FSU Basketball: Quotes from after the win over UF

Billy Donovan: (due to a mix-up with the press con location, Billy was only able to answer a few questions for us. But I included them because it is just so evident how great of a basketball mind he is)

--"It was a scramble situation, which enabled us to offensive rebound because they were scrambling to get out to him, we came up with it, and I thought Kasey made two really good plays." --When asked about the sequence that led to UF tying the game up.

--"When you've got a quick timeout like that, there's a couple things you've got to get across. The first thing is, you can't leave your feet on a shot fake...if you leave your feet, you make yourself susceptible to a foul. The second thing is, with three seconds to go the inbounder becomes really important. Inevitably what happens a lot of times is the ball gets in and the guy turns his head, he runs past him and it gets back to him for a shot. Then the third thing is, you gotta play the game out. Because what happens a lot of times is, you watch the shot go up, you know they are gonna shoot it quickly, that ball hits the rim and it's enough time to tip it back in, so I thought rebounding was going to be really important." --When asked about late game situations

--"I thought Jake made the right play. He went to go rebound an airball. I don't think you can sit there and just not get it and let it go out of bounds...anything could happen in those situations...the ball popped out of his hand. He didn't want that to happen."

--"I didn't think it was a very well-played game by both teams. Not taking anything away from Florida State, both teams played and competed hard. But it wasn't a very clean game. You know, they turned us over 12 times in the first half, we turned them over 12 times in the first half, it was really low shooting percentages by both teams, there was a lot of mental lapses by both teams. But I thought both teams competed really hard and it kind of came down to the wire there...we lost on a fluke play, but even if that play didn't happen who's to say they wouldn't have won the game in overtime?"

Ham:

--"I thought this game was played with a tremendous amount of intensity by both teams."

--"They did such a great job in the first half of creating the atmosphere that caused us to be so indecisive. We turned the ball over 12 times in the first half. They do such a good job with their rotations, we didn't execute very well. We were very fortunate there to have that little spurt at the end that enabled us to go into halftime ahead."

--"The second half I though we adjusted a little better...we were very fortunate that we were able to get to the foul line and keep 'em at bay."

--"[Our] biggest concern was they do such a great job on the offensive boards with their athletes...we held our own on the boards."

--"At the end I thought they did a better job...at getting what they wanted than we did. We were just fortunate there at the later stages of the game...we had a couple ill-advised executions there that kind of gave them an opportunity to get back in the lead and at least tie the game...but at the end it's one of those shots that went in that you shake your head about...I'll take that and be very happy."

--"Any time you playing and you only have 2.6 seconds [left], you have to have a lot of options...we work on those a lot just for these kind of situations and we thought that Devon might would be open on the baseline, but we kind of wanted to attack the basket. But they did such a good job of defending us that the only option we had, the best option we had was for Devon to get the ball in the corner."

--"Florida does such a great job with their pressure, uh, that I was very proud of our guys in the second half that we only turned the ball over three or four times."

--"You gotta take your hat off to the players, because I thought they played a really really intense, hard-fought game, we were just very fortunate that we came out on the win this time."

--"There's no doubt that the biggest challenge for our team has been getting some consistent play from our inexperienced players. We're starting two freshman. They play well at times and they make a d=few mistakes along the way. That's part of the process. But I thought Phil had one of his better games tonight. I thought X played 37 minutes and he gave us some pretty good play. Now obviously he made some mistakes, but he has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders to step into playing the point guard position at this level against a team that creates as many opportunities for you to be indecisive as Florida does. So our two youngsters who played major minutes, I thought stepped up tonight."

--"We're the kind of team that we need to win games by committee. I'm not real sure we have a go-to guy right now. The go-to guy is the guy with the highest percentage shot."

--"They challenged all of our defensive principles in the first half. But we didn't do a very good job in the second half when they decided they were just going to dribble-drive and attack the basket."

--"When you take into consideration of where we are in terms of our development, this is a confidence booster. We were successful against a very good basketball team. That team's gonna be an NCAA team, that team is going to do very well in the SEC. And it kind of allows our players to understand the intensity and the effort that you gotta have to go into a game in order to be successful. But on the other end, we made enough mistakes that we will be able to go back and point them out tomorrow and we'll learn from it."---When asked about what a win like this means for his team moving forward. This is called LEARNING HOW TO WIN.

Montay Brandon talking about the crazy ending, the play of the freshman, and what this does for the team:

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Devon Bookert talking about the ending, watching Xavier Rathan-Mayes develop, and his health:

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