New Mexico ended up punching us in the mouth but our guys didn't collapse. Every week it's just gotten better and better. Nobody has been satisfied. Going into Howard there is just a confidence and swagger about us.

If we go in as the No. 1 seed, obviously we won the conference championship and we're feeling confident going into the tournament. Even if we go in as the No. 2 seed, we're fine with that. We're comfortable with that spot. One seed or two seed doesn't make a difference to us. We just need to go out and play our game.

He's a guy that just gets better and better every outing. Today was just more of the same from him. He threw his fastball for a strike, and he was able to throw his breaking ball and split finger for a strike as well.

I am excited about it. I am flattered. I am also aware that it's a great responsibility having to take over the leadership of the city, especially having to fill the big shoes of Mike Stewart.

You get the infrastructure built right away without having the city put up money or find the money initially from its funds.

We're feeling really good about ourselves, defensively, offensively and on the mound. We just need four quality starts from our pitchers. If we play defense behind them, our hitting will take care of itself. It'll be really scary how confident we will be if we win three or four games this weekend.