Feb. 24, 2006

Recap |  Final Stats

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Marist vs. Niagara

Niagara:

Head Coach Joe Mihalich:

On tonight's game:

            That's a good team we played tonight.  I'm not proud of how we played tonight.  A lot of teams can win the MAAC tournament, but Iona and Marist are sitting 1-2 right now.  Marist can score, and you can't cheat on anybody.  They have a lot of options and weapons.  We were able to score at our place, and here we weren't.  Their D was better tonight.

Marist

Head Coach Matt Brady

On preparation for tonight's game and halftime mindset:

            We talked to the team about coming out with defensive intensity tonight.  They took and made some difficult shots early.  It was completely unexpected for us to win tonight in this fashion.  They are an explosive offense and we needed to come out in the second half like we were tied at zero and not let our guard down.  Our bench came up and did great as well.

On advantage of big men tonight:

            We definitely had an advantage because of their inability to guard the lane due to their thin bench.  James has made strides and his teammates are giving him the ball with the confidence that he will come through if he can get going.  We're happy with his play right now but he must learn more as time goes by.

Carl Hood

On tonight's game and his last home game:

            We came out, and after the first five minutes, we played great defense and the offense just came to us.  It is a great way to go out.  I didn't feel any pressure, I just treated it like any other game and I knew we had to come out tonight and win.  The job isn't finished yet, but I'm going to miss this.

Jared Jordan

On Carl Hood:

            Carl is one of the key guys on this team.  We need someone like him to win.  He's great defensively, and he's great on the boards.  We knew we had a good bench and it is a strong point for us.  We try to build up the bench confidence in practice.