Marshall University Athletics
Marshall Defeats UAb
1/19/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 19, 2008
Recap | Box Score | AP Gallery 
Marshall Head Coach Donnie Jones
On the game: "Team is the opening word for this night. That's what we talk about. That was a very good basketball team. They have a lot of talent and they're going to win a lot of games. It was great for our guys. I'm really proud of our team and the coaching staff. They had a great game plan coming in here, even though we missed some free throws we still found a way defensively. Just like I told our team lets control what we can. It's not always just making shots that's not the team we are we have to find a way to scrap it out each night."
On the absence of Markel Humphrey: "It's important to win regardless of who's sitting out. But having Markel out, yeah, that's good. I think the thing that makes me proud about him and Taurean [Marshall] is that they're dressed in their uniforms and over their cheering on their teammates in the huddle and patting them on the head. That's what we call selfless. Being selfless and being part of a team is what it's all about. Tonight it wasn't about our best scorer tonight, but to Markel Humphrey it looked like he scored a lot tonight. They were so excited for the team."
On the play of Adam Williams: "We told Adam to play solo. We knew he was a little bigger than Pierre [Marie Altidor Cespedes] so we wanted to bring a little more energy off the bench with Matt [Walls] and Pierre. A lot of times when we went to our bench, like against East Carolina, we went to our bench and there was a drop off. We had to bring some high energy guys off the bench. So we figured instead of bringing Adam off the bench, we'd start him out and give him a simple plan. Adam kept the game simple, if he had a wide open shot take it, but if not, then just do what you do best."
On Tyler Wilkerson: "I need a four guy that's a mismatch guy and that's really what Markel Humphrey is and when we were struggling to find a guy to get a shot off. Everything we set up was through Markel Humphrey and we told Tyler Wilkerson that you're going to have some shots. If you're wide open, shoot the basketball. If you miss it, you miss it. Shoot it. And he did. There were a few other times when he should have shot it, but he drove instead of it."
UAB Head Coach Mike Davis
On the game: "I thought Coach Jones did a great job of getting his kids ready to play. Any time you have your best player out and guys continue to fight after losing to East Carolina on the road, that really tells you a lot. This team is well coached. They did some things to us and took us out of what we wanted to do. They did a great job of keeping us off of the offensive glass. For the last two games we averaged 14 offensives rebounds. Today we only got eight. A couple of those came late in the game. You've got to take your hat off to Coach Jones and his team. I thought (Tyler) Wilkerson had an outstanding game. The rebound he got on the missed free-throw was a backbreaker for us. The three-point shot he made was huge. I had no idea he could even shoot the basketball and he stepped up and shot it. It was big. You need guys to play like that. They made plays when they needed to and we didn't."
On winning on the road in Conference USA: "It's not hard at all. It's only hard when you don't focus on the game plan and execute it with a relentless attitude. We came here tonight like we were one of the better teams in the league and we walked around and acted like it. We got our butts kicked because of it. There was no fire in us until late in the game. They did any and everything they wanted to do. I knew we were in trouble in shoot around and during the pregame meal. I'm not taking anything from Coach Jones. I've watched his team on tape and they compete. Any time you have guys competing like that, it's what you want. This is supposed to be a rebuilding year for them. They have a lot of good players sitting out this year just like we did last year"
On his mass substitution in the first half: "There was just no effort. We come in here at 12-5 or 12-6 and guys tend to think that they're something different then what they really are. I didn't have enough people to take out of the game. I wish I could have gone into the stands and gotten some people to put in for some of them. We just had no effort. Again, I don't want to take anything from Marshall. They fought like crazy. They blocked out hard. They screened hard. Sometimes when your mind is not really in the game it's hard to fight through that."
On the Herd's defense of C-USA leading scorer Robert Vaden: "[Robert] Vaden got 23. That's pretty good. If you got back and watch the tape, you'll see that the other guys had wide open threes that they missed that we should have made. To me, that's the difference. (Robert) Vaden made five of the seven threes we made. If you take away his 10, we made two-of-13. If you look back you'll se that about 12 of those 13 were wide open shots. If you can't make a wide open shot, you'll put pressure on the player that they're really focusing on. I'll walk out of here with him going 5-of-10 from three. That's 50 percent. What you have to do is go back and look at who the others guys are that didn't make the shots. Lawrence Kinnard went 0-for-6. We talked about finding other people to score because it makes us easy to defend when other people can't make open shots.
Marshall Forward Tyler Wilkerson
On his own play: "We just have to be ready to play hard. Like coach told us, we had some players down so we needed some players to step up. I just thought I needed to help step up to help our team win. Our teammates helped us out tonight and we just had a really good team win.
Marshall Guard Mark Dorris
On the win: "This was definitely a big win. We dropped two in a row and to get back on the winning side of thing and UAB is one of the best teams in the conference so it was a plus getting a big win. It was also definitely a step in the right direction."
On the absence of Markel Humphrey: "It was obvious, just the chemistry and I don't he's missed a game. Every time I've played he was out there with me. It was a lot different having him on the side, but he was an inspiration and provided motivation on the bench for us. His leadership qualities were there by him rooting us on."
