Postgame Quotes: ECU vs. Lamar

POSTGAME QUOTES

ECU HEAD COACH JOE DOOLEY
Opening statement
"Very proud of the guys, we were dead in the water. Guys respond and made some plays and when things weren't going our way we held tight. We were down 10 with six left and guys had to make a decision, are we going to keep playing or are we going to get beat? They made a decision that they wanted to win, did some good things, a lot of correctable things. Did a better job of out turning the ball over and not putting the other team on the free throw line as much. We do need to clean up a lot of things and that will start on Tuesday. I think the players need a day off and so do the coaches, tomorrow we will start preparing for Georgia Tech."

On Jayden Gardner and Seth LeDay's performance
"Terrific, and I thought once we got into overtime, it sort of reenergized the players and the crowd. Jayden was spectacular, poised. He didn't try to rush anything. When he didn't have it, he sort of pivoted around. Some of our offensive possessions looked like disasters but at least we got some shots today. But he did a good job of working the post and I thought Seth (LeDay) was terrific and he helped us with handling the ball when we were a little shaky and then made some really big time plays.

On the team's struggles at the free throw line
"We missed free throws but we didn't let that defeat us and I thought that was a positive. We were frustrated obviously, we missed a bunch, we shot a ton free throws the last couple of days and we will continue to shoot free throws. It's a concentration and maturity deal, we got some guys that need to step up and make more free throws."

FRESHMAN JAYDEN GARDNER
On how tonight's success felt

"It was exciting. The first two games I was apart of I was struggling. It just felt sort of surreal to start see everything starting to work out. The shots started to fall. My teammates kept giving me the ball and trusting me. Coach kept running the sets and we just executed. This team has a lot of heart."

On making free throws in big situations
"It was crucial. Usually me and Seth (LeDay) are pretty good free throw shooters and we usually knock them down in practice and shoot around and stuff like that so it was good to see them go in."

On the difference between being 2-1 and being 1-2 right now
"One and two, we have a nasty practice tomorrow. Two and one we come back, have mistakes to work on and just get better in a good way because we play an ACC team this Friday"

JUNIOR SETH LEDAY
On what helped the team comeback late in the game
"We kept on getting timeouts and stuff like that. We kept on circling up and coach kept on talking to us and encouraging us, telling us go harder and questioning our effort so that made everybody wake up and start playing harder. You have to give credit to Jayden (Gardner). He works hard every day and we battle each other every day and it payed off for him tonight"

What happened at halftime to help have a big second half
"Coach Roc slapped me around a couple of times and told me to wake up. I just woke up after that and I realized what type of player I am so I had to get to the boards as much as I can. I was playing off of Jayden, he was playing really well and I was just trying to move and cut, play off of him and we got the dub. We now just got to prepare for Georgia Tech on Friday."

Players Mentioned

Jayden Gardner

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