EASTERN MICHIGAN-WESTERN MICHIGAN QUOTES

Eastern Michigan head coach Charles Ramsey

(On the second half turnaround) "I never thought we were in danger of getting run out (of the gym). It just came down to two teams and whoever was going to score a couple more buckets than the other team. It's no mistake, the same shots we hit the other night, we didn't make tonight. We had some great looks. I was really disappointed with our post play. We got the ball three feet and in all night long. We had one guy 1-for-7 and one guy 4-for-11. Just not good enough. We make those layups and dunks it changes everything. My hat's off to Western. They executed and hit shots when they needed to and we didn't."

Western Michigan guard Shawntes Gary

(On not having any offensive rebounds) "The only thing I think that contributed to it is our effort. We've got to have a better effort going to the glass. We came out with poor energy to start out and the 3, 4 and 5 need to give a greater effort going to the offensive glass."

(On his play offensively) "Just staying patient and picking and choosing when I try to attack and when I try to get my teammates the ball. We ran a couple of sets at the beginning to get me going a little bit and just tried to keep it up from there."

Western Michigan guard David Kool

(On his clinching three-pointer) "Eastern really battled hard all game. They did a great job. We knew coming in that they were going to battle us the whole game. They had a little revenge on their mind and are playing a lot better after getting the win at Bowling Green. We only hit two threes all game, so when that one finally went down, it gave us a little bit of breathing room and a little exhale."

Western Michigan forward Flenard Whitfield

(On his offensive performance) "My jump shot was falling a little bit better today. The last couple days in practice we've been getting a lot of shots up and I've been taking advantage of the down time we've been having, working on my 15 to 18-foot jumper."

(On the lack of rebounding) "Our rebounding wasn't that good today. I compliment Eastern Michigan for working hard keeping us off the glass. Rebounding is something we do all the time and we expect to outrebound every team we play. It was just sad how we didn't have any offensive rebounds. We'll work to get that corrected in the next couple practices before Saturday."

Western Michigan head coach Steve Hawkins

(On the game) "It wasn't the prettiest game in the world and not one of our better efforts, but when you get to this point of time in the year, you've got to win basketball games and we found a way to gut out a win against a very game team. You've got to commend Eastern Michigan, there's a lot of fight in them. Their guards have really improved.

"There's some statistics that I don't know if I've ever seen before in my life. They get 12 offensive rebounds and we don't have any. I can't remember in the eight years that I've been here and not pulling down an offensive rebound, but neither team got a single point off those offensive rebounds. It was a really strange statistic that took place.

"I thought our defense won the game. We held them to 30.5% from the field and we made some big baskets when we needed to. Shawntes' basket was huge late and with Ball State losing tonight, that's a big thing for us to have our destiny back in our own hands in terms of the No. 2 seed, but we have a long road ahead of us. We're going to need to play a lot better than we did tonight."

(On EMU's comeback in the second half) "When a team gets down into double digits, fight or flight kicks in and they start shooting the ball much more freely because there is nothing to lose and they fought back. Some of the kids hit some shots that they don't normally hit and that tends to happen when you get down like that. They fought back and we went on a dry spell. Both things coincided."