Jan. 26, 2002
Santa Clara head coach Dick Davey
On his team's performance against LMU:
"You know, we got to the line a lot tonight and that is something that we didn't want to let them do since they shoot 79% or so from the free-throw line. I looked at their athletes and I looked at ours, and we are very similar. I have as much respect for them as I do for anyone in our league. They just didn't score inside tonight like they normally do. I think we did some good things tonight that limited their looks inside. We would double quickly down low and Brian Vaka did an outstanding job of guarding their best outside shooter. He really worked his tail off to keep the ball out of his hands."
On the rough shooting start:
"Out team as a whole didn't shoot the ball to well, I think Steve (Ross) started the game 0-for-6, and he didn't start nailing his shots until the second half, but fortunately for us they didn't start off so well either. I thought they did a very good job of disrupting our offense and keeping the ball out of Jordan Legge's hands. Teams are starting to see how valuable he is. He seems to make the right decisions most of the time and that is rare in freshman. He was working hard to get touches but they did a good job of limiting those and that disrupted us early."
Senior forward Steve Ross
On how tight the game got down the stretch:
"When we get a lead down the stretch we really need to learn how to close a team out. When things got close again tonight, I started to think that something like Pepperdine was going to happen again where they come back, take the lead, and don't look back. Fortunately for us we kept it together and we pulled it out."
On his shooting performance:
"Sometimes when you start off slow, you just have to put it behind you and keep going. I didn't shoot the ball well early despite the good looks that my teammates were getting for me. Even early on in the second half they still didn't seem to want to fall. Coach Davey pulled me aside in the second half and just told me to calm down and just shoot it like I know you can. From there on out, the shots just seemed to fall."