Postgame Quotes
February 25, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 25, 2009
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Coach Mack McCarthy Marshall Post-Game Quotes 
East Carolina Players Marshall Post-Game Quotes
East Carolina Head Coach Mack McCarthy
On The Loss And Marshall's Effort
"They've got a style of play that's difficult for us. We broke down in all areas. We broke down on the ball, on the help-side, in transition and I don't know where the lack of focus came from.
"They played harder on offense than we did on defense and on the other end I thought they played harder, too. That hasn't really happened a lot this year to this basketball team. We were coming off a really solid performance at Tulsa, but we did not build on that tonight at all."
On His Team's Defense
"Our defense wasn't good. When we helped, we didn't get rotation. When we got rotation, it was one guy rotating, but the next guy didn't. Because they got off to the lead, they were able to really toy with us on that end. They were patient enough offensively to keep the ball moving until we broke down defensively.
"We're like a lot of team in that we play with a little more energy and a little more intensity when we're making shot. And we never got to the point tonight when we were making shots on a regular basis."
On Marshall's Double-Teaming Of ECU's Post Players
"We forced things a little bit. We only ended up with 10 turnovers for the game, which is not a bad number, but our post guys had five of those turnovers trying to get the ball out of the double teams.
"We normally hurt people that double team us. We like the double team. Our four-man, the other post man, dives to the back of the basket, we spot up and we screen up and relocate on the perimeter. But we couldn't find those guys tonight. Marshall's double-team was good enough so we couldn't find those guys. They did a really nice job of getting up into our guys on the double team and caused us a lot of problems."
On ECU's Three Point Shooting
"More and more teams have tried to take the three-pointer away from us. Normally the answer is getting stops and getting out in transition and making some when you have a numbers advantage. Because we weren't getting any stops or enough consecutive stops, we never really beat them back down the floor. The times where we did get a stop, they did a really nice job in transition of spreading out and locating the shooters.
"Because they played a smaller lineup with a lot of perimeter players they were able to switch on the perimeter. You can take the threes away if you're willing to switch on the perimeter."
On The Season
"They've done so many good things. It's hard to be angry when you step back and look with a little perspective about the things that they've done this year. We've really missed some opportunities that we needed to cash in on.
"We've had three different chances to get to .500 in the league and we blew them. We had a chance to stay over .500 overall tonight and we didn't do that. There has to be a little bit more of a sense of urgency in all phases of a student-athlete's life, but I think we really missed an opportunity tonight."
Marshall Head Coach Donnie Jones
On The Win
"I'm very proud of our basketball team. They played very hard against a well-coached East Carolina team.
"It's a big win for our program with what we went through here. I think our kids have been playing hard since we've lost Tyler Wilkerson. I'm just really proud of how we've stuck together.
"We still have three games left here in league play, and I'm just really pleased with the team."
On His Team's Lineup
"I think sometimes when you have a big lineup like East Carolina has, they've got two really good low-post guys in [Darrius] Morrow and [Chad] Wynn, it creates a mismatch. Markel Humphrey was a small forward for us to start the season and now he's our center. Adam Williams is a two guard playing our power forward spot. So the only way we're going to have a chance is to try and mismatch other teams."
On The Limited Number Of Marshall Turnovers
"I think that's very important for us. We don't have a lot of room for error. That's one thing you can't do against a team like East Carolina that can really score in transition. When they get out in the open and their shooters can get open looks, they're deadly. We had to force them as much as we could to play in the half-court because they're so good in transition."
Sophomore Chad Wynn
"We have to come out with more effort. We're embarrassed individually, as a team, for the program and for all of ECU. They all deserve to see us play harder than we did tonight. We have one home game left to come out and play hard for the fans and for us. We're down to the last game and we can't lose on senior night.
"It was an effort problem for us tonight. We didn't come out with that energy tonight."
"We weren't executing plays like we should. We weren't setting hard screens to get guys open. When Darrius and I got double-teamed, we didn't have people flashing to the basket and that created some turnovers for us."
Freshman Darrius Morrow
"We wanted to go inside and pound them inside because we had a size advantage. But Marshall played us pretty well. They trapped and rotated well and played pretty good defense."
