Austin Peay
Coach Dave Loos
(Opening statement): That was the best ball game to watch, unless you were in my seat or Bret Campbell’s. It was an exciting basketball game, we made a terrific play at the last with DJ. When the game’s on the line, that’s who we go to. He made a great play in finding Drake. I thought our free throw shooting was going to do us in, but we hit just enough.
(On senior Todd Babington’s play in the second half): We challenged Todd at the half. He’s a senior and we rely on him for his three-point shooting and we told him we needed him. He had to get involved and he did a real good job in the second half.
(On Reed’s play tonight): I thought this was his best game from an aggressive standpoint in a while. He played very well from the shoulders up, we had a mistake or two, but he was really focused tonight.
(On getting Tennessee-Martin’s post players in foul trouble): That was by design. We wanted to go inside. By design, we play inside-out, and getting them in foul trouble definitely helped us out in the second half.
(On coaching against former assistant coach Bret Campbell): The first time we coached against each other was awkward, but then it got to be just another game. But this one was different, this was the most significant that we have competed game we have competed against each other.
(On missing Kyle Duncan’s defense when he got in foul trouble): I was concerned about it, but as it turned out Wes Channels chased him (Tennessee-Martin’s Lester Hudson) as good as anybody could. When we put Kyle back in, we actually put him on somebody else because Wes was doing about as good as anybody can on that guy.
Senior guard Derek Wright
(On his shot at the end of the first half): I thought it gave us the momentum that we needed coming out in the second half. It was just a good shot, we set up the play and ran it perfectly.
(On having four players in double-figures): We have seven or eight guys who can come in and put up numbers on any given night. The attitude of the team is not selfish at all, which makes it much easier to find guys for open shots.
(On the championship game tomorrow): It’s a great feeling. I know as a team we were looking to get to this point at the beginning of the year, and now we’re here. We have another chance to win a championship, and we just have to stay focused and play our best.
Junior forward Drake Reed
(On his game-ending free throws): The main thing I wanted to do was block everybody out. At that point, you just have to put everything out of your mind and just step up and nail them.
(On the three-point shooting of Babington and Duncan): Well, it’s great to be surrounded by great three-point shooters. It’s a real big confidence boost to know that when you kick it out, they’re going to knock it down the majority of the time. I feed off those guys as much as they do me.
(On team defense in the second half): Once we got a few stops, the body language of everybody just transformed. Everybody got a little swagger to them, and we got some big stops and caused some nice turnovers down the stretch.
UT Martin Quotes
Coach Bret Campbell (UT Martin)
(Opening remarks): Well obviously a very difficult loss to start off. This basketball team has exceeded expectations this year, winning seven out of their last eight and then coming in here tonight and coming up a little short, it’s a little tough to swallow I know we lost to a very good basketball team, Austin Peay, I’ve got a great deal of respect for that basketball team, for that Head Coach and I wish them the very best tomorrow night. I am very proud of these two guys sitting that are sitting next to me right now, they are a big reason that we were successful. Picked last in the league, finished fourth and have a shot of going on. But again came up a tad short and am extremely proud of these two guys, I think the best backcourt in the nation that I know of.
(On the tough stretch in 2nd half that APSU went on a run): I thought our foul trouble effected us tonight. We had two key post players foul out of the game and we were a little bit short handed in that respect. We put ourselves in a little bit of a hole certainly during that stretch. I thought we dug ourselves out and we showed the persistence, that these guys were going to find a way. Un fortunately on the last possession they got a look and we fouled and they made a play right there. I don’t know how many layups we missed that’s whats more frustrating than anything. We probably missed four lay ups at the beginning of the game and then at the beginning of the second half missed another four at point blank range and you have to look at the game if those go in.
(On the progress as a program that was made this season): Oh I think it was a huge step forward for this program. I don’t think many people give Tennessee-Martin a lot of respect and I think we finally earned some respect by our players and by our team this year that we could play with anybody. Only losing one player this year, we got a great group coming back and Ill very much be expecting to sitting here next year but only on Saturday night.
Lester Hudson
(On the team coming together the second half of the season): Well we struck together and played our best basketball at the end. We won seven out of last eight games and just started playing together, playing smart, playing hard, playing together.
(On how hard hes taking the loss): I’ve got to get over it, because we played a good game and we had a chance to win. We’ve got to get over it and regroup and try our best to come back next year and win.
(On whether he will be wearing a Skyhawk uniform next year): Yes sir I think I will be a Skyhawk.
Marquis Weddle
( On putting the ball on the floor rather than relying on his jump shot): Coach and I always talk about that, we always knew I could shoot but we always need help in other aspects of the game so I try my best to work on every part of the game I could and be a great help to the team.
(On how hard he’s taking the loss): Its real hard, because we worked so hard to get here and I think each game we played we worked so hard and we were just right there and unfortunately the ref called the foul when a lot of people didn’t think it was a foul and a lot of people did think it was a foul so that’s just how the calls go sometimes.