Feb. 21, 2009

Recap | Box Score

Post-Game Quotes
Loyola vs. Bradley
February 21, 2009

Loyola Head Coach Jim Whitesell
Opening statement
"Congratulations to Bradley. They really put it to us after that first media timeout until probably about the last four minutes of the first half. We got within 16 and after that, it looked like it was going to be right there. We got it down to six or eight a couple times, but we just couldn't get over the hump. We couldn't get the next stop and the next basket. But that's kind of how we thought the game was going to be played. They were so much more aggressive than us in the first half, it didn't matter what we were trying to do offensively. The second half, we kind of turned the table for a little while on them and played with a lot more emotion and aggressiveness. We spotted them 25 at one point and you can't let that happen."

On Loyola's slow start
"We're certainly playing better than we were. There is only one way to play the game and Bradley played in the first half the way we wanted to play, just really aggressive. In the second half, I thought we played very aggressively and they made some big plays. I think they made just about every free throw at the end of the game. Give them a lot of credit, they just kept knocking them down. In college basketball, leads are not safe if you continue to play. I think that was the big thing we tried to tell our guys at halftime. We've had a good week. We need to build off this and get better. We lost to a good basketball team. It's a shame we played the way we did in the first half, butI think the big part of it was their pressure. We just didn't handle it."

On Bradley's Theron Wilson
"He's an awfully good player. They do so much dribble-weave, and a lot of times they clip you on the hand-off, so you've got to be really strong in your base. I thought Jordan Hicks, at times, did a really good job on him. We knew he's their leading scorer. I thought a lot of our problems came when we tried to switch on that early on and still didn't contain it very well. And then they shot it well. We were a step behind and a little part of that is aggression, so it kind of goes together. With Wilson, I wasn't disappointed. I knew he was going to make some big plays sooner or later. I wasn't disappointed with our overall effort on him at all. We just have to play our `A' game. We had some `A' moments, but you have to play an `A' game to beat Bradley."

Loyola senior guard Justin Cerasoli
On Bradley's fast start
"We watched film on Bradley and we were prepared for them, we just started off a little slow. It's something we can address all week in practice. After the 10-minute mark, we did a good job of sticking with it. They just beat us to the punch in the first 10 minutes."