March 4, 2006

Recap |  Box Score

Dayton Coach Brian Gregory

"I'm not in all honesty that upset because we didn't play well enough to win. If you don't play well enough, you don't play hard enough to win the game you're not supposed to win the game. I feel bad for those four seniors who won't have a chance to play on this court again. Unfortunately you'll remember this game your entire life. It's too bad for the time they've spent on that court through games, practices and the tough times they've been through individually that they couldn't leave that court feeling a lot better. But you're not going to do that if you perform like that."

"We went over time and time again the importance on the glass and we got it handed to us. There's no excuse. It's not size, it's not we're too small or not quick enough. They just went after the glass a lot harder than we did. That's the difference in the game. Bottom line, 18-5 on the offensive glass. Obviously our free throws hurt us. But you give up 18 offensive rebounds, 24 second chance points, you don't have to do anything else other than control the glass and it's a different outcome. But we didn't meet that challenge. That's just a fact. I'm not disappointed in it...I guess I am disappointed, but I'm not in the fact that when you lay it out there then you've got to go out and get it done and we didn't do that. So we've not been able to continue the momentum that we did in some games. We did a great job on the glass on Wednesday."

"We're good enough to rebound with that team, I know that, and we didn't do it. Like I said, you want to use the excuse that they're more physical and stronger than we are, check the weights and it's about the same. Check the size, I'm sure it's about the same. You can say every one of their post players is a junior or a senior...Mack got four offensive rebounds, he's a senior. Wise got five offensive rebounds, he's a fifth-year senior. Dawan Robinson got three offensive rebounds, he's a fifth-year senior. Seawright is only a freshman. So their freshman got four offensive rebounds. So you can say it's because they're older and more physically mature than us. Our guys have to play a lot tougher. And we had no toughness on the glass today."

"We'll get them ready and we'll be well-prepared for that first game, whoever that might be. We're going to have to play a lot more like we did on Wednesday and the Wednesday before than we did the last two Saturdays."

"Bottom line, in time we've got to grow up a little bit. Growing up comes from consistency and persistence in what we're capable of doing."

"They've (Rhode Island) been playing a lot of zone and we did a very poor job of attacking it the first half. We did a better job in the second half. But we shoot 44 shots, 22 are 3's. That's probably too much. We didn't penetrate the zone from the top as much as we needed to. Fifty-six points isn't a ton of points. We shot poorly from the free throw line, but it was enough points in this game to win the game. Just have to take care of your other things. People say 56 points, you're not going to be able to win. You can win. You can't win if you score 56 points and you give them 24 second-chance points."

"Look at the box score two years ago when we lost to them. They kicked the crap out of us on the glass."

"Sometimes you've just got to get the job done."

"We're inconsistent with our physicality. We're just not a physical team at times. I remember in the beginning of the year saying our biggest concern is our rebounding. We did a very good job against the Cincinnati's and some of the others teams on the glass. That is a team that embraces physical play, Rhode Island. We did not tonight and you can't beat them if you do it."

Rhode Island Coach Jim Baron

"It was a great team effort. We played very inspired. A big plus was rebounding the basketball. We rebounded well, Dawan picked it up at the end. He's been playing very physical, very aggressive. Big win, especially coming off last year with only six wins. We beat Temple at home and now to come in here is a great win for us. It was a great team effort led by our seniors."

On the 8-0 run towards the end... "We went to a smaller and quicker lineup. That was key."