Head Coach Steve Hawkins' Opening Statement
They came out and punched us in the mouth right away. They just played harder than we did in the beginning of the game. We dug ourselves a big hole. We tried like heck to come back from it and the effort fell short. It was disappointment.

On the team's effort
No doubt about it. The first half didn't resemble the things that we pride ourselves in, the effort areas and it cost us. That was the bottom line - lose balls, not getting back on defense. Our bigs put way too much pressure on our guards.

I mean Detroit causes some problems.

They run well.

64 percent in the first half but a lot of them were layups. We felt if we could make them play in the halfcourt, we had a shot at winning the game. And in the second half we did, but the first half was where we lost the game.

It was surprising. It's not going to happen again. But as of right now, we have no choice but to take our medicine. We're going to get on the bus knowing that they kicked our tails and that's a tough pill to swallow right now, because we felt like we did it. They're good. And they took whatever we gave them. But we gave up entirely too much. It's not going to happen again.

On senior point guard Mike Douglas, who scored a career-high 33 points
He's had problems offensively in terms of shooting the ball here, like free throws for a while, even in practice. It's a protective brace ... but it's just something we're going to have to monitor and follow closely, because it's hindering his ability to actually perform. We're going to have to deal with that as best we can. After the brace came off, Mikey was on. That's the first time we've seen him (on). He played pretty well in the Gonzaga game but he played really well tonight, really well.