Recap |  Box Score

Saint Louis Head Coach Brad Soderberg
"I just really want to compliment my players today, because I've been pretty critical of them in practice. I've been trying to make them understand that they can play better, obviously on offense but also defensively. I've been hard on them, and I've demanded them to play harder. And they did that today. They played very, very hard and I was so pleased with their effort. Their technique is becoming much better, we are not making as many technical errors as we were early on. I want to compliment them as a group, and let you know I am very pleased with what I am seeing out of these kids."

One of the reasons why I am really please today is because from an urgency standpoint, I think Xavier probably had the edge. I thought they would play with more urgency today that we would. I reminded the guys right before tipoff of what happened two weeks ago. We beat Xavier, then we laid a major egg three days later against Saint Joseph's. And I challenged them not to let that happen again. Boy, they responded. I could tell right away before the first media timeout that we were ready to defend."

"Dwayne (Polk) is such a conscience kid in the fact that he has not been hitting three's. I told him I wanted him to focus on two different things. I told him I want you to make the pace of the game go from zero to sixty when you come in. And second I want you to become a defensive pest. I think if you go ask the Xavier guards right now if he was a pest, they would acknowledge it. When I pulled him off at the end of the game I told him that is what I want. You don't have to be anything you're not. But what you are is a great transition player and a great on-ball defender."

"It feels good to win four-of-five. I finally think they get it. When you experience success by doing certain things extremely well - playing defense - they get it. I've seen teams have an amazing end to their season when they figure out the value of defending. I've really liked the way we've won the past couple of games, because it's been with our defense."

Xavier Head Coach Sean Miller
"I want to give Saint Louis a lot of credit. Their style of play is one that makes it difficult on every team to score. To credit them, they have beaten us twice and they certainly earned both those victories. I think Saint Louis plays as good as defense as anyone in the country. Following their team, I don't think they've had many problems because they didn't play good defense. Them entering the Atlantic 10 has done nothing but make our league better."

"In terms of Xavier right now, we are a struggling team. Where we go from here - we are starting over. I think I would be foolish to not take the responsibility, starting with me. I need to make sure we are completely ready game in and game out. In terms of our lineup from this point on, I think I would be foolish to go any other direction than it is very undecided. We need to get some of the things back that we have done so well for so long. Right now, we are not heading in the positive direction."

"Dwayne Polk gave great effort on defense. That guy picked you up baseline to baseline. He has really bought in to making them a better defensive team. He `hawks' the ball. Looking at their defense, they got a big guy inside at all times who can really effect your shots. They have a number of different guards to do a tremendous job of guarding the ball. Kevin Lisch, who is only a freshman, is just so tough. Physically, they all have great toughness. They pressure the ball a lot. Looking beyond that, they have that positioning to help them. They have a little bit of everything going."

Junior Center Ian Vouyoukas
"To win three in a row is significant for us. We have built the momentum, hopefully we can carry it to Dayton. We are going to take this bye week to work on some things. We are second-place in the league now, and we have high expectations for ourselves. At the beginning of the year, as a team we said we wanted to finish near the top of the conference, and we are realizing that right now."

Freshman Guard Kevin Lisch
"We have just really concentrated on just keeping our guy in front of us. In this game, Dwayne Polk really gave us a big boost on defense. You have confidence you can go out and pressure when you have guys behind you. That is really a big key to our defense. Now we know how to win. By winning three in a row that really helps us. Hopefully we'll just build on this and get better."