EASTERN MICHIGAN-WESTERN MICHIGAN QUOTES

Senior Guard Mike Douglas

On his plan for the game:

"We had to be agressive. I knew they would stay with Dave Kool, so if I just pulled my screen hard and triied to finish, it would work."

On what to expect from opposing teams:

"You always expect them to bring their best game, so we just try to play hard and as best as we can."

On his low confidence in Hawaii:

"I just had to work, and try to take it one day at a time. Wherever it goes, it goes."

Senior Guard David Kool

On starting off conference play with a win:

"It was a perfect game for us. We came out and defended really well. We wanted to come out and pressure them, and play our tough nose defense. We did that tonight. We had our big guys hitting the glass, and once we did that, that's our basketball."

On improving:

"I think so. It really means a lot, and for us seniors it means that all our hard work is paying off. We have to continue to get the fundamentals down defensively. If we continue to play our game and doing what we're doing, we'll be fine."

On shutting down Eastern's top players:

"It was really a group effort. The big guys rose to the challenge tonight. Whenever we had one man in front, we always had another behind, and they really didn't know what to do with that. We practiced, and it payed off, and we really did a great job."

Senior Donald Lawson

On shutting down Bowdry:

"Basically it was a team effort.  We just stuck to our principals and played Bronco basketball."

On stopping Bowdry:

"He's very crafty. He's the leading scorer of the conference. Crashing offensive glass helped us, and we just tried to stop him in every aspect of his game."

On rebounding:

Our guards led us in rebounding, Mike had 7 and Martelle had 12 I think, so that really helped us out a lot."

EMU Head Coach Charles Ramsey

Thoughts on the game:

"Their intensity, energy, it was funny. They had the big lead, but I never thought we were out of it. We didn't make shots, we didn't make open shots or early shots. That has to go to them also, their defense was good. At the start of the second half, we wanted to come out stronger, and we got a few stops. They did a great job of responding with loose balls and then hit a 3. We never had rhythm flow, and we couldn't score inside."

On Western's improvement from past seasons:

"Their playing as a team. I don't think it was a great game, we really didn't play typical Eastern Basketball. Western is really playing much more as a team, and with confidence."

On receiving the technical foul:

"I thought we made a great block, that 99% of the time is called a jump ball. They didn't call it, and I asked the ref ,'Why wouldn't that be a jump ball?' Then he waived me off, and it was on.  I didn't say it in a disrespectful way, and thats not conducive to a referee's behavior."

WMU Head Coach Steve Hawkins

Thoughts on the game:

"It certainly feels good to boost confidence and win the first conference game.  To get the first win and have it be at home is important. More importantly is that we played well. We rebounded the ball, and we took the scouting report out on the floor and executed it. Eastern is a very, very, solid team and we did a nice job defending them. We played great offensively, and a lot of that had to do with Eastern as well."

On defending Bowdry:

"We wanted to try to keep our 4's on Bowdry so that it freed up Lawson and he could take shots from the weak side.  It was fine until Lawson got into foul trouble.  He didn't play as much as we would have liked, but I thought Hutchison and Martelle did a nice job.  The media loves to get into the individual matchups, but I didn't think it was about an individual stopping Bowdry, it was really about a team defending someone as good as Bowdry."