Coach Eaves on how he discovered freshman center Thomas Coleman
“Coach Kee watched him play and he told me he’s just awesome. He told me if we get him we’ve got a center to hold on to. From there I started calling people I knew. His mother goes to my church. I called Kevin Cosby who played ball with me. He was recruited by everybody – all the mid-majors. Once he took his visit here, his mother said he was coming and that was it. He came in during spring. He’s a tremendous steal.”

Coach Eaves on Monday night’s game
“He changed the momentum and so did Steve. We finally played hard. We weren’t worried about what the score was, we just wanted to go back to playing Aggie basketball. We didn’t play hard against Morgan. I think that DePaul game bewildered us because we started thinking we were better than we were and we stop working. We didn’t play our style of ball against Morgan and that’s what we wanted to do tonight. I was really proud of the guys because they played with the intent to win. They didn’t come out with agendas.”

Coach Eaves on Angelo Hernandez
“Angelo has been with me a longtime. He’s like (last season’s seniors) Greg Roberts and Walter Booth. He’s a product of the system. He knows how to play hard and gives of himself all the time. He was another super steal. He’s here on his own money. He’s never had a scholarship, but that’s us. We have to be who we are. We don’t have the biggest budget, but we’re going to work hard and put this program where it needs to be.”

Coach Eaves on the Irvin-Corbett atmosphere
“We finally gave them a reason to be excited. We haven’t played well all year. We beat some Division III’s, but we haven’t really played hard. When we played hard that’s when our fans are at their best. We know they’re going to come. We packed the place again tonight. But we have to give them something to cheer about.”

Coach Eaves on what the Aggies did well
“No, we didn’t do that well at the line tonight, but Austin hit two big free throws at the end. We out-rebounded them. We got six steals. Our press finally started working. As my bench gets more experience then we’ll have a tremendous bench.”

Coach Eaves on the Aggies team effort
“It was a team effort. Steve picked us with big threes. Thomas did a great job, but we’ve got to get out of the “I” thing. It was not “I” but we. It was a great team effort by “we.” This was our best effort all year.”

Guard Steven Rush on making big plays
“We just needed someone out there to make plays. We had given the effort, it was just a matter of someone getting it done. Coach always tells me, big-time players make big-time plays. I just tried to come through being one of the leaders on the team.”

Rush on Coleman’s performance
“He played great. He’s been playing great all year. For a freshman to come into this, which is not easy to pick up, and play the way he has says something. He’s definitely been a lift for us. He’s played great in the middle. He’s been all over the boards and blocking shots all year, and he really came up big tonight.”