March 14, 2008

Temple

Head Coach Fran Dunphy

Thoughts on advancing to the Atlantic 10 Championship game:
"We are thrilled about the position we are in to be playing for the A-10 Championship. To be honest with you; I have tremendous respect for Saint Joseph's. We just talked about it in the locker room, what more can you ask for. We are going to play in the championship against our biggest rival and this is what it's all about. A couple of kids from the Saint Joseph's team stopped me over the last couple of days and said, let's play for the final. I think that's the respect that both programs have for one another. This is great for Philadelphia and Atlantic City."

On the play of Mark Tyndale:
"Each and every game poses a different challenge, but you could see tonight that he was ready to go tonight. Dionte (Christmas) was guarded very well and got in foul trouble, but Mark sensed that he needed to take over. There were a couple of drives to the basket I was really impressed with, especially the one right in front of our bench where he took it in the middle of the lane and finished at the rim. I think it's just one of those things in which he just didn't want to stop playing basketball at Temple so to get us to this point was a great effort by him."

Regarding Lavoy Allen's performance:
"He was great tonight. He blocked three shots and probably changed a lot of others. He also hit a huge jumper for us and finished his foul shots which were great. He was terrific tonight and we needed him because Sergio (Olmos) got in so much foul trouble."

Thoughts on the third meeting with Saint Joseph's:
"It was something that happened in both of the games tonight too, where we played Charlotte twice while Xavier and Saint Joseph's also met twice. There will be no secrets and we will come up with different strategies. We know Saint Joseph's as well as any team in the country and vice versa. It's just going to be guys stepping up and making shots. Hopefully it will be a great game and we'll be able to play well."

On Temple's rebounding advantage:
"I think our guys really focused on it today and we really talked about it before the game. We did a good job of checking them out and we got our fair share of offensive rebounds as well. We had eight rebounds on the offensive glass in the first half and that's not how we typically play. When we couldn't get it, we tipped the ball back out and got some in that way as well."

Thoughts on his team's defensive effort this season and today:
"I think we are getting better as a defensive team, but I still think we have some room to move here. I think we were so outsized last year where we had to play a lot of time with Dion Dacons and four guards, so that hurt us. In all honestly, Sergio (Olmos) was a year away last season and we didn't have Lavoy (Allen). They know what they're doing this year and we have more big guys to go to and at least limit what's happening inside for a lot of teams."

Mark Tyndale

Keeping care of the ball
Eight turnovers: I have to do a better job than that tomorrow, I can't lead the team with eight turnovers.

About advancing to the final
It feels good and get a chance to go to the [NCAA] tournament. It can't feel no better.

Rebounding against the Niners
The coaching staff helped us out, Coach [Fran] Dunphy stressed that a lot in film study today. They are a great offensive rebounding team.

Being physical with Goldwire and Mack
Yes, they're great shooters and anytime if you give them a shot they'll knock it down. Mack's a great shooter, so it Goldwire. Mack's a little underrated, but he shoots as well as anybody in the Atlantic 10.

Chris Clark

Getting started offensively in the first half
Mark [Tyndale] and [Dionte] Christmas did a great job of finding me. Mark does a great job of finding me when I'm in the game so I just look to get to a spot and get my feet set and shoot the ball.

About Charlotte possibly coming back
We knew coming into the second half that Charlotte won't quit. They do a tremendous job of fighting to the end. UMass was up 17 (sic) and Charlotte came back. We knew we had to play our best 20 minutes to win this game.

Charlotte

Charlotte Head Coach Bobby Lutz

On Mark Tyndale:
"They were very physical, dominated us on the glass just like we had dominated the last game against UMass. Tyndale was just spectacular, which he has a habit of doing against us in the short time that we've played him. Christmas is obviously a great player but Tyndale is the guy over the years that's really been a tough guy for us to deal with."

On their comeback effort:
"In the second half, we had the same looks that we had last night. With nine minutes left, Lamont is wide open in the right corner for a three, we're down six, and it just didn't go in. Lee hits a three with seven left to cut it to five, so we tried. Our guys gave everything they had, maybe they got a little fatigued with their third game in three days and the amount of energy, physically and emotionally that we had to withstand to win the last two games, but obviously we wouldn't trade that. That was special."

On his team's lack of scoring:
"Defensively I was pretty pleased with what we did tonight. We just couldn't score the ball, we scored 45 points. Give them credit, but you have to score the ball to win at this level. We held them to 60, it wasn't like it was a slow down game, their shooting percentages were 40 percent from the field, 24 percent from the three. So we gave ourselves chances, but for whatever reason we struggled to score inside; they blocked some of our shots, we missed some which we did up there (Philadelphia). Their size bothered us inside when did go inside. We probably settled for the three a little bit too much. It worked great last night"

Leemire Goldwire

Talking about his experience at the A10 tournament
"Overall it's a good experience. We were able to get two wins. My first two years here we didn't a game in the conference tournament. So, it was pretty good except for, we played hard the past few games, but tonight we couldn't put it out."

On the match up with Chris Clark
"Basically, I was just trying to pressure the ball and whenever he got on me I was trying to take advantage of or trying to get a screen and they seemed like they were switching, so, I was trying -whenever they switched - trying to get it to the post. They play pretty good defense whenever Clark got on one of our big guys."

Talking about the possibility of making the NCAA tournament
"Definitely. We won two games in our conference tournament. We won 20 games. We did pretty good against the top 50 and the top 100 as far as RPI is concerned. So, I think we at least deserve a shot."