"Very thankful to coach these young men and to be here at K-State with the best fans in the country. I don't know if the television did it justice, but our fans were unbelievable. And I'm so thankful for them.

You know, I didn't do a very good job, I did a terrible job in the first half and putting the game plan together. And it didn't give us a chance to win in the first half.

Thankful for my staff, because we were able to make adjustments at halftime. And then the second half, we saw the Cats. We were more aggressive getting to the paint, we owned the offensive glass, and it gave us a chance to win the game.

But because of the game plan that I put together in the first half, it didn't give us a chance to win the game. So that first half is bad on me. I take all the blame for that.

The second half those are the cats and we're going to grow from here. Just very, very thankful for the toughness, character, and togetherness, grittiness of our young men."

"He's grown some, taller shoulders, wider filled out. They've done a great job there with him strength and conditioning wise, and [he] is a really good player. I mean, looked, every bit of 6-1.

He was terrific in the first half like he was really really good. We did a better job on him in the second half. But first half, he was pretty special."

"We got a tough together group that's learning and growing every day and they got no quit in them. Their high character guys, and you know that they can make adjustments on the fly.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to coach them. And I'm gonna do a better job of putting them in a better position so that we don't get down so big in the first half."

"His hard work has paid off, and I loved his aggressiveness in the second half.

I thought in the first half, he allowed his offense to affect his defense. And in the second half, he gave us a more complete game.

The team did a good job of setting screens for him and getting him open and putting him in position. And he went out there and got it done."

"We should have denied [Nijel Pack] the ball the whole time, the whole game, and never let him keep going. You know, like we did in the second half.

The problem is, you do that in the first half, they might make an adjustment in the second half. And so that's why you make those kinds of adjustments at halftime. But as good of a player as he is, it was just a bad decision on my part."

"This was huge for us. We found out against Providence that Dai Dai [Ames] can play in a high-major game ... And then today, this game, we found out [Macaleb] Rich could play in this environment.

What we need is that type of consistent effort to show it practice, so they show what they can do. I don't believe in gamers, I believe in 'every day, every play' guys. And that's what we want to develop here, and what our program's going to stand on.

We've seen growth from multiple guys, and you have to go through these fires. Champions get punched, too. They can take a punch and keep moving forward.

I thought we took some punches. People expected the team down 20 to get knocked out, but we didn't, and we kept fighting. That's the character of our team."

"In the first half, half of our shots were threes, and they weren't paint touch threes. They want you to shoot the ball fast.

They gave us the open look and semi-contested stuff. Some of them pretty good looks, but we played right into their hands with the pace of the game and didn't make them guard long enough in the first half. And again, I take full responsibility for that.

In the second half, we made the ball go side-to-side, made them guard, and got paint touches. Got the defense shrunk, and we started making shots."

"At halftime, our threes, fours, and fives had zero offensive rebounds, and we ended up with nine for the game. And so, we challenged them, and Art had five of those.

His willingness to go make the gritty, tough play, that's something that I think is going to help him and us moving forward.

Art's a really good player, and when he's locked in on both ends of the floor, he can be an all-conference guy for us. He's showed glimpses of it, and we're going to see that consistency grow in him because he wants to win, and I love that."

"They put five guys out there that can dribble, pass, shoot, and shoot it really well. And so you have to guard all five guys.

They're a veteran team, so they understand their role. And they're very unselfish. They're a very good passing team, especially on the catch. They catch and they make the next play very quickly, and the ball travels faster in the air than it does on dribbles.

Our goal was to pause them and make them be dribblers. We weren't able to do that in the first half.

They're a veteran crew. They know what they're doing, and they don't get rattled. When you have that championship pedigree, getting to the Final Four and stuff, it just carries over."

"Referees deemed it a fight, so you have to miss one game. He was missed, but it's going to be a great learning experience for him and for us.

Let me just tell you, with that situation, if this is the worst thing the kid ever does in his life, he's going to live a terrific life. He's an unbelievable kid, and it was out of character.

I'm thankful that I get the opportunity to help him learn through this, and to love him through these consequences. He's going to come out the other side and just do even better."