March 5, 2003

Recap| Final Stats| Notes

Toledo Head Coach Stan Joplin:

"This is probably the best we have shot the ball since the Michigan State game in December. It seemed like everything fell into place. We did a pretty good job defensively and kept putting pressure on them. We needed a big shot in the arm."

"We were being aggressive offensively and our shots we're falling so that gave our players confidence. That's obviously our strength. Our big guys have struggled this year but tonight our shooting allowed us to throw it into them."

"We should have been playing like this for a long time. We've tried everything from different lineups to different ways of motivating players. I tried a lot but we have been so inconsistent."

"Nick was in one of those zones tonight. I think he's been hesitating too much and I told him to just shoot the ball. If told him if he shoots and misses to keep on shooting and not worry about it."

Toledo senior guard Nick Moore:

"It feels great. Every senior would like to go out like this in their last home game. I'm just very happy and fortunate that I was able to do that. I couldn't ask for a better way to go out. I have so many fond memories of playing here in Savage Hall and I was happy to leave another memory for the fans who come out and support me."

"I just felt like the whole crowd was telling me to shoot it as soon as I got the ball. Luckily I was making them and it felt real good to hear the crowd like that tonight."

"I didn't think Ball State came out with the energy that you need to on the road. But I thought the difference of the game was the way we came out with a great effort."

"We've shown flashes of what we can do all season. We just haven't finished games in the last three minutes. We did show what we could do from start to finish tonight, but I'm pretty disappointed we couldn't do that all season."

Toledo senior forward Milo Kirsh:

"It was a very emotional night for me. My parents were late for the game because of a traffic jam and the whole first half I was fighting back tears of frustration because they weren't here. But I got over it and with the game going the way it did I felt a lot better. I saw them walk in with about 16 minutes left in the first half and that made me feel a lot better.

"This win can help us a lot because it shows us what we can do when we focus and play hard and hustle. We were over all the loose balls and we haven't always done that all year. It shows us that if we come out and play hard with intensity we can come out and bury teams. We've been close in all of our losses and this is a real shot in the arm for us."

On scoring the 100th point:

"Anton (Currie) hadn't scored but the guys were saying they wanted me to score the 100th point. The clock was winding down and I gave it to him but they were giving it back to me."