Nov. 18, 2011
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
Postgame Quotes
Cleveland State Head Coach Gary Waters
"This was a test for our team. A test of resiliency. We had to fight back. This is a good team that can fight for the A-10 championship. We have to continue to fight. I was pleased with my young kids. They held down the fort. Our defense did what it was supposed to do - we turned people over. We missed some golden opportunities, but that's what happens in a game. I've always told my team you don't have to lose to learn. I think you struggled
"I told the team that if they get another bucket, this could get out of hand. We needed to get it under our control. I changed defenses and went to 3/4 court press. That created four turnovers for us. Once we got it close, we switched defenses again. The guys executed it."
"The play was designed for Aaron Pogue to do a down screen and Trey to get a shot. We wanted to look inside for Aaron. The shot clock was down to about two and he had the open shot. That was okay. Both options were there. We told Trey if he is open, take the shot! I thought he did a great job executing. It looked scrambled because we had to hold the ball. The play was designed for eight seconds. We wanted to take the shot and if we missed, we wanted it to go to overtime."
"Tim Kamczyc is the glue to what we do. He had to play longer minutes because Aaron Pogue was out of the game. I had to move Anton Grady to the center position. They left four guards out there because they were turning it over. We needed Tim in there to guard one of their wing players."
"We had 23 turnvoers and 13 steals. That's big-time basketball. This game should've been a lot wider. We need to convert on our steals. We weren't completing the plays. They were shooting 68% and we were only down four at halftime."
"Everyone in the country will struggle against our press. Our guys get after you. Other teams will turn it over."
"We missed free throws with our better free throw shooters at the line. We could've widened the gap. The turnover down the stretch was key. It allowed them back in the game. We need to work on taking care of the basketball."
"I'm ecstatic with this win. We knew this would be a tough game. This is a senior-laden club who starts four seniors and a junior college All-American. I knew it would be tough. I thought it would be tough on our freshmen. They haven't been in an environment like this - and they handled it really well."
"We lost to Butler here last year, and I think if we won that game people would say we need to go out and support that team. This was an opportunity to impress people. I think people that were here tonight will come back. I hope they bought in. I think the curiosity will bring people back. People will say something great is going on here. If people go spread the word, people will come back. "
Freshman Forward Anton Grady
"In the first half, I was very anxious to guard Andrew Nicholson. Coach told me he's a lottery pick so I wanted to see where I measured up. Early in the game I was aggressive and not playing in the system. Coach Gee told me to play in the system and our defense clicked in the second half."
Senior Guard Trey Harmon
"Coach does a great job of designing last shot plays. We executed at the right moment and it fell for us. Aaron Pogue set a great screen for me and I was wide open. I had to knock that shot down. This is what you're here for. Coach holds the seniors responsible. We have to trust in ourselves and have confidence."
"We do a lot of pressing and pressure. Deflections come with pressure. We need to recover the ball after deflections. We didn't get a lot of loose balls that we should have recovered. We'll get back to the drawing board. They're a great team, and they showed us we have a lot to correct."
"We came together. This isn't anything that the seniors haven't been through before. That's why you want seniors on the floor. We realized we are at home so we were able to relax and let the game come to us. We kept our poise."
St. Bonaventure Head Coach Mark Schmidt
"Those kids on Cleveland State are just hard-nosed kids. They are resilient. That's a credit to Gary Waters and that coaching staff. We knew we would be pressured and our kids aren't going to get anymore pressure from anyone the rest of the season. Hopefully we take this experience and learn from it."
"We've really worked on our half court defense and our guys did a decent job at times. At time we broke down. When you turn it over 23 times, it's hard to have good half court defense. It came down to the wire - which it should have."
"Andrew Nicholson got in foul trouble with five fouls in the second half. When he was in there, shooting nine for 14, I thought he did a terrific job for us. We're better when he is in there. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. It's hard when you don't have an all-league player against a team that applies so much pressure."
