Jan. 28, 2003

Recap| Final Stats| Notes

Toledo Head Coach Stan Joplin

"I think a big part of the game was Western losing Robbie Collum to foul trouble. We were able to take advantage of that. I was disappointed that we let them have 27 second-chance points off of offensive rebounds. We have to do a better job keeping teams off the boards. We did a good job taking the ball to the basket and contesting shots. Western is very patient on offense and they take good shots."

On the play of the post players:

"It helps when our inside guys give us something. That really helps us knowing we can throw the ball inside. Our guards started to have more confidence that something good was going to happen."

On committing just 11 turnovers:

We've done a better job in our last two games keeping our turnover total down. That's good to see because it helps us get more good looks at the basket. It was good to see that tonight against as good a team Western is defensively."

On the team's past successes in the month of February after going 2-6 in January:

"I hope we can experience that kind of success again. Our teams in the past have always gotten better and hopefully this team will do that. It would be good for this team to find an identity. Hopefully we realize how good a basketball team we can be and go out and do it."

Senior guard Nick Moore

"We needed the big guys to have a good game for us and reduce the pressure on the guards. We threw the ball inside tonight and got great production out of them."

"I had to take what the defense gave me tonight. They pushed up on me and wouldn't let me shoot the threes much."

Senior forward Milo Kirsh

"We haven't produced much in the paint the last few weeks so we all decided to make a concentrated effort to step up and do something with the ball when we get it."

"We want to win out. We've done more than enough losing for the season. We've ended the season well since I've been here. There is no better time to start that than now."

WMU Head Coach Robert McCullum

"We faced a team tonight that has caused us more trouble than any team we've played in the three years we've been here. Toledo is a team with a lot of athleticism and they are able to expose us with that. We had trouble defending them inside in the first half and coupled with our terrible shooting night it's not much of a surprise with the result."

"I don't think they defended us any different than any other team defends us. We had some sucess against teams that have beaten Toledo, but tonight we didn't have any answers."

"On nights where we haven't shot well our defense has kept us in it but tonight it didn't."

"Perimeter defense is a strong point for us and tonight it wasn't."