In this edition of Dave's diary, the freshman walk-on talks about the rivalry between ASU and Arizona and the disappointing loss at North Carolina.
On the ASU/Arizona rivalry:
"(Arizona head) coach (Lute Olson) talked about the rivalry, but he said regardless of the rivalry, we still have to go out there and take care of business and not to get caught up in the rivalry. At the same time, though, we were thinking about it a lot, but we didn't want to get caught up in it. He said (ASU) was going to do a lot of cheap and dirty stuff, which most people saw they did during the game."
On the fight in the stands:
"I didn't know it was going on until someone yelled out behind me 'fight, fight,' and I turned around and saw a couple of security guards going up to what was happening. I kind of expected that. It's a rivalry game. They're playing with a lot of emotion, and everybody wants to win. You have to expect that from a rivalry game."
On Olson's technical foul:
"We just try to match his intensity. He's going to be intense every single game, and if we match that, it's great. The whole technical thing, I didn't understand. He was just making a statement when they gave him a technical, which I thought was unfair because he was just trying to plead his case to the refs. I know they didn't realize that, but I thought it was a really unfair call."
On the North Carolina experience:
"It's a great organization, just like ours. It's a very classy organization. Dean Smith was at our practice for the first five, 10 minutes, and he was talking with coach Olson and then coach Roy Williams came in. You can just tell it's a basketball city, Chapel Hill, (N.C.), is. When you walk into the arena, you can see all the players they've produced like Michael Jordan, Vince Carter, Brendan Haywood, Rasheed Wallace, guys like that. It was really nice going in there and practicing in there. There's a lot of blue, too."
On the 86-69 loss to North Carolina:
"I was disappointed. I thought we were the better team. I know we're the better team, but they just played a lot harder and (freshman forward Tyler) Hansbrough made some plays down the stretch, and the shooter (junior guard) Wes Miller hit some really good shots. They had support from their crowd, their student section. I was disappointed. My first trip to Chapel Hill, and we came home with a loss, but I look at it as every game you can learn something - learn something from the loss and learn something from what you did. You just look to improve on it with these next two road games that we have."