It didn't take me very long (after arriving on campus) because they talk to us about it. Well, they didn't talk to us about it, but I asked around. But it's an interesting mascot, and it's one people don't always understand.

I think that's been somewhat of a motivation factor for us coming into this year, to not get snubbed. That's why I think we took it one game at a time.

Everybody loves to score and rebound and shoot. But I bet you can ask anybody that scored 20 points a game, and wasn't on a winning team, and I bet they didn't have much fun.

It would be a big step for our program no matter who we played to get to the Sweet 16. We know how hard we've worked to get here. We respect Tennessee and it's going to take one of our better games to beat them, but I can promise you we're not intimidated.

Everybody knows what it takes to win and everybody would sacrifice scoring 20 points a game to be on a winning team, to be on a championship team. I think that's what it all boils down to.

Last year I didn't think we were getting in, and obviously we didn't. I also didn't think Northern Iowa was getting in, and they did. So that was kind of a slap in the face, almost. We finished ahead in the conference and they still got in ahead of us. We didn't really understand that very much.