WESTERN MICHIGAN-TOLEDO QUOTES

Western Michigan guard Shawntes Gary

(On his game) "I hit my first couple of shots and coach wanted us to be real aggressive today so I tried to do that, but then fouls limited me to 20 minutes. I felt if I could have been out there I could have changed the outcome of the game."

(On the last offensive rebound by Toledo) "The game was on the line. We still had a chance. There were only four seconds left, but that's a rebound we've got to have to at least give ourselves a chance to get up a shot or something. There's no excuse for us not getting that rebound."

(On the frustration of three straight losses) "Any team would be frustrated. We've lost our last couple when we've still been playing for a championship and we still are even though we lost this one. We have to stay strong as a team, stay confident and come back out the next game and play even harder."

Western Michigan guard David Kool

(On his last shot to take the lead) "Just trying to get it up. Mike got it up to me and just tried to get to the basket. At that point in time, the refs had a pretty tight whistle and tried to get some contact. If not, I had to just throw it up because I kind of got off balance. Like you said, it went in and out."

(On the box and one against him) "You can't really prepare for any of that. We didn't expect to see it, but we did a good job of executing when we did see it and got a lot of open looks and some of them just didn't go down for us. I think overall we did a good job. You just got to tip your cap to them. They made a couple more plays than us."

(On the frustration of the team missing open shots) "We had a lot of open looks, especially when they were running the box and one. Using me as more a screener we got what we wanted. Coach drew up a great game plan at halftime and we executed it, but just didn't knock them down. It comes down to us and not making the plays."

(Overall thoughts on the game) "We competed for 40 hard minutes tonight like we haven't in a long time. I think you have to look at that as a positive. We just didn't get the result we wanted tonight, but we've just got to stay up and keep battling. We still have all the goals in front of us. Still got a chance to get the No. 2 seed if things fall right for us. You never know."

Western Michigan head coach Steve Hawkins

(On the game) "We had 18 offensive rebounds tonight. We were all around the rim. It certainly wasn't a lack of effort. That's for sure. The kids were going to the glass hard. They were battling hard. I don't know how many times we pulled down offensive rebounds where we put the ball back up and it rolled around the rim and wouldn't go in. 

"They came out in a box and one on David and that was the first time we had seen that this year. We made an adjustment at one of the media timeouts. We made another adjustment at halftime and it got some shooters some wide-open shots. We just missed them. You can't ask for much more than that. They executed. David was able to get some things coming off that and he got fouled a lot and got a lot done at the free throw line tonight.

"One of those shots. Just one to go in and we have a different outcome. If you have a couple of those bunnies go in and just a couple of threes. The game looks a whole heck of a lot different in the last minute. All you have to do is shoot free throws to seal the win, but it didn't. Kids made a heck of an effort to come back and to get some steals at the end and put themselves in the position, but we had lost the game long before that with a lot of our missed shots."

(On the loss) "It is very difficult to take. We need this Sunday off to be able to regroup and come back on Monday night. There's a ton to play for still. The kids know it. There's no question we need a little bit of time after this one. One-point losses kill you and one-point losses with what we had at stake, knowing we could control our own destiny, they hurt a little deeper."

(On Martelle McLemore's play) "He's one of those guys who continued his way through practice. He stayed with it and continued to work. We were struggling to put the ball in the hole tonight. Martelle was capable of making some shots. Martelle came in and gave us some good minutes there and did a decent job defensively."