March 16, 2007

GAME 9 - Campbellsville (Ky.) 80, Houston Baptist (Texas) 55

 

Campbellsville head coach Keith Adkins

 

"I thought Zach Allender was really special on the offensive end and 22 rebounds (19 defensive), that's a phenomenal effort by him. Last year we played two games here in the national tournament and he had double/doubles in both of those games.  He's certainly making a case in front of a national audience to be a first-team All-American this year."

 

 "Our perimeter players were great, and I emphasize great, on the defensive end.  We held an All-American (Dwight Jones of HBU) to 16 points on 16 attempts and he was a non-factor for a big part of the game."

 

"We did the things we did not do in our conference tournament.  We took care of the basketball, we rebounded and we extended our lead instead of letting teams back in the game and we didn't make mistakes with our execution."

 

"We led by 8 at halftime and I thought that it was important to extend that lead to begin the second half.  The closer we would have allowed it to be, I felt that Jones could have put up points in a hurry.  We just didn't want to let him get any confidence and become a part of this game.  We did a good job containing him."

 

GAME 10 - Union (Tenn.) 75, California Baptist 62

 

Union head coach Ralph Turner

 

"Our energy in the first half was great.  We really dominated the game early with the 29-9 run to start the game."

 

"We were more athletic and bigger than Cal Baptist and were able to take advantage of that by winning the game with good inside play and rebounding."

 

"I thought in the second half we did a good job to answer their initial run out of half time when they cut into the lead.  But I also believe that we were tired late as our guards really showed signs of fatigue in the final 10 minutes of play."

 

California Baptist head coach Tim Collins

 

"When you come to a tournament like this, you don't know what you're going to get from your team. We didn't have a great week of practices prior to this. I wish we did, but we didn't. Our first goal was to get here, but the next step to being a great team is once you get to the tournament are you playing for a national championship or just happy to get here? We played like we were just happy to get here."

 

"Not having Junior (Denson) is a problem for us. We're a different team when he's not out there. (Andrew) Bruckner was sick all week and lacked energy today. We need those 2 guys along with (Mark) Roussin to play well for us to be a good team. We only had production from Roussin. The rest of the guys played a little nervous. Cesar (Menjivar) came in and played well in Junior's absence. He's a no-fear type guy and that showed tonight."

 

"We didn't have enough offense, and defensively we needed to rebound better. They are a very athletic team, and their guards were bigger than ours and able to pound the glass. It was a tough draw for us right off the bat. They executed well and we didn't."

 

GAME 11 - Concordia (Calif.) 77, Lee (Tenn.) 61

 

Lee head coach Tommy Brown

 

On Concordia's balance:

"They are a really balanced team. It just isn't one guy you have to stop."

 

On Concordia's Rafael Da Silva:

"He's a bull. He is very skilled on the perimeter and that makes him very tough to match up with."

 

On Concordia's Pressure:

"We couldn't handle Concordia's pressure. It's the best we've seen all year. We weren't able to run a set all day. Part of it was our fault, but they took us out of everything we tried to run."

 

On Senior Kedrick "Modie" Johnson:

"'Modie' has had a great collegiate career and season at Lee. He works hard in practice and in games. I wish we could have gotten him the ball a little more today."

 

"I'm proud of the way our guys played to the very end. We could have given up and probably lost by 40, but we kept at it."

 

Concordia head coach Ken Ammann

 

On his team's lack of national tournament experience

"Yeah, there was a lot of concern and the fact that we haven't won here for a couple of years, so it's nice to get off to a good start. A lot of teams didn't play well in that first round and it's always a concern how you're going to play. I didn't think we played a perfect game, but I thought we played pretty well."

 

On a good start to the game

"We did want to get off to a good start. It's not fun having to come back in your first game. That's pretty hard to do. We were fortunate to get some good looks early and knock them down and the score the ball a little bit."

 

On defending Kedrick Johnson, Kevin Green and Sir-Lee Mason

"We're trying to shut everyone out, but we knew they had three guys that could score and you don't want them all to go off. We did a pretty good job on two on them. Those three guys can really score, but I think we showed that we had a better depth."

 

GAME 12 - Southern Nazarene 72, Westminster (Utah) 67

 

Westminster head coach Tommy Connor

 

On the entire season:

"First of all I am extremely proud of this team.  We have been through some adversity losing our best player earlier in the year, we had to make some adjustments with that and then went on a great run to put ourselves in a position to be here.  Unfortunately we lost (today), but we gave a valiant effort and I am proud of what we have done all year as well as this game."

 

On Danny Reeder fouling out with left 4:16 in the second half:

"We were in trouble when our point guard [Danny] Reeder fouled out.  He is our best player and when he fouled out with four or five minutes left I knew it wasn't going to be easy."

 

On the end of the game:

"It really came down to the end of the game.  We had some opportunities to make plays and didn't, and they got a big steal and a basket plus one, supposedly, that was a huge play in the game."

 

On Southern Nazarene:

"I am really proud of our guys.  Southern Nazarene is a really good team and they only had six offensive rebounds and we did not let them score easy in conversion and that is what they do well.  [Leroy Dawson of SNU] broke us down a little bit in the second half but he is really good.  It was a good game.  Southern Nazarene is a really good team and all credit to them, they deserved to win, they won it at the end."

 

GAME 13 - Xavier (La) 82, Georgetown (Ky.) 79

 

Xavier head coach Dannton Jackson

On making the national tournament after not fielding a team last season

"This is an unbelievable experience for us. We've come a long way. We have a lot of freshman and we lost some guys last year to graduation and then some guys transferred after the storms, so we were in a situation where we had to bring in some new people."

 

On rebuilding the team after Hurricane Katrina

"We brought in a group of freshmen, we had three guys who had never played for us in Alfred Williams, Shaun Dumas and Mark Stewart and we built the team from scratch. Our motto this year was that we were going to work hard every day and take it one day at a time. We weren't really worried about the wins and losses, but we were going to focus on the work ethic and the details, and we got a little bit better every game."

 

On the strategy against Georgetown

"We felt like we were going to be able to drive the ball because we are a lot smaller and they are a lot bigger. Previously in the tournament, we've always had pretty good post players, but this year we kind of had to change our system. We're more of a guard-oriented and with forwards who can step out and handle the ball and shoot the basketball. We made that adjustment this year in our program because of our personnel."

 

On being the underdog

"That's kind of the way it's been for us all year long. We've played against bigger teams all year long. We really don't have a dominant post player. We like being the underdog and we're still the underdog."

 

Georgetown Head Coach Happy Osborne

On the loss...

"We didn't guard a soul.  I just hate it for our seniors to end it like this. Our seniors did a lot of good things this season and I just hate it."

 

"Last night when we met I looked in their eyes and I saw it - today at 2:00 when we met I looked at them and didn't see it.  I just couldn't get to them deep enough."

 

"Our team has to look at what we lost and what we should have won.  There's no excuse, it's our fault.  We got beat."

 

"It's hard to believe that we came out and gave up 60% shooting percentage (after holding opponents to 37% in the regular season)."

 

"It has been a great year and it is just so sad that it had to end this way."

 

On coming in with a 20-win streak...

"I didn't put a lot of emphasis on the conference tournament and, in retrospect, maybe losing in the conference tournament would have helped.  There's not much to say. We didn't guard, didn't take good shots..."

 

On the "last shot" attempt when the game was tied 79-79...

"We just couldn't do a thing.  We're trying to get the last shot and we don't get anything there, I just don't know... Craig (Schoen) had a three before that (the last shot) but he didn't shoot the last one with enough confidence.  He just didn't get his hands up on the release."

 

GAME 15 - Northwestern Oklahoma State 61, Lewis-Clark State (Ida.) 57

 

Lewis-Clark State head coach Tim Walker

"I think that they kept us from getting the ball inside to (Mike) Gordy and we helped that out by shooting too many threes too early. We were 1-for-10 in the second half from the three-point line in the second half. They defended us really well and we missed some looks on some shots."

 

"(NOSU) executed really well in the second half. We were out pressuring the ball, we fronted the post and they cleaned it out a couple of times on the back side for some lay-ups. They hit a couple of opportunistic threes when we didn't guard (NOSU guard Shane) Hansen very well."

 

"They only scored 61 points, but we were just very ineffective making shots in the second half."

 

Northwestern Oklahoma State head coach Bob Battisti

"It was a tale of two halves. Our program has great respect for Lewis-Clark. They made us use everything we had in our bank."

 

"Shane Hansen hit some big shots, Gary Nunez got going in the second half and Brandon Brown hit a couple big three-pointers. I am proud of the hometown hero, Kris Johnson, for making the last two free throws."

 

GAME 16 - FAULKNER 86, SAN DIEGO CHRISTIAN 76 (OT)

 

Faulkner's Brandon Vaughn (hit game-tying three to send game to OT)

"It was the circle play we always run in that situation, and I ran under a screen. The guy defended it well, so I was kind of leaning when I shot it. It felt good, and I thought it was going in. When we got to overtime, we felt like we had `em."

 

Faulkner all-conference point guard Bryant Murray (16 points, 6 assists)

"The coaches were on me all week about playing with confidence, and I did tonight. I felt comfortable taking the ball to the basket. It was probably as good as I've felt in a game in a long time.''

 

Faulkner head coach Jim Sanderson

"One of the things we kept talking to our guys about getting ready for this tournament was to compete for 40 minutes. Well, tonight, it took 45, but we had that "never say die'' attitude. Regardless of the outcome I was going to be proud of this team, because it shook off what happened in the conference tournament and came out here left it on the floor. That's what Faulkner basketball has been about in the past, and that's what it was about tonight.''