NORTHERN ILLINOIS at WESTERN MICHIGAN QUOTES
WMU Head Coach Steve Hawkins
Thoughts on the game-
"When you're in the middle of it, you're just coaching the next posession. Obviously it was a strange game. When you sift through it all at the end of it, it's just two teams fighting for a win. They had been struggling coming into the game, we were fighting like heck for the win, and I thought both teams really, really played hard. That was to me as much as anything else the real story of the game. Two teams that just desperately wanted to win a basketball game."
On the mindset of both teams-
"I had a chance to read a little big of (Graham Couch's) blog and it sounded like some e-mailers had gotten to you about us quitting. It's the most asinine thing I've ever heard of. If anybody ever talked about us quitting or Northern Illinois quitting, I guarantee they haven't been to our practices because both teams are prideful, both coaching staffs are prideful and it just doesn't happen in the MAC. The MAC is full of tough kids and coaches that preach toughness. There isn't going to be any quitting."
On the physicality of the game-
"The players come in from their final warmups, and I go in for the final coaches meeting before I come out. I heard a couple of our players talking about how their players were being chirpy. Before the game, the feelings were there about winning this basketball games. I don't like it, I certainly don't want to condone it in terms of trash talking. I will absolutely address it. I went down the bench at the end of the game before we shook hands. Both teams left it all on the floor. It was there in the beginning of the game, during the game, and at the end of the game."
On Mike Douglas being ejected-
"I didn't see it, but you trust the referees. I haven't seen it yet. If they say that he did it and it was flagrant then I absolutely trust them. Tonight we went to the monitor for a lot of things. I asked Mikey afterwards and he said he definitely raised his elbows. In terms of the ruling, it's a flagrant foul which is ejection from the game. Any ejection has to be turned into the league office, and then we will hear from them about what they saw and what they feel about the next game."
On Flenard-
"He was a huge part of the game. Flenard has brought it the last few games. He's playing hard. He's been a warrior in both games, even against Eastern when we didn't play very well. We refused to allow NIU's guards to come off of screens. Their pick and roll offense killed us at their place last time. If Silas were to set a ball screen and the guard refuse it, then he gets the ball back and he shoots a 3. At one point David Brown, Mikey, and Alex got stuck on him, but Flenard had him most of the time."
On the bench players-
"Before the ball game, we knew going through the six games in fourteen days, David Kool really carried us through a lot of that. We also knew the kind of games defensively that teams would throw at us, which was selling out and guarding David Kool heavily. Before the game, we thought about it as a coaching staff long and hard. Today it really came to me. We have to show our opponent that more than just David Kool can score. Going back to square one, where we began the season, I talked to the team about it. The first five plays we ran were for the other four guys. We scored on a couple, but turned the ball away a few. After that, we settled down and the other guys got confidence. Kool was 1 of 7 at the half. Some of the other guys stepped up. Donald Lawson was point production, so was Flenard. We used Pokely early. David Brown and Pokely gave us a bit more of an offensive threat."
On David Brown-
"David Brown had two or three tremendous plays defensively. To see him take the charge and then have all of our guys rush over to him and pick him up. It's amazing. These guys aren't quitting."
Senior Guard David Kool
Thoughts on the game-
"I think we showed by the way we played how much energy we had. We looked like a different team diving on the floor for loose balls, and we had a great time out there. We were chest bumping and smiling."
On the game being desperate-
"Right form the start. They came in and were very intense. They were throwing jabs in the pre-game. We knew we had to play our best game. It was a heavyweight fight, and luckily we played well all the way through the game."
On diving after balls-
"Xavier, it was just a loose ball, and we both dove. I don't know if I hit him a little bit with my leg, but it was just a good hard nosed play. I didn't really get a look at Mikey's play. The next thing I knew, the game was stopped and there was a guy on the floor."
On shooting-
"I struggled with my shot early, but I stayed with it. My teammates kept trying to find me and that's what good teammates do."
On David Brown-
"I was very excited for him. He's had a couple great practices in a row. We need everyone on our team to be ready to play. With the situation of Mikey getting thrown out of the game, we had to have people step up."
Senior Forward Flenard Whitfield
On guarding Xavier-
"Coach came to me a little bit, and told me to take on these challenges. Xavier is a great, quick, player at the guard spot. It was hard work to stay in front of him."
On whether or not the game was desperate-
"It's fair to say that the game got a little out of hand. When you have two desperate teams, you're going to see things like that."
On what winning means-
"It just motivates us to work harder the next day in practice and work harder for the next game."
Freshman Guard David Brown
On getting more minutes-
"I didn't know, I haven't played in a lot of games. My ankle has been bothering me for a while. I have all the trust in the world in my coaches, and I know they have trust in me. When they call my number, I have to go out there and produce like I did tonight."
On being ready-
"Everybody has to be ready. Someone could foul out, or in Mikey's situation, someone can get thrown out. You have to stay positive and ready to be out there playing ball and just have fun."
On the stability of his ankle-
"It's about 80% or 90%. We're going to keep rehabbing it and get it back to 100%."
NIU Head Coach Ricardo Patton
On a fought hard game-
"Hawk and I talked about this before the game. We knew it would be two teams battling desperately for a win."
On losses and the last stretch of games for NIU-
"It's some growing pains. I think all teams are trying to build. It's certainly been a tough stretch for our guys, but the lesson we have to learn is to be resiliant and to keep working. There's only one way to get better, taking a little bit better care of the basketball, making our free throws of course. It's tough to over come your opponents shooting 45 free throws. There are some things we need to focus on and do better."
On the games turning point-
"I think you can look back to calls and no calls to a turning point down the stretch. When you're pulling hard on the defensive end, calls or no calls, when you don't get them and your opponent does, it affects the outcome of the game."
On the ejection of Mike Douglas-
"I saw what happened. I felt like the officials didn't see it. I just wanted them to look at the monitor and see what happened. There were a lot of whistles blown after that happened."
NIU Guard Xavier Silas
Thoughts on the game-
"We have similar records. We both needed wins and they came out on top tonight."
On the turning point in the game-
"A lot of things. It's different every game. Sometimes it will be defense, sometimes lack of offense. You just have to find a night where you can put it all together."
On Western subbing-
"Judging from how they were switching up people, it looked like they were having some problems, but they came out on top and that's all that really matters."
On shooting well against WMU-
"I think it just happened like that. We had open shots. We've had open shots against other teams that just haven't gone in. It just happened to be them two times."
