Larry Hunter, Western Carolina Head Coach
Opening statement
“We had two different halves. I thought we had an exceptional first half. A lot of that is because of James Sinclair. I thought he had a whale of a half and a whale of a ballgame. In the second half, I thought their defense was a little bit better. They were playing zone and went triangle and two a little bit with some man. We had some good looks but we didn’t finish very well or shoot very well. They were the type of ball club that just hung around. In overtime I thought we did a good job of getting the lead. We finally made some free throws, which we had missed late in the ball game in regulation. We put ourselves in a good position because we had a couple of key stops. I thought it was key that Riley, who lit us up for 31 in each of our other two ballgames, to hold him to eight points was huge. We didn’t have anyone break out and have that kind of ball game offensively. We had the kind of tempo where we wanted for most of the game.
On James Sinclair’s first half
“He’s been in a great mindset all year long. You can’t just turn it on in the conference tournament. He’s worked himself into this kind of a mindset all season long. He’s been very consistent. He does so much on the court besides just score. His defense, deflections, rebounds, he had 14 rebounds today, and his understanding of our system and how to play makes him the engine that makes us go. He’s been a terrific leader with this team this year.”
On the tournament being in Asheville
“It’s so great for the conference and the teams. It’s a great venue and it’s the right side. The Commissioner and the conference hand in hand have done a great job promoting it and making it a very spectacular event for our league. I’m just happy to be a part of it. It’s a great opportunity. You’re playing for something that’s really importnant in an NCAA Tournament berth. We’ve haven’t had that opportunity. We’ve had the opportunity to win it but we haven’t gotten there. We’re hungry and trying to get the opportunity to get there.”
James Sinclair, Western Carolina senior guard
On if there is a rivalry between himself and ETSU’s Jalen Riley
“Personally, there is really no rivalry. It’s just this time of year. I want to guard the best player and do anything for my time. If it means guarding Riley and holding him to eight points along with my teammates, then that’s what it takes.”
On his aggressiveness offensively in the first half
“In these types of tournaments, all it takes is for that one person to get that sparks. I was just doing anything to help my team win.”
Murry Bartow, ETSU Head Coach
Opening statement
“It was a tough loss. I want to congratulate Larry Hunter and Western. We had won the first two games, but they were close games that could have gone the other way as well, but we were fortunate enough to those two. I thought James Sinclair was the difference in the game. That’s a pretty obvious statement. He had a phenomenal game. Nineteen turnovers for us is very uncharacteristic of our team. It’s something we talk about every day, to keep the turnovers low. Obviously, if we have 11 or 12 turnovers we certainly aren’t sitting here as the losing team. The 19 turnovers hurt us and Sinclair really hurt us. I thought we fought hard to get the game into overtime. It’s a tough loss. I’ve never experienced anything quite like this year with the close games that we’ve had. We have probably been in 24 games that have gone down to the last three minutes of the game. We’ve won a lot of them. The last several that we’ve had have really stung. I give Larry a lot of credit and Western Carolina a lot of credit. Sinclair was phenomenal. We came into the game knowing he was the best player on their team but he had 21 points before you could blink. He kind of had a Russell Westbrook type game. He rebounded and got steals and scored a lot of points. He was phenomenal.”
On his team’s shooting in overtime
“The three threes we got, Jalen got one, Rashaun got one, Lester got one, we couldn’t have been any cleaner on those three threes. Unfortunately they just didn’t go down. It seems like on a couple of those, we were down two and those could have put us up one which would have changed the whole feel of the game. They were good looks they just didn’t go in.”
Lester Wilson, ETSU junior guard/forward
On if his team felt relief getting the game to overtime
“It wasn’t really a relief. You have to play those last five minutes. Everything is magnified a lot more. It wasn’t a relief at all because the game is not over with. Anything can happen in five minutes. If you give a team five minutes, they can do almost anything.”
Reshawn Rembert, ETSU senior guard
On how the overtime loss feels after a long season
“It was unexpected. We came in with our heads high thinking we were going to win. We were determined that we were going to win three games and be champions. To go out and battle so hard, come back and take it into overtime, it took a lot out of us. At the same time, going into overtime we felt we were going to win. We just weren’t able to pull it out in the end.”