I think it hurt us on the offensive end a lot. He not only scores for us, he's one of those guys that's always active. He's always doing something. He's a decent passer; he really moves and gets things going.

I'd hurt my back two weeks prior and it progressively got worse,

I would have liked to play Tuesday night; it won't be an excuse. When you're playing well, you want to play more and practice less.

If you're going to play bad, play bad down in South Carolina, or in one of those tournaments in Puerto Rico or something. For a lot of people, especially those watching on TV, this might be the one time they see us play.

The main thing I told the players was we wanted to play good basketball, and we did. Then they threw the wild card at us.

We told our guys early on that we're going to play or we ain't going to play. You can't let things like that distract you.