2017 PUERTO RICO TIP-OFF post-game quotes, Tulsa 81, Western Michigan 74

TULSA Coach Frank Haith – “That was a great win for us. Our kids came out and battled hard early. Give Western Michigan credit, they never quit. It was pleasing that we played 11 guys and 10 guys scored so we kind of shared things around. I’m very proud of Junior (Etou), it wasn’t right early and he made some plays down the stretch. He stayed with the flow, they double-teamed him a couple times and I thought he made some nice passes out of the double team. It was just a complete win.

“We had four guys in double figures and two guys with nine (points), we got great production off the bench, we got 40 points in the paint. That was encouraging against a team that’s very big. The only thing we struggled with is they had 21 offensive rebounds but we had great effort tonight. We’ve got a number of players who can score.”

Tulsa Forward Junior Etou – “I just wanted to come out and stay with the principles, focus on defense and the offense was going to flow. That was the game plan. (Tulsa’s balanced scoring) helped me a lot, that took a lot of pressure off me because I was getting double-teamed all the time and I didn’t want to force anything, just make the easy play and find an open teammate and move the ball.”

WESTERN MICHIGAN Coach Steve Hawkins – “We took the floor just passive. For as well and for as aggressive as we played against South Carolina on Monday night was every bit as passive as took the floor tonight and it’s not our personality to do that. That was the bad news part. The good news part was I felt like as we settled into the game we found a rhythm and that’s the way we’re supposed to play. We played a lot more aggressively defensively, a lot more aggressive offensively.

“As far as Josh (Davis) goes, he’s aggressive all the time and every once in a while too aggressive, but I’d rather take that at this point in time than I would being passive. He’s a fierce competitor and we saw that again tonight. He helped up us put together the little bit of a comeback we had tonight. We just can’t dig ourselves that big of a hole.

Western Michigan Guard/forward Josh Davis – “We started off soft, we had a whole lot of offensive rebounds but we weren’t protecting the rim but we came together in the second half, which we can’t do if we want to win the MAC. It’s just the way we start; we’ve got to finish the way start.”