Dec. 4, 2005

Recap |  Final Stats |  Notes

Head Coach Stan Joplin

(opening comments)

"It was a tale of two different halves. I think you have to give Northern Illinois a lot of credit. They really took it to us and we didn't respond very well. They came up with loose balls, rebounds, got open jump shots and kind of had their way with us. We picked it up but it was too late. We let them come into our house and dominate us. The guys have to understand that just because we've played well at home in the past that you can just show up and win. The effort in the second half was good, but we can't play like we did in the first half. I'm very disappointed and now we're one game back in the conference and that hurts."

(on Justin Ingram's performance in the second half)

"I thought he was aggressive and played well in the second half, but he has to do that for 40 minutes. He's been playing pretty well all year for us."

(on getting two defensive stops in the last minute but not being able to gain possession)

"That was huge because we could have put a lot of pressure on them. The hustle was there but we just didn't finish off the play. That really hurt, and you have to capitalize on those types of plays. I think if we can get in the gaps and penetrate, that really helps."

Junior guard Justin Ingram

(on mindset going into the second half)

"We knew that we didn't come out with the right mindset coming into the game. We had to pick up our intensity and level of defense after they had score over 40 points in the first half."

(on NIU's zone defense in the first half)

"Northern Illinois is a pretty good defensive team and at first we were shooting too many jump shots. We started attacking the basket and Tino hit a couple of shots and that opened it up for some wide open jump shots and we can knock those down."

(on what changed in the second half)

"In the first half we just didn't show any heart. We know we have a lot of heart on this team and we knew we've been down before and we can come back. We just decided to come out and play as hard as we could and that we didn't have anything to lose. We just came up a little bit short and we have to learn from this."

(on not coming out ready to play)

"It shouldn't have happened. We got into a comfort zone and feeling real good about ourselves and this was a good loss for us. You don't want to feel good about a loss but it gives us a reality check. It put us back in line and that we're not that good and we have to get back to work in practice."