March 12, 2009

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East Carolina Head Coach Mack McCarthy
"This was a tough match-up for us because their wing players were awfully good defensively. They are long, lanky and athletic kind of wing players that have done a really good job against (James) Legan and (Sam) Hinnant all year. Once again, they were a difficult match-up. We thought that we could attack them in the post a little bit and we turned the ball over some. We didn't get as much production out of that as I thought we would. I thought we did a really good job of double-teaming their post players and making somebody else beat us. Unfortunately, Sims, who is probably one of the most underrated players in the league in a lot of ways, was equal to the task. If he had any room at all, he made shots."

" They were a really good defensive team. Dave (Dickerson) does a really good job. They are very sound. They don't trick you, they don't do a lot of different things. They don't give you a lot of different looks on offense or defense. They just line up and play five-on-five and the job he has done this year is just outstanding."

"We thought we could win even though we came in here with five straight losses. We were actually in a pretty good frame of mind. We had played good in periods, especially the last few games in Central Florida. We had a 17 point lead and got behind, tied it up, and got behind again in the last few seconds. We felt like we were capable of coming over here and putting 40 minutes together, but that dry spell in the first half probably doomed us and we were playing up-hill from that point on."

Senior Guard Sam Hinnant
On East Carolina's play in the second half
"I thought we came out with really good intensity in the second half. We cut the lead to six and then (Kevin) Sims hit two three-pointers in a row and that really hurt us. He is a great player and he played great tonight."