BOWLING GREEN at WESTERN MICHIGAN QUOTES

WMU Head Coach Steve Hawkins-

Thoughts on the game-

"So far today, it's another day in the MAC. We've had three of our last four games come down to the last possession. We've lost two of them. Today, we won the ball game with 4 seconds to go. This isn't just Western that's going through this, it's the MAC. We had a two point game at halftime. It's what I told the players after. It serves as great notice as the importance of every single possession, of every free throw. We went 8-16 from the line. But after having said all of that, it sounds like we lost, but I'm much happier to be up here talking about this after a win. The kids deserve incredible credit. They are resilient. The conversations in the huddles were good, and they got after it in the press. We got the momentum going in our favor and made some plays from there."

On going to full court pressure-

"No matter what change we made in our man to man defense, and we made a ton of them, but every strategical change they found. Normally you find them after two or three possessions, and it worked. They were carving us up. The ball screen offense was very good. They were getting their guys open and they were making plays. We thought we might need to go to the press earlier than what we would normally do to get a few more possessions out of the game. We got buckets out of it right away, and they called two timeouts and ended up with out any left with four minutes to go. We went through it, and the kids made some plays. We settled into a man to man and also a half court press. It took them out of their rhythm, and I think that's what happened. It's not something we're normally great at, but it worked today. We have some kids who can anticipate well and turn it into some points."

On the last few plays of the game-

"Some of it's a fog. I'm not positive. The play right before that, we knew we had a foul to give. I told the ref and told our guys we aren't trying to foul. We're trying to get a trap and a steal. We stepped out there and Nate fouled him. It was kind of a three-quarter trap that we had at that point. We came back out of a time out and put the full court trap on. They had no time-outs left, and there was 11 seconds to go at that time. When the ball came into the corners, we could not let them see out of that trap. It had to be immediate. If we approached it soft, then they make the pass and times ticking. We had Nate in there, I can't remember who got the deflection, maybe Mike or David. Somebody got a little bit of the deflection, and Mikey came up and knocked it away and it ended up in David's hands. It couldn't have worked out better."

On the importance of winning-

"The importance of winning one of these, it's tough to say. The importance without question comes with the fact that you stay within reach of everything. Of the West, the potential bye. There is a lot of significance with the win itself. From a mentality stand point, I don't know with this group. These guys bounce back and bounce back, and nothing seems to phase them. Even when we lose, they bounce back the next day. Todays game was the epitome of what our kids do every day. They just bounce back, whatever the result it."

On Demetrius-

"That's why we had him in. You can say to the outsider looking in, Demetrius can't shoot, why in the world is he in there. Well, this is why. It's effort areas that ended up winning this game. The job that he did defensively, whenever you press, he's a great anticipator. He has an instinct. When we were struggling defensively, Demetrius came in for Martelle and did an excellent job. I thought he might have very well been the difference in the game because of the effort areas he was able to win."

Senior Guard David Kool

On the final play-

"The first trap we had, we had to foul. We came out and had to be over agressive. The second time we did the same thing. We trapped him in the corner, and I found the ball on the floor, it was like a treasure to me. I was like 'How did that happen?' It was crazy, but I picked it up off the floor and through it up against the glass."

On winning-

"I think this makes up for it. It's a great feeling. I can't beleive that we won the game. We battled and battled. It's a great feeling to get a positive result out of all of our hard work. The locker room is so happy right now."

On attacking the basket-

"We knew coming in that they were going to zone. It's what we worked on in practice. With Marschall on the wing, and Thomas, they're both really long. Me and Ward got to the middle a lot which I think helped us out."

On Demetrius Ward-

"He's my player of the game. Best game of his career maybe. He gave us everything we needed. He gave us rebounding and his defense was amazing. I don't know how many minutes he played, but he just did a great job."

On coming alive late-

"I would say the same thing. I think we didn't have enough energy until we saw the scoreboard and we were down 11. We got a couple of steals and got it down to about 6 with three minutes to go. I had the feeling in my heart that we were going to win."

Senior Forward Donald Lawson

On Bowling Green-

"They did a great job executing stuff they wanted to. Like their coach said, they made an awful lot of shots."

On the game coming down to the final seconds-

"We went through it at Kent State. You just have to keep playing all the way to the end. Those losses helped us to win this game."

On the last play of the game-

"You have to expect anything. With 4.2 seconds they could have done anything. I just tried to get to the ball as soon as I could."

On WMU's press-

"I think we did an excellent job executing with our press. We don't run it often, but we pressured as much as possible."

Sophomore Guard Demetrius Ward

On his playing style-

"Basically I was just trying to play defense. Offense was going to come. I wanted to get in the gaps and get some open rebounds."

On rebounding-

"Well, playing a zone, you want the team to shoot. but the weakness is you lack rebounds. Coach talked about the 3's, 4's and 5's not getting to the glass fast enough, so that's what we wanted to work on tonight."

On attacking the basket-

"When you attack the middle, the big guy comes at you. I saw they weren't leaving Kool, but if they did I could dish it to him weakside."

On MAC basketball-

"It's basketball, you win some and you lose some. In the MAC, there are no good teams and no bad teams, anybody can be beaten on any given day."

Bowling Green Head Coach Louis Orr

Thoughts on the game-

"It's tough. Our guys, we fought and we knew that Western was a team that would keep fighting to and play to the end. You expect games to go down to the wire. We didn't handle pressure well the last three or so minutes. At the end of the game, that was the difference. We didn't handle the ball. Their senior leader scored the last two baskets of the game. That's what guys like David Kool do. It was the difference in the game. It's a tough one, but we have to always be tough for 40 minutes."

On playing zone-

"We play zone. That's our defense. We play it every game. They shot 46.5% against our zone, and were 7-of-18 for threes. We wanted to keep them out of transition and make them play against our zone as much as possible. They still had 13 fast break points, but we wanted to make them play half court basketball. We shot 62% in the second half. I thought we made some really good plays, and I thought that we attacked them on the offensive end."

On running out of time outs-

"I think on the road momentum can swing quickly. I used my time outs as best I could. We weren't strong enough with the basketball or confident enough down the stretch."