Northwestern University Athletics
Post Game Quotes
3/3/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 3, 2011
Recap |
Box Score |
Photo Gallery 
Northwestern Head Coach Bill Carmody
Opening statement...
Well, we told the guys that we would be emotional in the first five or six minutes in the first half because of the emotions of Senior Night. But it was about 25 minutes that it was a little rough and just seemed like we were out of sync on offense. Then it was the in the second half where [Michael] Thomson said, 'it's Senior Night and I only have two points.' The players were a little tight and coaching staff also. Alex [Marcotullio] was actually pretty relaxed and so was Davide [Curletti], two Michigan guys. I think it was effort as a team. Davide gave us some early scoring in there and Al was all over the court and got his hand on a lot of balls. He didn't come up with all of them, but tipped balls away and made some big shots and that sort of helped everyone. Johnny [Shurna] made some big shots. I just thought it was a good effort. We stayed with them on the boards and I thought that was a big thing. We turned it over a lot in the first half, and I think we only had one or two in the second half. We'll see them again in a week."
On changed offensively in the second half...
"I don't know, it looked like we got some good looks in the first half from a lot of guys. I don't know, just emotion. That second half, it just seemed like our defense picked it up. We kept saying, 'we need a stop, we need a stop.' And we were careless in the first half. I don't know if it was in our emotion or the focus or in our head, but it really tightened up in the second half."
On if he has ever seen Thompson that out of sync or out of character...
"No, not really, but he took a heck of a shot too...that offensive foul that wasn't an offensive foul. He took a knee right to the face and maybe that woke him up because in that second half, he was really good. You see this kind of stuff happen before, a lot of guys have bad halves, but it takes a special guy to have a bad half and come back and have a second half like he had."
