March 18, 2006

Recap |  Final Stats |  Notes |  Photo Gallery

Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams
Opening Statement:
"We knew [Manhattan's] guards were good coming into the game, and we didn't do a very good job of stopping them, especially in the first half. You have to give Manhattan credit. They stayed tough the whole game, even when we were making some good runs. We just made some plays that didn't allow us to win the game. Manhattan certainly played with a lot of emotion, and that can make the difference in college basketball."

On the seniors:
"I told our seniors that they accomplished some good things here. They won an ACC Tournament and made a Sweet 16. The last two years have been the NIT, and that's part of the process as you go through college, to take the good and the bad and become a tougher person. They'll leave here and hopefully have a lot of success in whatever path their career takes. For all of those guys, including Chris McCray, I hope they are very successful."

On coming out flat:
"We knew that this was going to be a hard game to play. We knew the students weren't going to be here, and we knew Manhattan was going to be ready, and we had to match that from the beginning. We couldn't do that."

On the prospects for next season:
"I know what it takes to win, and it's up to each individual player to make that happen. We have to earn the right to be a good team. We have several returning players that got a lot of experience as sophomores and juniors, and we have four new players coming in that want to get things done. Hopefully that becomes infectious. We have the opportunity to be a good basketball team next year, but we have to start working towards that in April."

On returning players for next year:
"[Ekene] Ibekwe and James Gist give you two players with size that have some experience now. D.J. Strawberry has some room to improve, but he showed that he can handle some pressure for us this year. Handling the ball made him that much better as a guard. Hopefully Mike Jones realizes how close he is to being a really great player. Those are all things that you can build on."

Maryland Forward Nik Caner-Medley
On his final game as a Terp:
"Every team, unless you win the national championship, is going to be disappointed because there are only two teams, with the NIT, who end with a win. We're disappointed to end the year with a loss and the only way we couldn't have done that is if we won it. Obviously that was not the case."

On evaluating this season:
"Any time you don't achieve a goal you have to look within yourself and as a team, if a guy is coming back next year, at things you can do better."

Maryland Guard D.J. Strawberry
On improving for next year:
"We have to make basketball the number one thing in our life, from here until the end of next season, because the seniors only have one year left. If we want to make it happen, this is our last chance."

On playing Manhattan:
"It was a matter of coming out and being ready. They came out and jumped on us early, and when a team like that has confidence and has good guard play, we're going to be in trouble for the rest of the night. We really didn't have our heads into it and we made silly plays the entire game. It was a frustrating game. We had lay-ups that we should have made. It was frustrating because we're a better team than that and we definitely should have beat them. They just outplayed us today. "

Maryland Guard Mike Jones
On playing Manhattan:
"Everybody wants to play in the NCAA Tournament. Playing in the NIT was not one of our goals, but at the same time, we wanted to win. This team just wanted it a little more than we did. They were knocking down key shots and they were a little more aggressive than we were. It's basically little things we're going to have to change for next year to get our team to where we want to be."

Manhattan Head Coach Bobby Gonzalez
Opening Statement:
"It was a great win for us. First of all it was our 20th win of the season. It's very rare that a team in the MAAC Conference goes on the road to beat an ACC team. The bottom line is it came down to who wanted to win the game more. We have a good team. We could easily have gone to the NCAA tournament if we hadn't gotten knocked out in our conference tournament by Iona who we had beaten twice. We have a terrific team, our kids are resilient and they don't go away. This was monumental, and a national win."

On Maryland's comeback at the end of the game:
"We expected the comeback. They're an epic team. In their building, they're not going to go away without a fight. They have great players, and we knew we would have to weather the storm and find a way to make plays to win the game. You have to be ten points better to win by one in a game like this, if you're Manhattan and you're playing Maryland on the road."

Manhattan Guard Jeff Xavier
On the game:
"We came down here thinking we had nothing to lose, playing Maryland at Maryland on ESPN. We tried to spread them out and take them on with the dribble. My role was just to make shots, run around, and be me. We have a lot of confidence right now to go down to [Old Dominion] and play the same way. We'll play hard and with confidence, and we still have nothing to lose."

Manhattan Guard Jason Wingate
On the final two minutes of the game:
"It was looking like I was the guy that they were trying to foul. Usually I don't miss big free throws in a game, we shoot enough of them in practice. Everybody has their game. Today was Jeff [Xavier]'s game. Franck Traore deserves a hand for coming off the bench and making big free throws. We were trying to make free throws so the game wouldn't be that close, because we were losing a lot of bodies."

On Manhattan's strategy against Maryland:
"We were focused on their inside presence because they like to run the flex and they duck in. Also their perimeter because they are a little bit more athletic than us. We gave them a lot of respect coming in because they're from the ACC."