RALEIGH, N.C. – Members of the Norfolk State men's basketball team spoke with a wide variety of media outlets on Thursday afternoon prior to the team's open practice at the Lenovo Center, preparing for the team's NCAA Tournament first-round matchup against No. 1 seed Florida slated for Friday at 6:50 p.m.
 
Here are some of the Spartans' top quotes from Thursday afternoon:

Head Coach Robert Jones

Opening Statement:
"Once again, I'm just happy to be here. It's been three years, it feels like something's been missing in my life and now I've got it back. I'm very excited to be here, I'm excited about the opportunity we have to play against one of the best teams in the country. I'm excited about the year that we had, and just ready to get going tomorrow. There's just a level of excitement that's around the Norfolk State men's basketball program right now."
 
On continued success in the MEAC
"It's about just having the right players, right coaches, building the right culture. Sometimes that's hard to do in this day and age where there's not a lot of carryover, so it's just the coaches really sticking together. I think that's one of the most undervalued things that we have. People always look at your returning plays, but I've been with my coaches for almost 10 years, each one of them."
 
On facing a dominant Florida team
"We've played a pretty tough schedule. We've played five NCAA Tournament teams and that was done on purpose to get to a moment like this. We played Tennessee pretty close, we beat High Point, we beat Alabama State, we played other people close. This shouldn't be a shellshock to us. We have to withstand the first blow because I know Florida is playing for a national championship but the thing I tell our guys is if we're one of the 68 teams here then we're playing for a national championship too. We have to be able to withstand their first blow during those first two medias to make it a game."
 
On recent buzz surrounding NSU Athletics compared to similar buzz when 2011-2012 NSU team upset Missouri
"There's a lot of excitement. Coach Vickers is doing an amazing job with the women's program, we've won three of the last five MEAC titles to get to March Madness, and now there's the excitement around Coach Vick. You potentially have your three revenue sports that should be able to take off, so there is a level of excitement. It's probably even more excitement than it was in 2011-12 because that was the first for everything – first football championship, first basketball championship. Now that we've done it a few times it's a level of 'what's next?' How can we keep upgrading this program to not only be one of the best programs in the MEAC, but one of the best programs in the country. I think that the basketball teams have done that."
 
On entering Friday's game against Florida as a massive underdog
"I'm a little angry [about lopsided projections] and I'm a little more focused and coach better when I'm angry. I think the players play better when they're angry. A lot of times in the MEAC we're always the hunted and not the hunter. But out of conference we're the hunter and that's where we try to prove ourselves. We try to show that it's more than just the MEAC, it's more than just being an HBCU, that we're truly one of the best teams in the country. So I think there is a different level of focus and intensity that we bring, hence why we've competed well in the nonconference this year against some of the best teams in the country.
 
I think tomorrow the guys are excited about the challenge. Nobody in that locker room is scared, nobody in that locker room is afraid. We're excited about the challenge of playing the University of Florida."

Graduate guard Christian Ings

On using tough nonconference schedule to build confidence ahead of UF matchup
"We definitely use those games as a launching point and a baseline for how we know we have to perform to be in the game, let alone win it. We used those games against Tennessee and Baylor as markers to let us know where we are and how far we have to go to get to our goal.
 
On hearing stories about 2011-12 NSU team that upset Missouri
"Well, shoutout to Kyle O'Quinn, he's around all the time. He's been here this whole season in and out, giving us good words, motivation. Him and one of his other teammates came in and spoke to us the day before we left on Wednesday. We talk about that 2012 team all the time and we're just trying to remake the magic that they had. Maybe even push it a little further."
 
On learning lessons from 2024 CIT Championship to use on Friday
"One thing we learned from that game was that the halftime score is not the final score. Last year in the CIT Championship we were losing at halftime. The temperature was high in the locker room, we were hot, we were upset. We felt like we weren't playing the best that we could, but at the end of that game we made a push to come out the second half and we ended up winning, so I just know that no matter what the score is by the time we get to halftime that's not the full game. There's another 20 minutes to play and anything can happen in 20 minutes."

Graduate guard Brian Moore Jr. 

On reaching the NCAA Tournament in first year at Norfolk State
"It's been amazing … The biggest thing when I went into the portal [at Murray State] was that I wanted to go to a place that had a winning tradition. Going here, guys like [Ings} made it easy. It felt like a family atmosphere from the moment I got on campus. It's just amazing that in June we set a goal to get to the NCAA Tournament and now we're here."
 
On learning from close games this season
"I just think this is a resilient group and no matter what we're going to fight. We've shown that throughout this year numerous times versus power-five schools and schools in our own conference. I think the one thing about us is we stick together at all times, we never really fragment whether we're down 20, up 20, down 10 with two minutes left. No matter what we try to stay together, and I think that's the reason we've made it so far."