America East Men’s Basketball Tournament
March 4, 2007
Albany-Boston University
Head coach Will Brown
Opening comments
“I thought we came out of the gates pretty strong. Our defense was good the last eight minutes of the first half, but we got stagnant offensively. We stood around and watched each other and that is my fault. We were not popping the ball and not getting touches. We made an adjustment at halftime. The biggest adjustment was offensively. We played Brent Wilson and Brian Connelly up top together up front. [BU] had to guard both of them. It really spread the floor out and created some openings for us. We continued to defend in the second half. Boston University is talented. They take on the personality of their coach, who is a tough, hard-nosed guy and a tremendous coach. I was very impressed with them. They were disruptive defensively in the last eight minutes of the first half. But, this group that I have is an interesting group. We always have what I call the ?Albany lull’, where for about five or six minutes we just got to sleep out there, and that was the last five or six minutes of the first half. I did not have to say a lot in the locker room at halftime. These guys were talking. They were not very happy with their performance. They realized that we need to play with a sense of urgency for the next 20-plus minutes; otherwise, it was going to come to an end. We are in a position that we want to be in. We are excited to go to Burlington, Vt. We can not wait to get up there, and we are looking forward to it.”
On Boston University
“They are a good team. To have the caliber of coaches they have with the young talent they have, they have a chance to be special. They really do. I am very impressed. It is scary, I do not even want to think about it. I will start worrying about it in the off season. They are going to be a team to beat in the future.”
Jamar Wilson
On the BU run in the second half
“College basketball is about runs. [BU] is playing on its home floor, and all it needs is one shot for them to get some motivation, energy and spark themselves. We had to do our best to make sure to limit their runs. We did a good job at making sure we moved the ball around and make sure that we make plans down the stretch.”
On team defense
“Well just like coach said during halftime, everyone was just fired up. This is college basketball so there is going to be surprises somedays. We felt like we were not playing like ourselves in the first half, they basically did what they wanted to with us. If it wasn’t for us creating turnovers and getting steals and getting turnover points, we probably would have been down by a lot more than we were. I think we realized what we had to do and we talked about it and we came together as a team we have to play our game, we can’t play anyone else’s game. We can not let them determine what we are going to do. I think we did a good job of that in the second half.”
On going to Vermont next week
“Like coach said, we are the underdog. All I am going to say is, I have accomplished everything I wanted since I have been here, except for one thing. I’ll leave that up to you guys.”
Jason Siggers
On their 3-point shooting
“We got a lot of guys that can heat up at any time when they get it going. We just tried to move the ball around. More often than not they are going to fall.”
On going to Vermont next week
“We are underdogs but we know we can win. We are going to play hard and hopefully we come away with a win.”
Head Coach Dennis Wolff:
“The first thing I’d like to do is congratulate Albany. Advancing to the championship game is a terrific experience and something we would have liked to have. They were a little bit stronger a little bit more mentally tough, especially during the second half when both teams looked like they were just trying to find their way. I thought they played maturely and their guys made plays that they needed to play. We’ve taken a bunch of steps in the right direction and we play to the end which is a credit to these guys. Albany is a strong, mature, defensive team and I know when I look at the tape I’m going to wish we were a little more efficient offensively when they were guarding us.”
“As hard as we were making Albany work, they were making us work equally as hard, if not harder, so I don’t want to take away from what they were doing.”
“I think we showed a little bit of our immaturity today when the other team ratchets up the defense and we are trying to things in too big a hurry and trying to do things for ourselves instead of someone else. Those are the things you’ve got to keep talking to a young team about.”
Corey Lowe:
“We were just struggling to hit shots altogether. It was just one of those days when shots weren’t going in.”
Brian Macon:
“I thought we got down for a little bit but we fought back.”
On the future
“I think there’s a lot of talent and everybody - Corey (Lowe), Carlos (Strong), everybody, Scott (Brittain), Tyler (Morris), they all work hard in practice so I’m confident that they are going to be good players once they just get through some small things. They will be a great team.”