get my team to win. I'm just happy we won. "

G Jessie Sapp

(On playing against friends)
"It was emotional. I mean, we might not show it now, but it was an emotional game for us. Those guys play hard. I think that we just did a good job doing what we usually do, you know like coach said, it was our friends so it was kind of a bragging rights type of thing for us. We didn't look at them as friends once we get on the floor."

Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams

"First of all I just give credit to Georgetown. They played probably they felt they played their normal defense, I thought they did a good job against us. There's things about the plays you run, you have to be ready to play. I'll take responsibility, we weren't ready to play."

"When we walked out on the court tonight I thought we were slow, we weren't aggressive, we weren't talking. And when you play a good team, you pay a price for being that way. I was very disappointed, but this is our sixth game of the year. We leave here 4-2, having played three teams ranked 16th in the country or higher, and we'll go from here and see where we are."

"The way you fight through when the ball's not getting - when we had some open shots that we didn't make. Whenever you have that situation you can fight through it by really being more aggressive defensively and by just running better offense, and we didn't do that."

"Nobody's played a tougher schedule than us this year."

(On Greivis Vasquez's struggles)
"It was probably a combination, Georgetown's defense plus we didn't do a great job running our offense. But Greivis has played against good teams before, it just didn't happen tonight. He just didn't seem to have his usual quickness. He's been a great leader for us offensively, this is one night, you don't look at a season based on one night."

(On the history/rivalry with Georgetown)
"You know, it's there, we played against them in 2001 was the last time, we played them in '93 or '94 at their place, then we played them tonight. I think we're both proven programs, playing in two great conferences, there's a lot of things you have to do with your schedule, so it's just the way it is."

"It's what you do from now. You can't do anything about the Georgetown game now, you have to see how the players respond, how they come into practice tomorrow, and you go from there."