Aggie Flashback with Aggie basketball's Peter Warden

Key quotes from Peter Warden interview

“I’m having a blast, because I have been telling everyone that when this place is full, it’s a lot of fun. The day after we beat Vanderbilt and Reed was full, I got a text from our assistant coach Kyle Keller; he was beside himself with how fun it was. He remembered it, but it was never fun. He came in here with Oklahoma State a few times and we beat him, but being on our bench with those students, there isn’t a better place.”

“I don’t think people understand just how much our students participate. At Kentucky, you have an arena that holds 24,000 and 4,500 are for students, but they put them in the second level corner. We’re holding the same amount for students in a 13,000-seat arena and they are right there beside the court. I’ve been to Kansas and I love Allen Field House, but our arena is louder when we fill it.”

“We remind Alex all the time that he was a ball boy, once a ball boy, always a ball boy. We talk about that all the time, remember what it was like and talk to the young guys about what it can be like and why it’s worth the extra work in the summer so you can experience that in March.”

“We like it for the seniors. We love it for Kourtney because he is a contributor to this team. He played in the tournament and was on that team when he was young, but now this is partly his team. We feel great for Jordan Green, for what he has put in the last few years and hopefully he’ll get to play deep into March.”

“You have to get the kids from in state, you have to own the state. You have to own Dallas and Houston because that is where a lot of the talent is. You have to be in with the high school coaches and the AAU coaches. We live here too, we have to endear ourselves to the state and the coaches here.”

“If you look back seven, eight,10 years ago, if you would have been given a PG in Acie Law, a wing in Antoine Wright and a center in Joseph Jones, you would have taken that in a heartbeat. So we just had to get to that point. The thing about those kids is that they were great kids and they worked hard, had high motors and high basketball IQ. We had to get a team that had that same thing.”

“Dominique Kirk is one of my favorite players, he knows it, everybody knows it. He's on the wall outside our practice gym and rightfully so. Jordan is right there behind Dominique. A similar game, lock down defender, can hit the open 3, takes and makes the right shot, Jordan has had to grow into that though. As a freshman, we are playing at Madison Square Garden, he fouls a guy away from the basket and lets him catch the ball going towards the basket. He’s made some mistakes but now he’s the guy you want defending the ball at the end.”