Obviously, all the credit goes to coach Stokes and the guys at ECU. I thought they played a hard-fought, very spirited game. Played exceptionally well.

I thought our team was ready. I would have never anticipated this. We worked hard the last two days and it didn't show. We lost it completely in the first half. East Carolina was better prepared and a better team today. We just didn't defend the ball as well as we needed and we over helped at times and gave open looks.

Six or seven teams are really playing at a high level when you look at our conference. …On a neutral court, you could get any results.

They're a great spurt team. Especially when they play here, they can get on a 10-point run. And often that seems to be the difference.

We are having a pretty good year. The year started off great. It was a nice tournament win for us. Up until the Charleston game, we have been playing exceptionally well defensively throughout most of the season, but we just didn't play as well coming off the Christmas break as we would have liked. Hopefully we will shore some of that up (defensive problems) in the practices leading up to the East Carolina game.

I have a lot of respect for East Carolina. One of my biggest concerns is stopping Corey Rouse. He is a great player and having a great season so far. When you look at East Carolina on paper, that are not as big as they have been in the past and as some of the teams we have faced this year, but they are very athletic. Ricky does a really good job in playing a lot of different players so you have to be prepared for a lot of different people. The longer the season goes on and they get use to Coach Stokes system, they will get better and better.