Feb. 22, 2014
Recap | Final Stats | Notes | Photo Gallery 
February 22, 2014
Bowling Green, Ky. (E.A. Diddle Arena)
WKU HEAD COACH Ray Harper
On the 18-1 start for WKU:
"I thought we were really good out of the gates; passing the ball, making the extra pass. Trency (Jackson) had another gear tonight, which is what we need from him. We need him attacking. If we could just make a free throw it would be nice."
On the different lineup: "It was time for a change. First of all, Daouda (Soumaoro) is a guy with a great attitude. I've been around this game for a long time, and the one thing you don't want as a coach is guys that are selfish or that care more about themselves than the team. I've never once walked in the locker room after a win where he wasn't the happiest guy in the locker room and after a loss where he wasn't the most disappointed. He's a guy who never plays but he kept coming to work every day. I've always told guys, you will get an opportunity at some point in the season and be ready for when that comes. It's much like a job. You never know when that opportunity is going to come to you, so be prepared. He was prepared. It couldn't happen to a better kid, on his birthday, to get his first start. I've seen enough out of him the past three weeks that I'm comfortable with him playing. He's coming off an ACL injury, his second one, last December. I am starting to see his agility to come back. That was a kid that used to put his elbows over the rim, so he's trying to play a new way to play. With Trency, we just felt like we needed his explosion, his ability to put the ball in the basket, and his intensity. We needed that in the starting lineup. So that was the reasoning behind those two guys starting tonight."
On Daouda Soumaoro's play tonight:
"I thought he was good. I thought our defense was better because he was in there. We've missed Alex (Rostov). I haven't talked about Alex or Kevin (Kaspar). Those are two key guys, your starting center and your back-up point guard. You lose those guys with eight games to go, there's not many teams in the country that won't take a hit when that happens. I felt like we needed a presence and I thought Daouda was that. Ben (Lawson) is the other guy that, these last two weeks, we need to be more aggressive because he's another guy with size and athletic ability. We make look at him down the stretch as well."
On Trency Jackson being more aggressive:
"I think we have a lot of guys playing that aren't aggressive. Trency's game is attacking the basket. He went 3-8 from the three, he can make a three. Matter of fact, he's one of our better percentage three point shooters, but his game is attacking. Not only getting shots for himself, but he got other guys shots tonight because of him getting in the paint. Their zone didn't cause us as many problems tonight because of him."
On if he felt the good practices this week carried over to tonight's game: "I did. That's why we got off to an 18-1 start. We talked about it Monday before practice, about where I felt we were as a team and where I felt like we needed to be. I thought that three games in one week really hurt us. We developed some really bad habits. I call it game slippage. I thought we were able to get a lot of those problems corrected during the course of the week. Now, we've got two games next week. A tough swing to Texas and we need three really good practices to start this week. We've got four (games) left and this is the home stretch now."
ULM HEAD COACH KEITH RICHARD
On the game:
"The start was really hard for us. That kind of deficit is extremely difficult. They came out blazing, and we couldn't score. Then we finally settled into the game and got back in it. I want to take this time to compliment Western Kentucky. One day soon, I hope our program can be like their program. What I mean by that is they have a bunch of tough kids, they fight tough, and they coach tough. They don't have to shoot well every night to win. Matter of fact, they don't. They go off of offensive rebounds, they get to the free throw line, and they guard you. They play a tough man's style of basketball, and that's a tribute to Ray (Harper), his staff, and those players. They shoot 39% from the field tonight, which is not very good. They shoot 34% from the three, which is average, and they shoot 53% from the free throw line, which is not very good, and they win by nine. They've been doing that all year. They've been doing it in our conference with 10 wins. I hope one day we can do that and move forward with our program."
REDSHIRT-JUNIOR GUARD Trency Jackson
On 18-1 start:
"We just tried to come out focused. That's what we did. We came out very focused on the defensive end. We weren't worried about the offensive end. Shots did fall, but we stopped them from scoring. When we held them to one point it really fed us on the offensive end, and we came out with an 18-point start."
On the all-around team contribution:
"I'm very proud with the way everyone stepped up. Everyone was ready when their name was called. I'm very proud of Nigel (Snipes). He came in and gave us big minutes, points, plays and played defense very well. That's where he has been struggling, and he played defense great. I was proud of my whole team tonight."
On what was clicking personally tonight:
"Just knowing my strengths and getting out in transition a lot. I want to give credit to my teammates. They were looking for me a lot tonight. They were giving it to me in transition, and I got it and fed off it."
SOPHOMORE CENTER Daouda Soumaoro
On getting a chance to start:
"I feel great. Coach basically told me to just keep working hard and just work on your defense, and rebounding is one of my strengths. Basically he told me if I rebound for him, he will play me a lot of minutes. So last week we were just working on the defensive end so I was doing a great job, and if I keep working hard on my defense I will have the opportunity to play."
