Bowling Green State University Athletics
Akron/BGSU
January 14, 2007 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 14, 2007
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
BGSU Head Coach Dan Dakich
"I though Akron was really good in the second half. I thought it was a good game and we were playing pretty well other than their press in the first half. In the second half, Akron's physically stronger and better veteran guys just kept playing while we looked like we were in quicksand after halftime. My hat is off to them, I thought they played great."
What happened in the second half?
They just converted on every missed shot and their conversion defense was a killer. They beat us down the floor and I am not sure how many points they got in transition. We never had them stopped in the second half. When we took the lead at 44-42, I am not sure how long we hung on to the 44 but it was a long time and we just never got a stop.""
"I thought we did a pretty good job on their half court inside game. What hurt us was the conversion defense, the dribble drive getting past us and I thought that created a little bit of their inside play. They were able to pass it off and get us to help and the next thing you know it was a dunk from a rebound. I thought it was mostly on the perimeter where they created most of what was available to them inside."
"Again we are just not quick enough out there. We need to do a better job of containing the ball. It was a really big deal going into this game about containing the ball. It is something that we need to do that we just did not do. We need to look at some different ways to play than what we play. If you take the turnovers and the press out of the first half,we might have been up ten at the half. But you can't do that. It is part of the game. I didn't feel like anyone coming in off the bench, like we have had in the past, gave us a big lift. Otis did the best in the seven minutes that he played."
How do you physically feel?
"The foot has come along pretty good. I am just trying to get out there and do what I can. I feel pretty good right now but it is a little sore and that tends to go away a couple of hours after the game."
What happened the second half when they took off?
"They are a good team who has played a lot of basketball together and they have been around each other for awhile. We are going to keep working hard. We have practice tomorrow and Tuesday and we need to get ready for Miami on Wednesday.
"We had a pretty good crowd tonight and we just need to find a way to keep it up for forty minutes instead of twenty. I think we battled pretty well in the first half but we didn't get it done in the second half."
Akron Head Coach Keith Dambrot
"I thought we had opportunities in the first half to put them away because we got Bowling Green turned over but we really never capitalized on it and they hung around well and had some momentum. It was a test for our team at halftime to see what we could bring. We made a decision to spread the floor out a little bit more and to try to drive the ball which I think helped us. Sometimes as a coach you have to figure out what is good for you and what is not good for you. Tonight we played pretty good in stretches."
Was that the best you had played all year?
"We had a lot of things go well for us. I thought Cedrick Middleton and Quade Milum were outstanding and Romeo Travis was the consummate team guy. I though Milum and Travis dominated the defensive end around the basket. In one stretch they were knocking everything back at guys. I thought that was key. Nate Linhart was outstanding while Dru Joyce rallied himself. He had a difficult first half but he did some good things in the second half, which is typical of him. He can be awful and then all of a sudden because he has such a belief structure in himself and he is able to rally himself where a lot of guys cannot do that."
"I've had pressure teams that have been able to play that way for forty minutes but this team for some reason we just don't have those capabilities. They (BGSU) struggled with it early, That is why it kept it us in the game. Above all, if you know Bowling Green and they come off a loss, Coach Dakich gets them pretty fired up, so I thought the early pressure took a little bit of the emotion off of them."
