Ted Woodward Quotations

We'll be going against a lot of size and those guys will have to do a great job for us.

So many guys on this team have never been through the America East, they don't know the history of Maine versus Vermont. When you have so many new guys, it takes some time for all that to sink in.

Phil had another big game for us. He and Chris had all the big rebounds for us down the stretch.

I'm a little surprised Howard won that game. Mercer has some very good players, a big frontcourt, and a very good 3-point shooter, so we have our work cut out for us again.

I felt like since Christmas we've played very good offensively, shooting about 50 percent, and we've been focusing on getting our defense back to where it belongs and having Phil back tonight certainly helped give us good balance.

Freddy is the definition of a leader. He's a calming and focusing influence and he fights every game, every step of the way.

For whatever reason, they haven't played as well as they did at the start of the year. In December, I thought they were clearly one of the favorites in the league, and that hasn't changed. They're an extremely talented, capable opponent, and one of those teams that is looking to get hot and have as good a chance as any to contend in the conference championship.

I give our guys a lot of credit for playing to this level after the last game. We came in with a huge focus on defense and rebounding, and we had a good effort there.

He's had games where he can show what he can do, but because of injuries, he's been the number one target of every defense. That's why I would say maybe we haven't seen what he can really do when he's not the focal point for every defense.

He's been through a lot in this program and he has tremendous veteran leadership. He's always been a clutch guy.

I think we kind of got away from some of the things that we had success from when those shots started going in. I think we took some shots we haven't been taking as much and making some turnovers.

I think that's one of the reasons they're as good as they are is they have great depth. Sure, it hurts them not having him out there, but we knew they were a team in particular that was deep enough to handle those kinds of problems.

I think the reason he's such a good leader is because he does both. He's not afraid to be vocal with anyone on the team. He takes a lot of pride in not just showing, but speaking, too.

I was very happy with how he played. We've been waiting for that and I thought he did a great job.

That was huge for us. We've been struggling on the offensive boards and that was, again, a big focus tonight.

We were very active on defense. We were playing three guards so we needed to use our quickness to get some tips. We were able to get that tonight.

We don't have a huge margin for error. We'd been doing good things because we were progressing, but I'd been telling them all week not to forget where they came from. This is not a team that's going to go blow people out.

When you're on other people's courts sometimes, you have to be more careful in how aggressive you are. We got in foul trouble. I wouldn't say it was called any differently in terms of style. I would say they had a lot more free throws, though.

When I say to our team to make sure everyone's on their A-game, it's really to be focused, and do the hard things. It's really about stealing a possession here or there because you're on that loose ball, or making sure we don't give that extra turnover because we need that extra possession that we didn't get with a rebound.

We didn't feel like we played defense to our level of capability in our last game and it was a huge focus of ours to come out and do that tonight. We really locked down when we had to.

We just don't have the depth that they have. They have eight guys and five need to play well. We have six guys and all six need to play well.

We were playing very good basketball four or five days ago, even in the first half of the Hartford game. We just have to get back to doing the things we do.

There's no question Ernest was huge for us during that stretch.

I've been talking to him a lot about doing this on a consistent basis. He is a guy who has a chance to fill some of these holes for us.

You see highlights like that every night, you just hope that it's not you some night. It was a great shot and we were fortunate it didn't come before the buzzer.

You need those types of players, those all-conference players. Wilson is a Player of the Year candidate. When they're struggling he can carry them, and when everyone's clicking he's happy doing what he does. He's been a tremendous leader for their team.

They played great perimeter defense. They were physical across the board, and they jammed the perimeter. The one weakness was in the post, and we saw Phil get 16.

They have depth, size and shooting. All those things wrapped into one is a great starting point. The biggest thing is they're veterans across the board, and probably the most talented team across the board.

They were really able to get on a spurt and score in bunches. They made a lot of shots, and that stretch just ended up blowing it up pretty quick.

They just had an awesome shooting effort in the first half tonight. They got off to a great start shooting the ball, especially from 3-point range, which has not been their strength most of this season.

Not just from an offensive standpoint, but from a defensive standpoint, we got tremendous contributions from several players.

I just wanted to make sure they started the clock on time.

His loss is very difficult to replace in numerous ways.

He's the X-factor across the board. He can play with anybody in our rotation, and he can play from the two to the five, and even point guard or center in short minutes.

I felt we really played 40 minutes defensively. When you do that you?re eventually going to be able to get some transition buckets.

You can't replace minutes. He's getting the time under his belt and he just keeps getting better and better.

Their athleticism got to us. They took us out of everything we do offensively; we weren't able to get into any kind of a flow right from the tip.

The first half was a very fast-paced game. There were a lot of possessions and we came out of the blocks shooting really well, but it's hard to get out early like that and maintain that kind of energy.