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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Postgame Quotes
January 11, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 11, 2006
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
Head Coach Dan Dakich
"This is just really disappointing. I thought my kids really competed, I thought their kids competed. It is just one of the few games, quite frankly, that I felt we really deserved to win. Sometimes when you lose, you know you deserved to lose. But I felt like for the majority of the game we competed and played well enough to win and we didn't get it done. This is the way games go when it comes down to the last second. We've certainly won our share of them and we lost this one."
"The key to the game, in my opinion, was when we were up by thirteen, actually I thought we should've been up by more at halftime with as well as we played in the first half. I felt uncomfortable with only an eleven point lead. I felt like we had a chance, or should have put it out more but we didn't. ...It was back to thirteen after Matt (Lefeld) makes a lay-up, we're not able to get a rebound, we miss a couple of easy shots and then we foul a three-point shooter and now you've got a basketball game. We lose our concentration on defense, McKinney gets a dunk shot and we just never got enough stops culminating into the last play of the game."
"I thought Matt was really good. We're trying to practice Matt more simply because he needs it, and I thought he was really good. He was very determined, he was very tough and if he can continue doing that, he's going to make us a pretty good basketball team."
Talk about the final basket Northern Illinois's final possession...
"We told them Sims was wanting to go right and that is probably what they would do and we obviously didn't get a block-out on the other side..."
"We also talk everyday about playing 40 minutes and we played 39 minutes and 56 seconds."
What was the plan for your final possession with just 3.5 seconds?
"I wanted Steve (Wright) and Martin (Samarco) to slip and they didn't get spread out enough. We ended up catching the ball going backwards and that is not good. We should've had a better setup I guess, but we didn't run the setup that we had.
We wanted something going towards the rim on the catch and I knew if they got squared up on us they were going to play pretty good defense because they had. ...We were trying to get something going to the rim or our first option was to look and see if we could throw it straight in to Matt from half-court and Matt was covered."
How frustrating is this loss after playing so well in the first half and not being able to hang on...
"It's frustrating because we work so hard in practice. And then for it to come down to the last four seconds, and they get a tip-in...it is a very hard loss."
Describe the final possession for NIU...
"You could pretty much tell that Sims was going all the way, he wasn't passing it. Then he took the shot and once it came off, we missed the block-out and they got a tip-in."
NIU Head Coach Rob Judson
"What an offensive display of basketball Bowling Green put on in the first half. Sharp screening, cutting, passing and shooting. Playing with a lot of confidence, playing with a great rhythm and Samarco, boy, just filling it up. At halftime, we just talked about fundamental defense and you look at a home team that shot over 70 percent from the field and put 50 points on the board, they were really moving it. Our defense in the second half slowed them down, helped our offense get into a little bit more rhythm and we were able to go back and forth when it became a possession game and we had a couple of big possessions."
"For Coach Dakich to be able to have that group going the way he is with all those young guys and new guys, losing (John) Reimold and (Josh) Almanson, it is just unbelievable."
