On facing Michigan State in 2005
"Whenever you face a team the year before the tournament, you learn a lot about that team. They have most of their players coming back this year. We watched some tapes from the game last year and then some more from this year, and we feel very confident going into the game.

On Head Coach Jim Larranaga preaching a focus on the game plan
"It's going to help because we focus on us during the practices and during the game. We focus on establishing our game plan early and often going inside to Jai (Lewis) or Will (Thomas). We're just going to come out and play our game."

On playing without the suspended Tony Skinn
"What we do is feed Jai and feed all the big guys. Really, it won't affect us because even when we played them last year, Tony was just coming off breaking his wrist and having surgery so he didn't play last year when we played Michigan State. The game was actually a game; it could have went either way. Not having Tony out there won't affect this team."

On Gabe Norwood who will fill Skinn's position
"Gabe does the things you don't see on the stats sheet. He defends well, he gets in passing lanes, denies his man the ball. He's so long and athletic, he contests shots. He's a good defender, so that's what he brings to the table."

On the factor rebounding will have on the result
"We know that they can rebound so coach has been putting an emphasis on it all week in practice: rebounding, boxing out, getting physical, getting the rebound off the glass, don't let them get it. We learned our lesson last year. We didn't rebound, and that's been our emphasis all year: defend and rebound."

On Michigan State's speed on the wings
"As far as the wings, I would say that we are kind of quick too. We played them last year, and we know we match up well with this team. It's going to be an interesting game."

George Mason Senior Forward Jai Lewis

On Michigan State center Paul Davis
"Paul Davis is a good player. He's six-ten. I remember him from last year, and I am just going to try to do the same things I did then: try to push him off the block a little bit, and try to keep him from getting the ball."

On the mid-major schools' places in the 65-team field being doubted by the pundits
"All the mid-major schools are being doubted right now, but as far as us we're No. 9 in the country in defense and field goal percentage. We won our league in the regular season, and we won 22 games this year and I think we deserve it."

George Mason Senior Forward Jai Lewis

On being the first at-large team from the CAA since 1986
"We are just trying to represent the CAA as best as we can. We've also got UNC-Wilmington who plays GW. We are just trying to go out and let people know that the CAA can play ball along with the other big conferences like the Big East and the ACC."

On the impact of staying close to Michigan State in their last meeting
"It just lets us know that we can compete, it just gives us that extra oomph that we need to get us motivated. So we are going out motivated knowing that we can play as physical as Michigan State can. As long as we go out and play hard on defense and execute our game plan we should be all right."

On the importance of controlling the tempo
"The only part we are worried about is making sure we get back on defense. They like to run toward the offensive end and they don't really run as much on the defensive end. So as long as we run back and set our defense, and we run back with them we should be fine."

On dealing with the height of Paul Davis
"With the height of Paul Davis, we just need to make sure to box out, keeping him from getting a rebound and pushing him out as far as we can off the block so he can't get in an area where he can get comfortable to shoot it."