Southern Miss vs. UTEP Post-game Quotes
2/11/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 11, 2006
Recap | Final Stats | Box Score (PDF)
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - Southern Miss Quotes
Head Coach Larry Eustachy
On how his team is playing: "We're better; we're just not there yet. They tried hard and competed, and I was really impressed with Craig Craft, Courtney Beasley and Travis Hall."
On UTEP's style of play: "This is how UTEP plays - they get fouled, and they try not to foul. They got their game on the court better than ours, and we didn't make plays. We had enough points to win the game, but we fouled too much. We had our chances and couldn't get it done."
On Jarekus Singleton's shot that sent the game into overtime: "It looked like a three to us, from where we were sitting at, but the official said it was a two."
On what the outcome of this game meant to the team: "It was good and bad. It's hard because we know that we could play with them, and could have beaten them; we just couldn't get any stops at the end."
On how the fouls affected the game: "A lot of tough calls went on our big guys, with Mildon (Ambres) and myself fouling out of the game."
On how physical the game was: "The game was physical. Last game, we felt like we took the big guys out of the game and tried to get the guards to penetrate and force them to get out of their comfort zone and turn the ball over. For the most part, I think we did that today, though we did put them in the position that they love to be in - shooting free throws, or getting the other team to add on fouls. They've been able to do this throughout the whole conference season."
UTEP Quotes
Head Coach Doc Sadler
On playing Southern Miss: "You have to give Southern Miss a lot of credit. I told our team that this was going to be the hardest playing team that we had played all year. Larry (Eustachy) has his guys playing extremely hard. They're going to play as hard as anyone in the country. What a job Larry has done down here."
On the game: "We were down 11 points in the second half, and came back to find a way into overtime. Our players found a way to make plays. But if you told me that we were going to turn over the ball 20 times, and give up 16 rebounds, I would say that we would be lucky to win."
On Southern Miss' offense: "They really hurt us on the flex-cut in the first half. It's something that we see all of the time, but they ran it better than anyone else. They did a nice job with it, and it gave us some problems."
John Tofi
On making the comeback in the second half: "The good thing about our team is that there are a lot of seniors and a lot of leadership on this team. We told each other not to panic, take small steps on each side of the court, and we were able to find ourselves back in the game with a little time left."
On playing against Southern Miss: "This is probably the most physical team we've played all year, and who I've played against in awhile. You have to give them a lot of credit; they were playing hard on offense and defense. All five of their men went hard to the glass to get rebounds. They played us physical inside and on the perimeter. We had to earn every point that we got."
Will Kimble
On C-USA play: "You can't focus too much on team's records in this league. Any team can beat any other team on any night. We look at every game as a must-win, especially on the road."
On being down by 11 points: "We had to be patient. We couldn't expect to get 11 points back in one possession. We focused on getting stops on defense, and allowed our offense to set up."
