Postgame Quotes

Dec. 4, 1999

Oklahoma State Players

Forward Brian Montonati

On his consistent play
"I feel I'm more relaxed this year. I know Coach has a lot of confidence in me, and I have a lot of confidence in my teammates. They believe in me. It's just coming to work every night and not worrying about things and just going out there and playing as hard as I can."

On Wednesday's play carrying over to tonight's game
"In the last couple of practices, we've been playing really good team defense. At times it was affecting our offense because Coach was getting onto us a little bit in the last couple days. We haven't been hitting a lot of shots and our offense has been a little rusty. So Coach has been preaching to us about our team defense, and I think we've been getting a lot better. We just have to keep working on it."

Guard Glendon Alexander

On his play
"I was just shooting. I don't think I was any type of a zone. I was kidding around today with Sean (Sutton), and I was asking him about the three-point record. I was hoping they were going to play their 3-2 zone, but it didn't work out that way. I've been struggling from the three-point line, and my teammates did a great job of setting me up with shots. It was going down tonight."

Oklahoma State Locker-Room Quotes

Jason Keep

On being a crowd favorite
"OSU has had a long line of good big men. These people (fans) remember Big Country (Bryant Reeves) and they kind of look at me that way. I'm a big person. I try to go out and have a little bit of spirit and try and get it done."

On his excitement
"When I go out there I have got to give it my all because that's the way I play. I've got to play with my heart and not let anything else bother me. I've got to watch my mouth every once in a while, but that's the way it goes."

Desmond Mason

On being the player each team wants to stop
"The coach wants me to be a lot more active and keep moving. He wants me to keep my man active so it can open up things for people like Brian (Montonati). In the second half, I started running the sidelines a lot harder, and Brian (Montonati) started getting some easy layups. Its not all about scoring. You want to win and find a weak point in their defense. I think we did that tonight."

Texas-San Antonio Coach Tim Carter

"I thought it was very obvious in the last eight minutes that we were dragging. We were very weary. I thought we really showed signs of being tired. Give Oklahoma State a tremendous amount of credit. They did a great job of running us off screens. They did a good job of pressuring us, obviously. It's the same old thing, free throws, free throws, free throws. This was a tremendous basketball team,and I thought we got really, really tired down the stretch."

On UTSA's defense
"What we wanted to do was make someone else beat us besides (Desmond) Mason. (Glendon) Alexander stepped up and made some nice shots for them. We couldn't go back into our zone. We were hoping that if we could play more of our zone, then we could keep our legs a little bit. They are just a great ball club, and they showed it tonight."

On the freshmen stepping up
"This is Jon (Havens) home town. Jon was a ball boy here when I was an assistant coach at Oklahoma State about 10 or 12 years ago. Jon has always been a solid player. Ike (Akotaobi) stepped up tonight. He didn't seem to be as gun-shy as he's been in the past. Unfortunately, the guy that's not really stepping up is Reggie (Minnieweather) right now. Reggie's not doing the things he needs to do, and consequently, we've got to play fewer people on the wings. We're not deep on the wings anyway, and when Reggie doesn't step up as a sophomore and do his role, it puts us in a hole."

On competing well in the first 10 minutes
"We've always competed. Tonight, I thought we just competed until we got tired. We really got tired, and I had to stay with Ed (Harvey) longer than I wanted to and I went with Jon (Havens) a little too long because I thought that Lloyd (Williams) wasn't giving us the leadership he should have given us. We jumped out early, but I tell you one thing, this shows why they're a top-20 ball club. They keep pressure on you the whole game, offensively and defensively."

Oklahoma State University Athletics