Rider coach Tommy Dempsey after his team's 69-60 loss to La Salle:

Opening statement:

"Never easy to lose, especially at home, but I would say I took more positives from this performance than negatives. I think we were a little hesitant early in the game. We dug ourselves a little bit of a hole, but there was a will, there was a fight, there was a toughness. We competed extremely hard on the glass against a huge, physical basketball team. We had 18 offensive rebounds, they had 10. We were out-rebounded, but part of the reason we got out-rebounded is that we only shot 31 percent. Part of that was their physicality, and that showed up at times, but we brought the fight to them in the second half. We didn't back down even though it certainly looked like they were the better basketball team in the first half. It looked like it was going to be a very hard game for us to win, but we had the ball down two."

Was your performance on the offensive glass in the second half (nine offensive rebounds despite nine fewer missed shots than the first half) a key part of the comeback?

I think the key part of the comeback was the competitiveness of the kids, especially on a night when we had nothing going. We shot 31 percent against a very good team and we were right in it until the end. I think if you had told me we were going to shoot 31 percent tonight I would have thought it would have been a very long night. But again, I thought it was two good teams, two teams that will compete at the top of their leagues, and a tough game to lose.

Talk about Jon Thompson's performance off the bench.

Jon, when he tried to dunk it on (Aaric) Murray, it brought the crowd to life, and Jon plays (great) defense. The reason I left him in the game is, yeah he was bringing energy, but we had a lot of stops in the second half and Jon was a big part of that.

Talk about the play of Ryan Thompson, who fought through a bad start and finished with 16 points a day after almost getting shut out.

"He just continued to play through it tonight. I told him if you end up 3-for-25, I'll take that right now, but let's get you to stay aggressive. I thought he had a big second half and he really looked good. ... He had a nice rhythm. ... I thought it was a team effort. I thought Novar (Gadson) showed a lot of heart tonight. I thought he was one of the more competitive guys in the game. I thought he played at a really high level, and he was one of the toughest guys on the floor. That's what we need him to be."