Nov. 29, 2010

Recap |  Final Stats |  Notes

Cleveland State Head Coach Gary Waters:
(Opening statement) "This all came down to about 10-15 minutes that we had a team come in and out-tough us and we let them almost come and take a game from us. I thought we were reslient, we fought back and got ourselves back into it. We have a tough road swing coming up, and this doesn't give us a lot of encouragement."

(On if he was worried about blowing the lead) "Even though they were coming back I wasn't overly concerned they could beat us. They're not great free throw shooters, so I thought if it came to that we'd be alright. What I was concerned with was when they were shooting, because they can put the ball and go get the board, and they do that very well."

(On the key to RMU's comeback) "If we don't turn the ball over, it's not even close, but we didn't do that tonight."

(On what the team will learn from the game) "We gotta use this game. We gotta use it on the backboard, we gotta use it on how we control a game. We had them and we didn't take control of them, and that's something we got to do a much better job of."

Cleveland State's Norris Cole:
(On what he learned from the game) "We learned we gotta finish teams out. We came in, got good shots on offense, everything was going right, and in the second We didn't respond the way we were taught to respond, the way we're supposed to respond.

(On Robert Morris) "We knew they were a good offensive rebounding team. That's one of their staples of what they do, and we knew it was going to be a war and we prepared for it."

(On the key to the slide) "We were turning the ball over and emotionally that can be tough on a program, when you play hard defense and turn the ball over or foul and that can be tiring."

Cleveland State's Tre Harmon:
(On what he learned from the game) "When times get hard we gotta come together. We work on this in the last five minutes of every practice, and we know we have to come together as a team."

(On the second half) "They outworked us. That's something we're disappointed in, because we don't allow teams to outwork us. We should have been prepared for that"

Robert Morris Head Coach Andrew Toole:
(Opening statement) "Obviously an interesting tale of two halves. We couldn't have played any worse in the first half in terms of everything we work on in practice. I'm proud of the way the guys fought in the second half, but you can't be down to a team like Cleveland State in the first half and expect to come back and win the game."

(On the physicality of the game) "This is a big boy game. This is a man's game. And for the first 20 minutes we played like boys. When you're going up against a guy like Aaron Pogue, you gotta fight. There's going to be some physicality. If you're not going to be sore after a game like this, you're probably not playing hard enough."

(On the rebounding advantage) "We understand our disadvantage is a size disadvantage, so we emphasize getting to the glass. We work on rebounding drills in practice. We try to send three to four guys to gang rebound. There weren't a lot of rebounding opportunities in the first half."