Feb. 14, 2004

Recap| Final Stats| Notes

Toledo Head Coach Stan Joplin

Opening comments:

"Eastern shot the ball well and we gave them a lot of open shots. I think our inexperience showed up today for the first time in a long time. We didn't do a very good defensively and that was the biggest thing that hurt us. We just have to do a better job and we didn't make plays down the stretch like we have done. You have to give Eastern credit.

(on the team possibly overlooking Eastern Michigan)

"I don't think we were. It's hard to win in the conference and you're disappointed when you lose at home or anytime. We just missed some shots and some layups and we had some good looks but they didn't fall. We just didn't get it done. Eastern has a lot of talent and has had some good wins. I think some of the things we haven't been doing caught up to us today."

(on still having a chance at the No. 3 seed)

"When you get to the last two or three weeks of the seasons team are really going to be fighting each other and looking to knock somebody off. Teams in the middle of the standings think they have a shot at a team in the upper part of the standings. It's going to be crucial for us what we do in the final four games. We still have some work to do and we have go back and work harder and have a sense of urgency defensively. We just want to find a way to get to Cleveland. That's our goal and hopefully the players realize what we have done has been good but that we still have four games left in the conference and we have to be hungrier."

(on the team looking ahead to Wednesday's game at Western Michigan)

"I don't think we were. I think we came out with the right attitude but our shots just weren't falling early. We started taking some shots early in the clock and we were getting frustrated when they weren't falling. One thing we have to do better is when we hit a little adversity we have to continue to execute."

Sophomore guard Sammy Villegas

"We didn't do a good job defensively the whole game. They were getting wide open threes. We were getting shots but we just couldn't knock them down. But our defense was our main problem tonight. We just have to bounce back on Wednesday."