Keegan Murray and Tony Perkins played a starring role on Friday afternoon as Iowa pulled away from Rutgers after a slow start. It was also a record setting day for Murray, who set the new standard for scoring in Iowa basketball history for a single season. They discuss the record being set, Perkins rise in the last few weeks and the confidence he is playing with right now, plus much more.

Q. Tony, watched you at Lawrence North, you're back home again. Look at that smile on his face. Talk a little bit about your performance today and how everyone saw what Tony Perkins can do at Iowa?

TONY PERKINS: A lot of people that see me through high school through now know what I can do, and now I'm able to bring it to the next level is big. Knowing I'm playing in my home city and seeing everybody in the crowds that I know, grew up with, it really boosts my energy a lot. That's pretty much it.

Q. Keegan, breaking Luka Garza single-season scoring record, what does that mean to you, especially to do it on this stage and a game like this?

KEEGAN MURRAY: Yeah, for me last year I really just tried to learn from Luka as much as I can. Obviously, when you have the National Player of the Year on your team, you just kind of want to resemble him in a way. But for me to break his record's a big credit to him and what he's done at the university and just what -- how he's carried himself and how he's kind of put in the footsteps to become great here at Iowa. So it's an honor for me, for sure.

Q. This is for both you guys. You guys have won 10 of 12. How do you describe of confidence that you're playing with right now. Even when you get down in games, it seems like you're not rattled at all?

KEEGAN MURRAY: Yeah, I feel like, for us, we've kind of learned how to get -- we've gotten knocked down. We've learned how to get back up on different stretches. And we know that if we're down a little bit, we can get on a run at any point in the game. So for us it's just keeping the mentality that just never give up, whether we're up 20 or down 20, that's just kind of the mindset we've had these last stretch of games. It's just a credit to our guys, sticking with our scout and doing what we do best. And I feel like we've been sharing the ball really well.

Q. Tony, Rutgers was pushing, I think they cut it to eight kind of deep in the second half there. You come down the court and looked like you lost control of the ball in the air maybe and put it in off the glass. I guess just how big of a moment was that, and like did you honestly think that you could get that shot to go in?

TONY PERKINS: Actually, I was shooting a floater and I got hit going up, so it kind of bobbled out once I shot the floater. I didn't think it was going to go in, so I thought the chase and get a put-back, but it went in, so I'll take it.

Q. Tony, can you talk about the confidence you're playing with now, and the confidence that Fran has in you to go out there and just be yourself?

TONY PERKINS: Personally, you know, I had a shoulder injury, so that was on my mind a lot. But now with that being done and me taking care of that has really boosted my confidence. Coach has always told me to play my game, do what you do. And I'm always willing to be out there and do what I got to do for us to win in any situation.

Q. Keegan, for you, yesterday you were up there, Jordan as well, didn't shy away from the fact that you wanted this rematch with Rutgers. Kind of walk us through the approach coming into this game and maybe not letting the emotions or the thoughts of what happened in the last game affect the play on the court today?

KEEGAN MURRAY: Yeah, for me it was kind of a game that I felt like we should have won. We didn't play as well as we could have as a team. And I feel like not just me or J-Bo, but our whole team felt like this was a game we that had circled on our calendar for a while and we wanted to see them again at some point in the season, and just play our hardest out there. They're a really good team, they're really well coached, really physical, really good defenders. And it was a game that we really wanted. I feel like we played really well for 40 minutes today.

Q. Keegan, you guys are now into the semi-finals. As a team, how much does this tournament mean to you guys in wanting to maybe make a run at a championship and bring home a conference title?

KEEGAN MURRAY: Yeah, for us it's just taking one game at a time. We know what we're capable of, and we've had these goals and aspirations early on in the season, and we knew that we were going to be a good team and we knew that we had to be playing our best basketball at this point in the season. I feel like we're doing that and just take it one game at a time. Indiana's a really good team, they're really well coached and they're playing really well right now. Just get back, look them over and see what we need to work on to try to beat them tomorrow.

Q. Keegan, just five days ago, free-throw shooting did you guys in at Illinois pretty much. Today you're 25-27. Can you just comment on the reversal?

KEEGAN MURRAY: Yeah, I think for us just to see one go down as a team, we went 10-10 the first half for free throws so I feel like for us that kind of boosted all of our confidence to just go up there and make free throws. Obviously against Illinois we missed a lot down the stretch, we missed a lot in the second half of that game and we knew that that was kind of a learning experience for us and I feel like a lot of our guys stepped up to the plate today and made free throws when we needed them.