Feb. 16, 2008

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Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams
On tonight's game:
"That's a great win. It's hard to understand how hard it is this time of year. Florida State obviously had a very tough travel schedule. This is a tough time of year in college basketball. You see some upsets and people wonder what happened. A lot of times things besides just basketball occur during the game. Today we were a little flat to start the game. I didn't think we were in sync defensively or offensively. I was very concerned at halftime being down eight, that we couldn't change that. But that first play sometimes sets the tempo. Stealing that sideline inbounds pass really set the tempo for us and gave us some belief that we could make some steals out of our pressure."

On team's second-half play:
"Greivis Vasquez is one of the great players to have on your team when you're trailing. He's a great competitor and he hates to lose. He just made up his mind that he was going to change the way he played and hopefully by doing that, change the way the team played. I thought Greivis and Landon Milbourne just made some tremendous plays. Bambale Osby has been quietly being a force for us inside. He's come such a long way from when he arrived here. He has really done a good job of becoming a quiet leader. He's really good and he helped James (Gist) a lot today."

On sophomore forward Landon Milbourne:
"I want Landon to be as aggressive as possible on the floor. When Landon is like that he's a great basketball player. Landon has to make the adjustment to playing the three. Today he was just a force out there defensively and offensively for us."

On the team's bench play:
"Jason [McAlpin] got in there and played good defense for us. He blocked a couple of jump shots. He was really good and that's what you need on your team. Adrian [Bowie] is coming along. He still doesn't go after it offensively."

Maryland Senior Forward James Gist
On Maryland's play in the second half:
"In the first half we kind of started off real sluggish. We weren't running our offense. We weren't playing the tough defense that we're known for playing. For the second half we just had to come out and lock it up. We had to play together and play team defense. We had to start looking for each other and I think we picked it up in the second half."

On collecting wins in the ACC:
"We just had to play tough. You've got to be used to getting banged up, especially at this time of year. We've got a few games left in the regular season and we've got to try to win them all."

Maryland Sophomore Forward Landon Milbourne
On coming off a loss at Duke:
"I was real hard on myself after that game. I felt that I had worked pretty hard leading up to that game, and I didn't expect to come out not ready like I did. I wanted to try and make up for it today. My mother came up from Atlanta to see me today, so I wanted to show a little bit for her."

On his individual progress throughout the year:
"I might be a little bit passive sometimes on offense. On defense I've really been trying assert myself to come out and just stop my guy. On offense I'm just trying to be more aggressive and put more points on the board for us."

On trailing 40-32 at the half:
"We were walking around a lot. We caught ourselves breathing really hard. We've just got to learn how to suck it up sometimes. Once we got our heads back in it we went out there and executed a lot better and had a lot more energy."

Maryland Sophomore Guard Eric Hayes
On Florida State's backcourt:
"It was definitely a tough matchup for us. They do a lot of weaving and a lot of ball screening. That hurt us in the Duke game and it hurt us again today. But we had enough offense to overcome that."

On grabbing seven rebounds from the guard position:
"I really wasn't doing much else so I figured the least I could do was be in there and get some rebounds to start our fast break."

Florida State Head Coach Leonard Hamilton
Opening Statement:
"I think we came out in the second half and turned the ball over six times in the first eight minutes and that really put us back on our heels. That gave them a six-point cushion and that is basically the way that it was the remainder of the game. I thought there were several possessions where the ball could have gone to either team and we came up short. Our inability not to get to the free throw line is obviously something that concerns us. We felt that we drove the ball to the basket and scored a lot of points in the paint, but we didn't seem to get to the line enough to balance out their free throw shooting."

On Florida State's play:
"They came out and played as well as they were supposed to in the first half. I was just disappointed that we had some miscues in terms of attacking and pressing them. We self-inflicted those turnovers with traps and 10-second violations. They did a decent job defending us. One thing that bothers us a bit is that we are not getting enough out of our interior. We are not getting enough inside."

On Vasquez's trio of three's:
"We knew that he was very capable of knocking those down. We were in zone defense and he took advantage of that. We put emphasis on their inside game. They have talent. That is why it is difficult to play a team like this in zone."

On where they go from here:
"We have an opportunity to prove a lot: what you are all about, your character, and you have a chance to come back now, and when things seem like they are going in the wrong direction, step up and make a statement. We are going to finish the season very, very strong, and go into the ACC Tournament and focus on having a positive showing there. Obviously we have had enough challenges to go through this year, and we had those challenges to make us stronger."

Florida State Sophomore Forward Ryan Reid
On what can be taken from a tough loss on the road:
"We knew [Maryland] would come out strong in the second half, but we needed to rebound more. [Maryland] got more rebounds and put-backs. We just need to bounce back from this game and we can't let it keep us down."