More quotes from Atlantic City

More wit and wisdom from the coaches and players of the Atlantic 10.

St. Joseph’s Phil Martelli after his team defeated Duquesne:

“The hawk never dies. I mean, that was — you know, and one of the things to get back to a question was over here,these kids always played with heart. We just weren’t good enough. Like when we went through January, we weren’t good enough, and I hadn’t coached them well enough. And when we came up with a way to play, they got a little bit more confident. Yeah, look I’m not selling falsehoods. We’ve won six of ten. That’s monumental for where we were. It was a great — that was a great gimmick. That was the Temple student body, and it was a lot more pleasurable, to be honest with you, that they did it that way than some of the other experiences that you could have on the road. I salute them. The Temple student body was great that day. We didn’t answer the charge. We didn’t talk to the team about it. But, you know, heart hasn’t been the issue. Playing good basketball has been the issue. And, you know, it’s true, the hawk will never die. You know, we’re wounded. We’re just — we were just — we were circling. We were circling there, and we couldn’t soar. And now the last three games, we’ve been able to soar a little bit.”

Rhode Island’s Jim Baron after his team lost to Richmond:

“You still got to box out in the zone. Regardless of what you’re playing, you still got to box out, whether it’s
man-to-man or zone. But they missed a lot of shots and they were getting some second shots and, you know, stepped up and did a good job. I told our guys at halftime, we out-rebounded them the first half. And I said the team that out-rebounds wins the battle of boards the second half is going to have the best chance to win this
game. And they ended up doing that. They ended up out-rebounding us 42 to 35.”

Richmond’s Kevin Anderson on having to defend Temple’s Juan Fernandez:

“Fernandez is a great guard. I mean, he’s crafty. He’s quick. He can make all type of stab shots. He can shoot 3s. So we just tried to make it tough on him whatever shot he took. If he got to the line, we wanted to make
sure we challenged it no matter what. We don’t want to give him too many open looks because he’s going to knock them down. Even challenge shots he’ll knock them down. Wanted to make it as tough as possible every shot he took, make sure a hand was in his face.”

Xavier’s Chris Mack on his strategy when facing an 18-point deficit:

“It’s a long game. We don’t ever necessarily set goals, like let’s chop it to ten with eight minutes remaining because if you start to do that, you don’t meet those goals, your kids start looking around like this isn’t
going the way we want it to. So we just stay the course and we continue to emphasize what we feel like, going into the game, would lead us to be successful. And that is offensively, don’t get out of your element, continue to move the ball and share the ball, drive it to the box, post it. And on defense, we have to be a little bit stickier. And that’s what we did to get ourselves back in the game. But deviating and starting to draw up new plays and new defenses in the timeout I think only adds to the uncertainty that your kids already have in those huddles. So we weren’t surprised that our kids were able to mount a comeback. Just disappointed we couldn’t
finish the deal.”

Temple’s Fran Dunphy on breaking La Salle’s 2-3 zone:

“I think somebody like Lavoy, when you can get the ball to him in the middle of the floor, he makes such good decisions and good plays that it makes us tough to guard when they do go zones because we can throw him
in the middle of the floor. So I think he was as big a key as we had. Plus we made some jumpers that made it look like we know what we were doing. But I think we moved the ball a little bit, but again, I think Lavoy is such a key piece of that. For him to get six assists and one turnover today, and his only turnover was in the first half where I thought he did get head and shoulders by his guy, but there was an offensive foul on him, so never threw it away once, and pretty special player.”

Richmond’s Chris Mooney on the upcoming NCAA tournament:

“No, I don’t. I know we won’t be in Dayton. I don’t. And I don’t even know the cities, to be honest with you. My sister is from Charlotte. She said that’s one of the sites, so that would be nice. But I don’t really know the cities.
You know, when you’re living and dying with this bracket talk, I think that’s one of the most impressive things our team has done. We’ve been on this bubble here for about a month. And, you know, because it’s studied so
closely, you end up picking apart all of these teams who are in the middle of these great seasons and you’re not celebrating these teams for having 22, 23, 24 wins, and they’re just picking apart the losses that you have in the different parts of the media. And it’s impossible to escape at this point with the internet and with all the television. So I think that’s impressive for our guys, how well we’ve played in the face of that. I don’t
think we’ve had too many moments of panic or feeling overwhelmed at all that we’re up against all
that. So I’m really proud that they’ve handled themselves in that manner that well.”

Transcribed by ASAP Sports