Ed Kohtala Quotations

Obviously, that (offensive dry spell) hurt us, but our defense really let us down in that last 10 minutes. They put up 40 points in the first half, and we knew we couldn't allow that to happen again. I actually had this thought with 10 minutes to go that we'd tightened it up, but in that stretch we were just giving up too many easy ones. ... Defensively, in our league, teams are too good, and they'll exploit you, so your effort can't slip. Whether they were wearing us out, or what, it was just a very bad stretch.

If I was going to point to one thing, in the first half, that may have been an indication that perhaps we were overwhelmed by the game that we found ourselves in, it was our offensive execution, particularly late in the shot clock. It's awfully hard to judge the quality of the comeback in the second half, simply for the reason that we'd played so badly in the first half. Albion had every reason to believe that we couldn't come back. Am I pleased with the grit? Yeah. Does it mean anything? I don't know.

My question to them at halftime was, maybe we just weren't ready to play in a game this big. In relation to our season, and the goals that we have, this was a huge game. A league game, at home, coming off a disappointing effort ... we had very high expectations of ourselves today. For one half we met them, and for one half, we did not. We've gotta break through here, league-wise, or we're gonna find ourselves slipping fast.

Our hope would be that he can (come back). Mark has been a wonderful player and representative for our program. If the end result is that we do lose him, as difficult as that would be to absorb from a basketball standpoint, we'll hurt that much more on a personal level.

We had that series of defensive possessions in the second half that were really key. Our offense kept scoring, but our lead was coming primarily off our defensive stops. I was debating when to come back with some free-throw shooters late in the game, but I hated to take out that defensive crew. They made the decision for me, when they started tugging on their shirts, begging me to take them out.

We expected a run. That's too good a team to run away from. From that point on, our seniors - and Mike Murphy - made big play after big play to get us back on top.