The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
NIT Press Conference Quotes
11/25/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 25, 2008
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Steve Lavin
Opening Statement:
"I want to begin just by welcoming everyone on behalf of the NIT. My name is Steve Lavin and I will be broadcasting with my partner Dave O'Brien who is taking a train from Boston down here. I really enjoy being involved and participating in a small way with this great event. I know as an assistant and as a head coach it is always an honor and thrill to play in New York City. It is something I know these coaches use in their recruiting as far as scheduling. The kids really look forward to playing on one of the greatest stages in the country. I really feel fortunate to be part of it in any way and I know the coaches feel the same way."
C.M. Newton
Opening Statement:
"I want to thank Steve (Lavin) for his participation. As all of you know he is a former coach and now an analyst with ESPN and does a great job. We are thrilled to have you here. I also want to thank Dick's Sporting Goods as the corporate sponsor of our Season Tip-Off NIT. I congratulate each of the coaches for earning your way to New York. I want to underscore that just very briefly in the few remarks I will make to talk about earning your way in this key part of this championship. It is an important difference between the season tip-off NIT and some of the other events that are going on in this preseason exempt contests and series we see all over the country. The exempt event of the college basketball scene has changed totally over the last few years. Many of the teams now aren't playing in tournaments and I applaud you guys for your willingness to play in a tournament and earn your way here as opposed to being guaranteed your way here. There are teams, my old school Kentucky being one , Kansas State, Kansas and some others that play a couple of home games but are guaranteed an opportunity to go to Vegas or other places to play each other in a championship setting with four teams. In this event everyone is seeded one through 16, it is fairly easy to do that in the post season setting but it is very difficult in the preseason setting. The committee does the selection, seeding and bracketing. I have to applaud the committee for doing the job they did for the seeding for this tournament because three of our #1s are here and#2 is here so the seeding pretty much held up."
C.M. Newton
Opening Statement (cont.):
"Getting back to this, it is a whole different atmosphere when you have to earn your way to a championship and these four teams have done that. We applaud you and we are going to have a great championship. We will have four teams playing Wednesday for the right to play in the championship game on Friday. I guarantee we will have great college basketball that will continue not just for this year but for many years to come. I want to thank the committee for doing such a great job. We have a great tournament, we look forward to hosting the teams at Tavern at the Green tonight, congratulations and we will have a great tournament."
Purdue Head Coach Matt Painter
Opening Statement:
"It is an honor to be here. I am very excited to be in this field when you are able to play two games at home and the possibility to play in Madison Square Garden is a dream come true. When I was an 11-year old, my dad brought me to Madison Square Garden to see Indiana play. My dad was an Indiana grad. It was an unbelievable tournament. I still remember the details of the tournament. Indiana ended up getting fourth in the tournament. It was just an unbelievable field and I think we have an unbelievable field today and I am just honored to be a coach at Purdue, to be able to be here to represent our University and to play someday like an Al Skinner at Boston College who has done an unbelievable job. He ended my career at Rhode Island in the NCAA tournament in 1993 and I was down there talking to him about that just briefly. We are preparing to try to make the next step in our program. It is a difficult thing to do because we think we are in a great conference in the Big 10. To be able to get a challenge like a Boston College and go up against a guard like a Tyrese Rice. It is something you can't prepare for in practice. We don't have somebody like Tyrese Rice, we don't have two, threes or fours that are 6'5" and 240 (lbs). We are really looking forward to it. Thank you for having us. We are really looking forward to tomorrow."
Boston Coach Head Coach Al Skinner
"Being in New York, personally I am always glad to come back here. No longer being in the Big East we love coming back to New York. We are extremely excited and I am personally excited. I was genuinely surprised about how excited my players were to play in this tournament. We are looking forward to an outstanding contest. To be able to play a quality opponent this early in the season, we are looking forward to it. The way the NIT is set up now, I think is tremendous; I think it gives it a lot of credibility. BC is very excited about being here."
Oklahoma Head Coach Jeff Capel
"First of all I want to thank all of you for being here today for this media event. It is an honor to be a part of the NIT. Like Steve (Lavin) said, I had an opportunity to play in it my last year of college up here in the Garden which I think is hallowed ground in basketball. We were here for a different tournament last year so some of our guys understand it. But like Coach Skinner said, I was really pleased and excited that my players were excited to be here and understand the history of the city and the history of Madison Square Garden. It is an honor for the University of Oklahoma. We are playing a really good team. The fact that they are 4-0 without playing a home game speaks volumes to the character and toughness of the kids that Mike Davis has in his program and even more importantly about Mike Davis as a coach and a man. We are excited to be a part of this field. For me, as a young coach, it is an honor to be up here with these three men-Coach Mike Davis, Coach Skinner and Coach Painter. We look forward just to having hopefully a good week here, a good two games and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow night."
UAB Head Coach Mike Davis
Opening Statement:
"We are excited about being here. We are excited about having an opportunity to play Oklahoma. Watching them on film, they definitely give you nightmares with Blake Griffin. He is very skilled and I think the best big in the country. And they are well coached. Coach Capel and I have known each other for a long time. We are excited. This is definitely the first time they (my players) have been in New York. You could tell on the bus ride in from the airport, a bunch of them were looking out the window and then looking up. Hopefully we will have a good showing tomorrow night and thank you for having us."
