QUOTES – Davidson 76, East Carolina 67

Davidson coach Bob McKillop – “I love the resiliency of our team. I love the fact we came back from what could have been a 20-, 25-point deficit the way they were shooting the ball. Emotionally when guys make shots at the rate, they were making them in the first half, it puts you on your heels. I guess they put the exclamation point on it when the guy made the 3 at the buzzer with (guard Hyunjung) Lee draped all over him. Our guys had to be saying to themselves as we were walking into the locker room ‘We can’t stop them.’ In the second half we came out and we dug, we helped each other out, forced the ball into teammates, we extended the ball a little bit. All of a sudden, we weren’t on our heels, we were the aggressor. We made some shots and lo and behold we got the victory. Lee made his shots, great, but he got 10 rebounds. He rebounded in traffic consistently and to me, that was a decisive factor in the game because we limited them to one shot. Our bench gave us a great lift. Desmond Watson, Nelson Boachie-Yiadom and Grant Huffman – when those three guys went in, that’s when we extended the court and what they did to turn the tide of the game was decisive. This is growth, showing you can come back from a deficit, showing that you could play three games in four days, showing we can play in an NCAA Tournament kind of sequence, showing we can play in an Atlantic 10 Conference tournament. We found out our bench can help us. We’ve been in ESPN events for maybe 15 years. We love going to ESPN events. It’s been one of the greatest experiences of our program to participate in the ESPN multi-team events. They do things in a first-class way. How about the place we’re staying, right on the water? It’s extraordinary.”

East Carolina coach Joe Dooley – “We’re obviously disappointed with our play, especially the last eight or so minutes. We did some really good things early and then the momentum swung, and Lee made some big plays. They scored some points in the paint and we didn’t answer the way we needed. They thoroughly outplayed us in the second half, which is disappointing. They put us in harm’s way in some cutting situations. The tournament’s a real good tournament. We saw real good teams and I think it will help us to evaluate what we need to do to get better.” (On guard Tristen Newton): “He had a weird year last year, he was out for a little bit, he came back and tweaked his knee a little bit. He’s got to continue now to play but he’s also got to continue time-score-momentum even when you’re running a fever a little bit. We’ve got to get downhill, drive and kick. I was a little disappointed with how we passed the ball today. We were a little shaky with the ball. It was a terrific event. Good teams, obviously it’s close enough for us, it’s an easy trip and I didn’t hear any complaints from the coaches and that’s a pretty good barometer how it goes.”