Portland State-Oregon Postgame Quotes

Coach Ernie Kent:

"The only thing my staff and I did with Porter is that we saw someone during the recruiting process with Maik that we knew that we had to come back and take a look at. There are alot of schools that stayed away from him because of his size, but he has tremendous heart and character. He is a unique individual, and he is going to be a great player for us."

"Bryce Taylor has been through a big adjustment after switching positions to small forward. He is one of those kids that paid a tremendous price in conditioning this summer. He can sustain long periods of endurance now and that will help him."

"Maarty is a relentless player now because of his stamina and strength. He still can do the things that he has done throughout his career, but now he can do it for much longer and much faster."

"Aaron is probably the best defender on the floor and with two good ball handlers on the floor we can open things up a little more."

"All of the teams in the conference have the same type of schedule, with the exception of Arizona and UCLA, and that's not important. It's the product we will put on the floor that fans should want to see. We will have a better product this year and this schedule will allow us to grow as a team until we get to Pac-10 play and work through that part of the season as well."

Oregon 116 Portland State 68

Oregon Player Quotes:
#4 Bryce Taylor:
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"I think this tournament was a good first step. We're running the ball better, pushing it up the floor and we're scoring a lot of points, it's just good progression for our team."

On their fatigue:

"We practice really hard to games are usually easy for us. I think the first few minutes of the game is the hardest part. We try not to get tired but when we do we have a lot of bodies on the bench to fill."

# 10 Maarty Leunen:

"I'm feeling good about our team. We still have a lot of work ahead of us but we're just looking forward to practice and focusing on our next games."

"We've always tried to be a running team but we've never really clicked that way. I can see that we're clicking now . I feel that our maturity, and understanding of the game as really helped. Our defense also play a really big part."

"The first couple of games they played us pretty tough. I think last years game against PSU gave us motivation. We wanted to show people that we were ready to compete and win."

# 12 Tajuan Porter:

"I didn't know I had ten three-pointers, I was just taking what the defense gave me."

"The atmosphere is what helps a lot. I've been dreaming of being here and now that I'm here it's my time to play at the best of my ability."

"There's always been a lot of doubters, even coaches from other teams. It doesn't matter how tall you are; if you can play basketball then you can play. I just love the game of basketball."

On being taken out of the game:

"I wanted to go back in, I was going for 40 [points] but we were just playing team basketball and having fun."

"We don't even have all our players back. I think we can be pretty good we just have to keep getting better."