Saint Mary's

Coach Randy Bennett : "The scoreboard tells the story on this one. We just got outplayed on this one and they had better plays in the game. Too many turnovers and didn't defend very well. They played well and they're a very good team. That's why we came to play in this tournament because these teams will be in the postseason tournament. There are number of places to improve."

Player Omar Samhan: "Defense is a current issue for me right now. I made a bad defensive play down the stretch, in my opinion, that cost us the game. Defensively, I need to work in all areas of my game, I'm nowhere, where I need to be."

"We haven"t played this type of caliber team yet this season and it just shows that we're not the only good team, there's other talent around the country. We play another game tomorrow and hopefully we won't be overconfident."

Player Patrick Mills: "We didn't have our competitive spirit today and that's what we needed to be successful. We didn't come out like we usually we do and didn't come prepared. We have a lot to improve on and we just have to get ready for another game tomorrow."


UTEP

Coach Tony Barbee: "This was a good win for our team. We've been practicing hard and doing everything we have asked them to do and that shows me the character of our team and quality of our young men after a tough loss to UNLV at home. We bounced back and responded the right way."

"This was a win were everyone helped today and we had some adversity, we were in foul trouble and had to go small at times. This was a solid win and now we move on. We have a talented team, but Stefon Jackson, who is on the top 50 pre-season Wooden list, I think in my personal opinion, when we take the floor and is a good as anyone anytime we take the floor. We have other guys around him, like Randy Culpepper, who can light it up and led us in scoring tonight. He had good shot selection and what about the defense he played. We have a team of unselfish individuals and it starts with Stefon. When your best player is unselfish. We did it on the defensive end and that's how you win games."

"This is very good team we beat today."

Player Stefon Jackson: "We have a young team and this was a good win for us early in the season. We didn't let up tonight. We didn't let up and played a full 40 minutes."

Randy Culpepper: "They made a run and we kept our heads up and stayed in the game."