Jerel McNeal stated after the game:
"They needed this game...to get into the BE tourney...and I do not think we matched their energy on defense..."
Well, if he/the team could not match the energy that DePaul brought last night, they better figure out how to turn it up a notch for Saturday. Pitino has talked about the lack of respect that his team is getting and that winning games like this one saturday are essential to impress the media. Getting a quality win like this for UL would pretty much solidify them in the NCAA Tournament.
Louisville is going to come out on all cylinders with something to prove, the same way Depaul had something to gain/prove by beating us last night. The guys better come out with their own "agenda" (for lack of better term) or a sense of something to gain/prove or else us fans will be leaving the BC with sad faces amongst chants of C-A-R-D-S CCCAAARRRDDDSS. And we all know we dont want to be hearing that...
apparently MU isn't worried about getting a good seed in the tournament, we need this win just as bad as Louisville, to save my sanity :)
The part you're missing in that quote is that it was reffering to the first half only, not the whole game. So now they just have to come out with that energy they had in the 2nd half and bring that for the whole game.