NCAA Division I Men’s Semifinals – Quotes From Coaches
Loyola – Coach Charley Toomey:
First, I want to congratulate North Carolina for a great game today. They’re a terrific team and playing with so much emotion right now. I think that caught us off guard, the speed of the game.
And like I said to my team, I asked them to show me their heart at halftime. And I thought they did.
North Carolina – Coach Joe Breshci:
We are so thrilled and excited to be here and have the opportunity on Monday to compete for a national championship.
But I think more importantly it’s a credit to these young men who have worked so hard all year and have battled through early woes in the season and to be in this position is certainly magnificent on their part.
And like we’ve always approached every game, it’s really just another game. And we need to bring that energy and emotion as we brought certainly the last half of the season.
Brown – Coach Lars Tiffany:
This is a large room. This is a little different than a normal press conference. So thank you all for being here, and sorry for making you wait. Part of the delay was it was some tears in the locker room. Certainly some smiles. Cherishing this team.
Bottom line, we just didn’t want this thing to ever end. We knew it had to end at some point this weekend. But we’ve had so much fun playing. And how much fun was that today? What a riot that was.
And two really good teams going toe to toe. They jump out to the 4-1 lead, we come swinging back to get the next four. Then from there it was back and forth, back and forth.
Maryland did a phenomenal job not letting us get underneath their skin. We’re really good at making teams uncomfortable. And while we may have made Maryland a little uncomfortable here and there, they kept their poise and then they built that lead.
And so I give a lot of tribute to John Tillman and his staff and his men. But this group of men that we coach here at Brown University, we talk about it all the time: It’s forget the scoreboard. Next play.
And that’s a nice thing to say as a coach, and it’s something — it sounds good, but they’ve got to believe it. And these men, the men of Brown lacrosse absolutely believe it, next play here we go.
But last week no Dylan Molloy, next man up, trust the system. There’s a confidence of our men that we can lose one of the best players in the country and still make plays and get a win over Navy and come out here today and play at such a high level, though No. 4 isn’t at full strength.
I love this team. I use that word not haphazardly. The group, the effort, the commitment, you know, everyone works hard, but there’s something different about this team, the emotional side of things.
I also want to make note of Dylan’s injury. He’s one of the toughest men to ever be, put a lacrosse helmet on, to play this game with a broken foot. A Jones fracture, the fifth metatarsal, is phenomenally heroic.
I believe that there’s never been a stronger effort put out there by an athlete and training staff, Beth Conroy and Mike Pimentel, endless hours Dylan was in the training room eight hours a day. Delivering him Chipotle to him so he didn’t have to leave. He did everything asked of him. He was in a pool here in Philadelphia trying to get the flexibility, keep the swelling down, just icing, constantly around the clock.
It was just an amazing effort by him and training staff and Dr. Owens who flew down from Providence to provide the lidocaine, provide the shot so Dylan could do what he could do out there.
The man to my left, Jack Kelly, obviously the first half we were giving up too good of shots, too good of looks, and what a great second half Jack Kelly stepped up and did. When the Maryland team was starting to assert their will, gain confidence, this Brown team tries double picks, we’re aggressive, trying to chop people, and they endured.
I mentioned that earlier I give them credit for not letting us get too deep underneath their skin. There was Jack Kelly keeping the score close enough, close enough, and allow us to make that really heartwarming and most proud moment to come back from those four down and just keep believing, next play, don’t worry about the scoreboard, next play.
Maryland – Coach John Tillman:
bviously very proud of our team to get a win in the semifinals and have a chance to play on Memorial Day. I thought they showed a lot of heart and grit today against a really good team.
That game could have gone either way. I think you’ve got to give Brown a whole lot of credit for being down four goals and coming back and tying the thing and almost winning it. And I can’t say enough about Brown and their program and their team and what Lars Tiffany and staff have done.
They were outstanding today. It’s a shame that either team had to lose and I’ve certainly been on both sides of that. But certainly proud of our guys.
It wasn’t a work of art. I was very proud of the fact that late in the game, when things weren’t going well, the leadership, a lot of our older players including these three was very positive.
The late timeouts very positive, hey, we’re going to find a way, figure it out like they’ve done all year. It’s a credit to them. So certainly thankful for three more days together.
It’s a pretty special group and we’re going to do our very best to try to prep up and play an outstanding Carolina team on Monday.
