Tony Duckworth Quotations

With this win against Maryville I think the national committee is going to have a hard time not selecting us.

Missing 20 free throws is inexcusable. I don't know. We shot 89 percent (from the free-throw line) in our last game and today we were 52 percent. I'm trying not to make too much out of it. Most of it is mental and I think we can work through it.

I felt going into selection day that Bethany, Lincoln, and Villa were going to be three of the four Pool B selections, so it would likely come down between Maryville and Huntingdon since we had defeated Fisk in the GSAC semis and several other teams in consideration lost over the weekend.

Four-hundred is a special milestone. This was an incredible victory to get that win.

We met as a team last night since the D-III field of 59 was to be announced at approximately 10 p.m. I told my team I felt we had a 50-50 chance of being selected while understanding that the NCAA Selection Committee could chose Maryville over Huntingdon. After the NCAA press release arrived on our laptops the players were stunned that Maryville was selected over us after we had won two games versus them in the last 13 days, including the GSAC Tournament Championship.

My coaching strategy, I like to try and dictate the pace. But against Fisk, you can't always do that. You have to trust your players to make plays. When our guys saw opportunities, they took them. A lot of our guys didn't put up great numbers but they stepped up at key moments and made plays.

You can call plays all you want, but you have to have players that can make plays. It wasn't designed that way, but Cole found a lane and made it work.

We needed to play Maryville. I don't want to sound like I was pulling for one conference team over another in the semifinals but it's true. Our guys were disappointed we didn't get the No. 1 seed and I told them 'look guys you need to understand that's the best case for us because being No. 2 sets us up to beat Fisk and Maryville again and improve our quality of wins index.

We played with poise today. They pressured us but we handled it down the stretch. We've lost some close games and I was worried that would bother us today. But I never saw any doubt in our players' eyes.

Early on, he was trying to force things that weren't there. I talked to him and told him to trust his teammates. After that, they started playing off of him and he played off of them. He came to play this week.

Cole came through with several big plays. He had a couple late, making the basket and the free throw, that kept us in the lead.

At halftime, I told the guys we needed to keep our lead in the second half. A lot of teams that are as successful as Maryville aren't used to playing from behind. We wanted to put that pressure on them in the second half and not let them make a run.

It was one of the gutsiest performances I've ever been involved in.

I never doubted these guys. I knew we would find a way to finish it. When we were down by double digits, I saw a lot of long faces out there. I just tried to keep encouraging them.