March 2, 2008

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Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams
On tonight's game:
"We shot 12-for-21 from the free-throw line and 2-for-15 from the three-point line. Along with that, Clemson really picked up their game, played strong and hit some three's. We missed some things that we shouldn't miss, but we did. But give Clemson credit. They came after us and they got us at the end of the game with a great shot. They made a lot of great shots in that stretch and we didn't react very well. So I'm really disappointed, but we're still 8-7 in the league. We have a game at Virginia and we'll see how that goes. We'll see what we're made of this week."

On moving forward after tonight's loss:
"It's really tough to recover, especially given the situation tonight. It's something that's very difficult and only teams with good character recover from a game like that. That can be devastating, there's no doubt about that. But at the same time we have to take responsibility for the game. They won; we let it go. Now we have to do something about it in a positive way."

On Clemson's pressure:
"The press is what it is. You get some momentum going with it. You stay aggressive with it, you get some contact, and when you get down like that, there's nothing to lose. You go for a steal, you make some contact. So what? So you play with that attitude where you just let everything go and they certainly did. We were bad with the ball and they made some good plays. They still had to make shots and they made some three's, which really hurt us. [Terrence] Oglesby did a great job. Not just that shot at the end, but he had a couple of other ones that really hurt us also. We still had our opportunities, but we missed some shots. Obviously, there was the free throw situation. We've been a good free throw shooting team, but tonight it wasn't there."

On the team's bench play:
"Our bench was good. I thought Adrian Bowie, Cliff Tucker and Jerome Burney did what was asked of them as a bench. The job of the bench is to give the starters some rest and keep us in the game. And thPat's what they did tonight."

Maryland Sophomore Guard Greivis Vasquez
On responding after the loss:
"We have to bounce back and try and win as many games as we can so we can get into the tournament."

On tonight's game:
"We are thinking about Virginia right now. It is going to be hard to get over this but we are going to try our best. This is hard to deal with. We won't point fingers at anybody and everyone will take responsibility for their mistakes. We will move on. That is how it is. That is how sports are. You get another chance and hopefully we get this win on Sunday next week."

Maryland Senior Forward James Gist
On tonight's game:
"It is hard to take anything positive away from this. I'm sure as the week goes on I will find something to tell the team, something that we can build off of. We need to take this and build off of this. We can't give games away, especially now."

On regrouping as a team:
"We can't relax in between the games. This is the ACC. This is college basketball. This is what college basketball is all about. We happened to be on the wrong end of it today. Clemson came out and they played tough."

On staying strong during the stretch:
"I don't know much about how to keep anyone's spirit up, especially mine right now. We have to stay tough and a team. We have games left. We have to focus on UVA now."

Clemson Head Coach Oliver Purnell
On tonight's win:
"This is obviously a thrilling win for us. It's been that kind of season. We've been on the other end of games like that, but at the same time, that is something we talked about before the game, in terms of coming to a good opposing team's senior night. You're going to have to withstand some emotions by the team, by the building and the fans and you've just got to hang in there."

On Clemson's comeback:
"We felt that we really used defense as our anchor and when everything went against you and when things started to go well for us, if we still kept at it defensively that we would have a chance to win in the end. We felt that if it got close at the end, that the pressure would shift to the home team on senior night and we wouldn't have had a great chance. Our guys made it happen."

On his team's future:
"I believe that without question, this win makes it possible for us to be in the NCAA Tournament and compete for a national championship. It's important from that standpoint, and maybe we were in anyway, but this kind of cements it. A road win like this, the fact that we were able to come back like that says that we're going to be down at different points and times before the season is over, but that belief has got to be deepened now that we can comeback."

Clemson Senior Forward James Mays
On the importance of the win:
"This game here is important. If we win this game, we're most likely in the tournament"

On Clemson's second-half comeback:
"[Maryland] was about to blow us out and then we just went back to what we do best. We went back to a full court press, traps, ball screens, handoffs. We did everything. We started rallying and we got it done."

"This is the night that this team could have turned from good to great. We beat a really good, quality team with good seniors on senior night and a packed house, on national television. This is a night that we can really count on us to do great things."

Clemson Freshman Guard Terrance Oglesby
On hitting the game-winning 3-pointer:
"Good players take the shots at the end, and I'm not calling myself a great player by any means but that's what I'm trying to be. You've got to have a certain amount of guts in order to take that shot and I was ready for it."

On the Tiger rally:
"It wasn't just me it. It wasn't just the one play. We were down by 20 and it's not going to be one play, its going to be a combination of stops. James' steal is going to be looked over, but it was huge."

On the team's defensive play:
"We stayed competitive on defense. Greivis is one heck of a player and it is hard stop him, but as a team we started to shut him down a little more towards the end of the second half."