DETROIT-WESTERN MICHIGAN QUOTES

Detroit Head Coach Ray McCallum

(On the game) "It was a hard-fought ball game. I think the bottom line is we played a pretty good first half I thought and we were doing the things we needed to do. I thought our pressure really bothered them and put us in control. I thought they came out in the second half as the aggressor and that kind of got them going and they kind of rolled. After that it was catch-up and with us being a step behind we put them on the free throw line."

(On Shawntes Gary) "We had him identified as an energy guy, as an effort guy on the glass. He's a guy you have to stay in front of and you've got to block him out. He's a key. He's 6-2, but he plays a lot bigger than that. He's what you call one of those guys with a major motor."

Western Michigan guard Shawntes Gary

(On his rebounding) "They were crashing hard. They were sending three and four people and getting their hands on a lot of balls. That's something we've got to do better as a team. As a guard, I was just trying to rebound down. Me and all of the other guards were just trying to get in their and help the bigs.

I want to be like that the whole game. We were getting stops, but we just weren't getting rebounds. I took it upon myself. I really wanted to get in there and at least try to tip one out if I couldn't get it clean."

(On finishing the game) "Tonight, it was a lot of things. We just kept playing hard. The last couple games teams were outplaying us at the end and another thing was we knocked down our free throws today."

(On getting a win) "It feels really good. I think that will be good for us going into the next couple games."

Western Michigan guard David Kool

(On finishing the game) "It was nice to come back home, play in front of our own fans and finish the game. We really wanted to concentrate on finishing the game once we got the lead and I think we did a good job of that tonight."

(On the difference in the second half) "I think the biggest thing was taking care of the ball."

(On Donald Lawson) "He's our big man this year and he's going to be our go-to guy, no question about it. He's been a beast all year and doing a great job for us. He just needs to keep working and keep improving and we'll keep gaining more and more confidence in the big fella."

(On getting to the free throw line) "I think we wanted to concentrate on getting to the free throw line in the second half. They were closing out long on us so we gave them a little shot fake and tried to get into the paint."

Western Michigan center Donald Lawson

(On his play) "Just basically being solid and playing good defense. It takes a lot of pressure off the guards if we're solid inside. The guards have been doing a great job on the perimeter, so we're just trying to hold it down inside."

Western Michigan head coach Steve Hawkins

(On the game) "It was certainly great to get back in front of the home crowd. We didn't have a chance to practice yesterday. We had to prepare this morning for Detroit and then we play Loyola on Saturday. I went into this (first five games) not overly concerned about how we came out of it record wise. It was an information-gathering week. We had to know a little bit about our players. We had to know a little bit about the way teams are going to play us. The four games have been extremely valuable to us in regards to that information-gathering. We've played four different teams that have all played us in different styles. Tonight was another good learning experience.

"I thought Detroit just did a great job of taking us out of everything in the first half. In the second half, we were able to make a few adjustments and then we started to score."

(On finishing the game) "Two big factors. I think one of them was we knocked down free throws. The other part of things, was I think our juniors and seniors settled down today. I think they tried to do too much in Charleston. I don't think they trusted the freshmen enough and felt like they had to do more than what they were capable of doing. What we found out after watching a lot of film Sunday night was that the freshmen were executing and our seniors and juniors got outside of themselves.

"Tonight, our vets played like vets and settled down and got stops."