MU vs. IPFW Postgame Notes-Quotes
12/13/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 13, 2008
Milwaukee -
- Marquette never trailed this afternoon, opening the game with an 8-0 run and holding IPFW scoreless for the first four minutes. The Golden Eagles shot 9-of-14 (64.3 percent) from the field to start the game.
- MU's largest lead of the game was 27 points, 65-38, on a Dominic James free throw at the 5:36 mark of the second half.
- MU has won 20 straight non-conference games at the Bradley Center and is 7-0 at home to open the 2008-09 season.
- Junior forward Lazar Hayward pulled down a career-high 18 boards, topping the 13 he grabbed last Saturday against Wisconsin. Hayward was one rebound shy of tying a collegiate Bradley Center record of 19 rebounds last accomplished on Nov. 26, 1995 by Amal McCaskill. It was also the first time that a Marquette player recorded 15-or-more rebounds in a game since Steve Novak pulled down 16 against No. 2 Connecticut in Marquette's first ever BIG EAST game, a 94-79 Marquette victory (1/3/06).
- Hayward recorded his third double-double (19 points, 18 rebounds) of the season and the eighth of his career. Hayward had a double-double by halftime recording 11 points to go along with 10 rebounds. Entering the game Hayward was leading the team with 9.6 rebounds per contest.
- Wesley Matthews finished one rebound short of his first career double-double with 13 points and nine rebounds.
- Matthews set a career high with three blocked shots in the first half.
- Senior guard Jerel McNeal scored eight of Marquette's first 12 points of the second half, helping MU out to a 50-32 lead. McNeal scored 16 points for the game.
MU Head Coach Buzz Williams:
We did some good things, I think that our half court offense was probably from a fluidity standpoint the best that it has been. It really signifies that you are trying to play the game the right way. As far as stretches we were good defensively, its our best field goal percentage defense of the year. There were still stretches, the last three and a half minutes they scored eight points, which was definitely above their average up until that point. I thought Lazar was Ben Wallace on the glass and when he plays like that, by osmosis it encourages Dwight and Pat. We had 17 offensive rebounds and I know that those numbers will end up being skewed because we played against a team that was similar in size. I think that we have to find ways to get extra possessions and 17 offensive rebounds helps. We had too many turnovers. Fourteen turnovers, we can't give away that many possessions.
On Lazarââ'¬Â¦
He is very important to our club. He is 6-4 ½ and with sneakers he is 6-4 ¾. We list him at 6-6 in the media guide. I know what he is. He is similar to Dennis Rodman in that he follows the flight of the ball as soon as they shoot it. It is almost an innate talent. I don't know that it is something that you can teach. I think he has great ball instincts on both ends of the floor. It is something that you can talk about but it is not something that you can grasp for a rebounding perspective. When he is hooked up going to chase offensive rebounds, because he does such a great job following the flight of the ball he is very crafty at knowing where to get before a bigger opponent, longer, more athletic guy gets there and that helps him, helps us.
Junior Forward Lazar Hayward:
On his career-high 18 reboundsââ'¬Â¦
I think I got lucky on some of them. I just think that it is me having the right mentality and sometimes just being in the right place at the right time. I tried to tell those guys to let me know how many I had at some point. I know they said that I had eight in the first half so I said 'ok, I'm going to try to get to 20 (rebounds).'
I think we were all really excited to play, for myself. When we have our finals we lock in with our studies and afterwards we are really happy that we finally get to play for a while and kind of forget about school.
On Jerel the past two gamesââ'¬Â¦
He is just a great contributor to our team. A lot of us look to him to get us going and I think he looks to us sometimes to get him going also. I think we are doing a better job helping him help us.
Senior Guard Wesley Matthews:
On a finals hangoverââ'¬Â¦
Maybe a little bit. It has been a week since we played. We probably had the most time off in between that week, basketball-wise too, we had a day off of practice, no contact. It was kind of an odd wee, we had no rhythm but it showed we got out of it but there will still times that we got up and down. We have to eliminate that for Tuesday.
On the matchup with Tennesseeââ'¬Â¦
We have to come ready, erverybody they are a good team. It's a road game so it will be a good test for us. We are all definitely excited for this one because it will be a real challenge and a good measuring tool to see where we are going to be at in the BIG EAST. It will be good for some of the new guys to experience it and us to experience it on another level and where we might be called on to play a 39-minute game and lead the team and pull the team together to pull us out of slumps. There's times where its up and down like a roller coaster and we didn't pull together like we needed to. That is something that we will have to work on for Tuesday and for the rest of the year.
