Nov. 12, 2010

Recap |  Final Stats

POST GAME QUOTES
Northwestern 97-NIU 78
November 12, 2010

Ricardo Patton
Northern Illinois Head Coach

Opening Statement
"I really like our team. I think we had a great test here tonight. It was probably too tough of a test for the first game out, but I thought our guys showed some flashes, some signs of being a good basketball team. Of course, anytime you shoot 52 percent, which I've always believed we that we would be able to score the basketball.

"We did fairly well from the free throw line. Defensively, we had hands in faces. Their guys just really shot the lights out. It was a great test for us, early, to identify what we need to continue to work on."

On John Shurna's performance in the second half
"Anytime a guy that skilled, and he's long at 6-7, 6-8 and he can shoot over smaller guards, he just had a phenomenal night. If he can continue to play that way, he'll play his way right into the League."

On if the half-court pressure took NIU out of sync
"No question. Early, when they were guarding us man-to-man, I think we handled that well. I was hoping they would continue to plan man the rest of the night. Although we had worked in practice on the 1-3-1, our guys still hadn't faced the length of the 1-3-1 and mad some careless mistakes. The cross-court passes really hurt us at times.

"The 19 turnovers, that's being your own enemy. You just can't do that against a team that was shooting the ball the way they shot it."

On the atmosphere of the game
"It was great. I thank those fans for coming out. Hopefully they won't throw in the towel this early and will come back and support these young men. It was good to see."

On what the turning point was in the second half
"The 17 offensive boards, the second-chance shots they got really hurt us. There was a stretch there where they scored on nine-straight possessions. You can't allow that. You can't allow a team to score nine straight times. Several of those were long-range shots. And a couple were stick backs."

Opening Statement
"It was a scary first game. We came out and we weren't able to stop them. I think they made their first four or five shots. They [Northern Illinois] were certainly ready to play, not that we weren't. They really knocked us back. Then we went to that zone and seemed to turn them over a few times and we scored off those turnovers. Drew [Crawford] hit a couple in transition. I thought that changed the tempo of things. Still, at the end of the half, we were only up by five. There weren't too many missed shots [by NIU]. The second half, we came out and started making shots. It was a nice team effort.

"[Xavier] Silas is a terrific player. We didn't have too many answers for him. I'm just happy to get a win on the road and get out of here."

On John Shurna's performance in the second half
"Drew's [Crowford] gone on some runs like that where he makes a lot of shots, and Johnny's done the same. I just like the fact that the guys were getting the ball to him. When you're on the court, you know more than the coach often times, so they were just throwing the ball to the right guy.

"It just seemed we came down the court and the guards Alex [Marcotullio] and Mike [Thompson] swung the ball and all of the sudden, he was open. It was just real fast. It happened a couple of times. Then, coach Patton called a timeout and we said let's run a couple things for him. Mostly it was just the team finding him."

On if the half-court pressure affected NIU's tempo
"Yeah, I thought when we went to that stretch, 10 minutes into the game, or whenever it was, it just changed things. Even if we didn't score, they [NIU] weren't as confident."

On the atmosphere of the game
"I thought it was a great turnout. It's a great gym. It's beautiful. Coach [Patton] is going to do a good job. He's got some good guys, but he's got new guys and new faces in there.

"I saw, at the end of the game with about a minute to go, Silas was telling one of the new guys to keep your chin up, keep fighting. The guy [Silas] is a good player and good leader. I think that's what he's going to have to do."