Lopes Quotes From Grand Canyon Game
12/3/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 3, 2004
"I'll start of by saying that the good thing was that it was win -- it was an ugly win -- but this early in the year it's probably good for a young team to have this kind of experience that we went through tonight -- to not play very well but find a way to win a basketball game."
"[My] hat's off to Grand Canyon. They played like I thought they would. They came in and played very disciplined and very smart. They have a good basketball club. They will win their share of games at their level this year. They did a nice job of making the game ugly. They got it more into a half court game. They did nice job and I wish them the best."
"It was good to see a pretty good crowd tonight. I hope that for tomorrow night's championship game we can get as good or even better crowd and it will be a tough ball game for us tomorrow. We're going to play a team that plays 40 minutes of zone and I wouldn't blame after looking at our three-point shooting tonight. That's the way they (Mississippi Valley State) play No. 1 but after watching us shoot the ball that will get them more excited about facing the Bulldogs."
"I'm just glad we found a way to win - found a way to win ugly. We got a lot of guys out their tonight and I think we finally found a group of five that gave us a chance to get ahead a little bit in the basketball game."
"We never could get on any big runs but that is a credit to Grand Canyon. They didn't allow us. We fouled them or they got second shots off offensive rebounds. We just couldn't get any runs. They got back and made us execute our half court offense. We weren't shooting the ball well. But we'll take the win."
On 0-9 start to begin second half
"I just told them to things I always tell them. Keep their heads up and just keep playing hard and go to the offensive boards. Stay tough on defense; make sure we're not having too many breakdowns in order to give ourselves a chance."
On free throw shooting
"Going 21 for 30, we'll take that as a team. That's something we do work a lot on in practice. If we get to the line 30 times that will help us out as far as in scoring, if we're making our free throws."
