Central Michigan University Athletics
CMU vs. Eastern Michigan: Postgame Quotes
2/15/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
"He was a big emphasis on defense for us. I tried my best to stay in front of him. There were a lot of guys who guarded him tonight and I thought we all did a pretty good job of containing him and keeping him to six points."
Head coach Ernie Zeigler
On the defense:
"I thought we did a pretty good job, particularly in the first half. We knew we had to give a lot of attention to Lampley and we were trying to do things in the half court, particularly to start the game, to make them play and start their offense a little faster because they do such a good job of controlling tempo. I thought all of our guards, starting with McBroom and Jackson, and Trey and Craddock and Keel, did a really good job with chasing Lampley and Green. I don't think Green scored and he's been a huge part of their attack. (We) did a really good job of executing when we were changing and switching our defense around."
On six three-pointers in the first half:
"I think it kind of fell that way. Our guys recognized those shots and we have some guys who can knock those shots down. I thought we shot too many in the first half. More than half of our shots at the half were from three, but we knocked down six of them. We did a good job; none of them were rushed threes. We were able to move the ball and were able to get some opportunities for some guys."
On the fast start by Derek Jackson:
"The tough part for our guys offensively is that it was hard to come about shots because of the zone. A lot of times guys can get frustrated, but Derek was able to get those two early. We were just a really balanced attack. I was really pleased with the minutes we got off of our bench. I thought Saylor and Barnes, Keel, Craddock and Morris came in and gave us really good minutes and did a really good job. Harden was huge down the stretch with the huge block. It's just a really good team victory. For us, when we've been such a weak rebounding team, particularly going against long, athletic front lines –and Eastern has one of the bigger front lines in the conference–to outrebound them by 13, we just gang-rebounded. It may be the first time in my tenure that everyone had at least one rebound. Trey and Andre led us with nine and five, but everyone was really, really locked in to try to finish possessions by ganging to the ball. It was good for us, which got us out of transition a little bit, as well."
On no free throw attempts in the first half:
"I credit it to us taking the threes we took. We were taking so many threes that we weren't really attacking. That was a main point of emphasis at halftime, that we had to get into the teeth of the zone. I thought we did that in the second half, which in turn got us to the foul line. Even more so, we shot 56 percent (from the floor) because a majority of those shots were mid-range shots. Craddock got in the middle of it and hit a pull-up. Zach and Trey slid underneath it a couple of times and got fouled on three-point plays, and McBroom was turning the corner and getting pull-up jump shots as well. I thought we took some higher percentage shots in the second half, which in turn allowed us to shoot a higher percentage tonight."
On Trey Zeigler:
"Trey is a warrior. He doesn't even have the bounce that he normally has right now. He's still probably playing at 65-70 percent. He's still in there rebounding and slashing and doing the things he does. He had four huge blocks for us tonight. He just did the things to help his team win tonight. Even though he only had four (second-half) shot attempts, part of that was that it was hard to get catches against that zone. He found other ways to help his team tonight."
