Battle of the Bronx: Quotes From Jeff Neubauer

Opening statement:
“First of all, I want to give all the credit to Manhattan. They certainly did stick with it, and when I say that, they’ve done that all year. They’ve been in some tight games, they’ve been down in double figures at Elon, they won the game. They really competed well at Rhode Island, they didn’t end up winning, but another game where they were behind and they stayed with it. We knew it was going to be a 40-minute game — it usually is when you play a game like this, two local schools — and Manhattan deserved to win.”

On Antwon Portley’s two missed free throws in overtime:
“AP has made a lot of free throws in his life. Free throw shooting has been a focus of ours here the last month, and I certainly didn’t expect him to miss both, but there were a lot of plays like that throughout the game that one little thing here or there can alter the end of the game.”

On Fordham’s effort against Manhattan's pressure defense:
“Valuing the ball against their pressure is very important, and that one turnover we had that resulted in an easy layup, that can be the difference. Now with that being said, if you look at it from the flip side, we actually had ten steals, but we didn’t turn them into points. If you’re going to value the ball and take care of it, then you can win that way. If you’re going to steal it — like we had ten steals — and turn it into more than twelve points, that’s another way to win.”

On Fordham’s defensive effort and what it means moving forward:
“Our defense has been very good this year, there’s no question, and again, our defense was very good today. With that being said, I certainly did not put our guys in a good position offensively. Manhattan’s defense has been consistent, not just this year, but as long as Steve has been there, and it was tough to attack today.”

On Erten Gazi and what he brings to the table:
“Erten’s probably the one guy that, offensively, played well or did some things that really helped us. The fact that he is strong and physical — he can go inside, he also made threes today — he’s flexible. He can do it in many ways.”

On not being able to consistently work the basketball inside:
“Well, I do think those guys did have opportunities, maybe not the same opportunities that they would have against man-to-man, but I think they had opportunities around the rim. Obviously, Manhattan does have physical defenders, but we certainly didn’t get enough production from our interior guys.”

On Manhattan's game-winning possession and its similarity to how Fordham won last year’s game against the Jaspers:
“I don’t know that they were trying to go to (Tyler) Reynolds, I don’t know what Steve said, maybe they were, but he is a cold-blooded shooter, so he doesn’t need much time to get it off. I think we were probably pretty close to him, but he is a cold-blooded shooter and he stuck one in.”

“I thought about that here in the last ten minutes or so. The difference is we were ahead in that game the entire way until that last possession with about a minute left, so again, we were ahead this entire time as well. But you’re right, it came down to a last-second shot.”

On strategy in the final seconds after calling a timeout:
“We did have three options there on that last play, and 3.2 (seconds) is plenty of time, 3.2 is a ton of time from where the ball is there on a side-out. I don’t know about the foul or not foul, that’s not my job, but we did have three options on that last play. I don’t know that we got a good shot. That’s not the shot we were trying to get, but we can do better.”