39
group than I was on last year's group," he confessed
after winning the regional final. "I just wasn't going
to accept them not understanding that they could be
pretty good."
Ryan's honesty was appreciated, so was his tough-
ness. "Coach Ryan definitely attacked the film room
really hard with things on the defensive end," Gasser
said. "The more we played, the more we played to-
gether, the better we got. Fortunately, we're playing
well at the right time."
Jackson echoed what Gasser was saying about
their head coach. "He was very tough on us," he said.
"I think he knew what we could do and he wasn't go-
ing to let us stop short of it. He was hard on us every
single day. He never let up. And it paid off in terms of
games like this one."
He was referencing the Arizona win. Not only had
Ryan prepared them to win a tough game over a
tough opponent, but this season had toughened them
up ― whether it was winning 16 in a row, losing five
of six, winning eight straight, or losing fistfights to
Nebraska and Michigan State in March.
"We've been through a lot, a lot of ups and downs,"
Gasser said. "We've been in games where we've been
behind ― you can look back to that Oregon game
when we were down by 12. And we've played really
good physical teams. Everything that has happened
this entire year has helped us out."
"It helped our resiliency," said Jackson, picking up
on the theme. "We knew how good we could be and
we knew the type of talent we had if we put every-
thing together. We grew a lot and we learned a lot
from it (the season) and we came to some doors and
we kicked them open."
And they all know now what's behind Door No. 1
in Texas; a chance to play for an NCAA title.
