Eastern Illinois Quotes
Coach Brady Sallee
(Opening Statement): Let me start by congratulating just a great basketball team in Murray State University. I’m sure it’s been talked about in Murray, the transformation that team has made from last year getting so close to this year in Coach Adams, and I told her after the game, has done an incredible job of making that team hers. They defend, they rebound, they didn’t do that last year. I know she has made quite an impact on them. They played very very well and I look forward to watching them in the NCAA tournament represent our league. On top of that, if there is a prouder coach of their basketball team in America, I’d like to meet them, because ive got a special special group and we fought our tails off. We didn’t feel like we put our best foot forward but the effort was there a lot of intangibles were there and we’ve got to learn from this and make sure we’re in the second interview here next year.
(On his team’s shooting): I think their game plan had a lot to do with shooting 28%. I think they came into it with a very good game plan, executed it very very well and that’s what these games are about. You have to came up with a game plan in a very short time. This is a little bit of a different stage, its new for us, I know we were reeady to play the basketball game, I know we did what were supposed to do defensively, but when you shoot 28% its hard to beat a good team like Murray State. The fact that we were in the game and had a chance to win it, shooting the ball that poorly says a lot about what we do defensively.
(On Half-time adjustments): We went into half time and we were really disappointed with how we played clearly. But more than missing the shots, that we missed in the first half that buried us. We weren’t between our ears we weren’t as good as we wanted to be than we have been. We talked about remembering what it was that got us to this point, the effort levels, the playing as a team and we didn’t have that in the first half so we talked about that. That seemed to get us going, we hit a couple of shots, got the ball into Rachel and got ourselves back in the basketball game.
Rachel Galligan
(On Murray State’s defense): Every time we play Murray, I get the feeling that I go to the free throw line a lot. So I was thinking before the game that this was going to be a physical game, they are going to spend a lot of attention on me. It’s nothing new, Im used to it. I felt that it was going to be tough to get my shots off. I knew that if I was physical and going up strong and going after the ball that they were going to foul me and work on the free throw line. Anyway I could score is what I was going to do tonight because we were having such a hard time with it. My plan worked, I figured I would get fouled quite a bit tonight, but its always tough going against Murray. They’re physical and they’re bigger than me but that’s why they are good.
(On staying after the game to watch the trophy ceremony): As hard as it was to do, it was good for us to watch. Murray State has been here before, they played in this same game last year, that’s where were trying to take our program was what they did tonight. This was new to all of us, not to use that as an excuse by any means, but to sit there and let it soak in and hurt as much as it did was good. The pain were going to use in the off season and the pre season next year. We are going to get back here but we do think were a classy bunch, they beat us fair and square and they are a great basketball team.
Murray State Quotes
Coach Jody Adams
(Opening Statement): I knew it was going to be a game of runs and one of our keys and it was going to be our mentality and how we were going to handle the runs. Were we going to get caught up in what they were doing great and what we were not doing so great and were we going to make the changes. We made the changes, we answered the runs we got the ball into peoples hands, we attacked the rim we put them on their heels. We got to the free throw line which was important for us. I liked the way we handled ourselves in the end against a very good team.
Ashley Hayes
(On using last year as motivation for this year): Its been a strong driving force for us, like I said yesterday before Jody even got here we were practicing. We didn’t have a coach and we were still working. We wanted to get back to this position because we knew we could win it we could go all the way if we worked hard.
Amber Guffey
(On being a part of the first ever Murray team to make it to the NCAA tournament): Oh its great that’s what we all worked on from the beginning of the season. That was our goal was and its great to achieve.