Dusty May press conference after win over Minnesota

I'm fine with them celebrating. Yeah, I'm okay with them celebrating. Hopefully it's not after hours and they're getting the rest. We have a quick turn, but, you know, it's hard for us as a staff.

We're so process-oriented. We want to feel good about the way we competed, the way we performed, the way we executed the processes of leading up to the game. And we didn't at our best tonight, and so it's a learning lesson. But also, we just have such big and lofty goals in front of us.

So it's, it's tough to really celebrate this moment. And like I said earlier this year, all glory is fleeting. As soon as we start to feel good about what we've done, we're going to get knocked down. And every game, every possession is incredibly important going forward.

So we're trying to stay locked in on improving while also feeling good about doing something It's really, really difficult. And I even told Ed a minute ago that these leagues are double the size now. And when you look at how difficult it is to win a Big Ten regular season championship and now you factor in that they're twice as big, you're essentially winning a 2x league when you factor in the traditional conferences.

So proud of our guys that we've been able to weather the storms to go through this marathon that we're on to get to this point. But if you get to the last 5 miles of a marathon and collapse and you don't stay hydrated, then it's all for naught. So we got to keep pushing forward and keep growing and getting better.

Yeah, I think so. I think so. And also just understanding how the mental fatigue that can happen over the course of a season, and especially when you hit certain points of the schedule. And I just remember you go into the year and you're trying to plan Because you've got, like I said, you've got to have everything in.

And you look at it and you're like, okay, we're on the West Coast, we're playing at Oregon on a Saturday, and then we have a home game versus Indiana on a Tuesday. And you're like, man, how are we going to travel across the country, blah, blah, blah, and then still have good enough stuff to beat a team, an NCAA Tournament team as of today?

And that's one thing we've been able to do. We've been able to rise to the challenge each time it's been presented. And that's not easy to do, but Once again, having the strength in numbers that we have, look, all of our guys would love to play more. But I would think that they're happy they're trading that more for the banners and what's going to come with this.

And at the end of the day, wherever they go play next, everyone that's going to be trying to pay them to play basketball values the impact of winning and knowing how to win and know what a winning team looks like and what it feels like and tastes like. So I think, you know, you know, this is what you hope happens whenever your guys have given up as much as they've given up.

Because we have a 9-man rotation and all 9 probably deserve— a couple of them maybe didn't deserve tonight for their bagability. For the most part, all 9 deserve more than they've gotten. And so you just hope that that faith that you're going to find a way to do something special together happens. And so that's a box checked because you— it's never a guarantee.

Them on the glass and what they did to us last year, you know, those are the things because they hunt matchups. And we're going to know who the other teams think on our team are inept defenders. Whether we think it or not, we're going to know who they think because they're going to hunt those matchups. And then when the shot goes up, you've heard me talk about feudal warfare.

It is futile warfare every time that ball goes up. They're not accepting blockouts. They're not accepting anything other than giving maximum effort going towards the ball. And they typically send 4 and even sometimes 5, but typically there's 4 on the glass and they're going at every angle every single time.

So they challenge you in a lot of areas and they have great positional size. They're bigs pick-and-pop. They have the front runner for Player of the Year in the league. I can go on and on about what's going to keep me up tonight and tomorrow night if you want me to.