Nov. 26, 2006

Recap |  Final Stats

Old Spice Classic Post-Game Quotes

Game 11: Marist 89 - Western Michigan 78

MARIST

HEAD COACH MATT BRADY 

General comments:

"We were switching a lot of ball screens. We have some guys who were determined to not get beat offensively."

On national exposure:

"It's a great opportunity for a school from the MAAC. We haven't had an awful lot of success and to play on national TV three times is remarkable for us. We hope there will be more significant wins for us this season."

On the senior players:

"These seniors are putting our program in a national spotlight. It gives us tremendous confidence."

On confidence:

"We know we can play with a lot of teams. We planned on playing well and played better."

On the bench:

"It was a huge help. I've said to our bench that at one point that we're going to need someone at every game and tonight, I thought each of those guys really helped us."

SENIOR GUARD Jared Jordan

On national exposure:

"We don't get on TV that much and to get this opportunity, we wanted a good performance to represent the school. We're representing Marist so to go 2-1 and finish in third place is exciting."

On the Old Spice Classic:

Playing two teams in major conferences who are a lot bigger, stronger and quicker - and we're not really used to that - we competed with everybody and that's just a confidence-builder for ourselves."

WESTERN MICHIGAN

HEAD COACH STEVE HAWKINS

On the loss:

"There was too much Jared Jordan. He showed why he's on a lot of people's All-American list. They started three seniors and two juniors and they all knew where each other were. They looked like Greece against USA. They all pass the ball well and shot well."

On the beginning of the second half:

"We tried something different from what we had been doing, but if Jordan is shooting well, you're in a world of trouble."

On confidence and experience:

"Tonight, we let one end of the floor affect the other. We were struggling defensively and let that affect the offense relative to confidence. And that's just something we've got to work on. That's what we came here for. We came here to find out where we are, what we need to work on, challenge ourselves against upper-level competition."

On the team's identity:

"The identity of the team has been established and what we have to have has been established. We didn't get it tonight, but we know the type of team we can be."

On lacking practice:

"The press we used to claw our way back, I put in in a time-out. We haven't worked on it one iota. We said: We hope you remember something like this back in high school. We haven't had time to work on the small parts. We've worked on big parts - offense, defense - things like that. But we'd just like to do some other things."