courtesy of Jack Alden

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"It's unfortunate. I think our kids fought awfully hard, but Ball State made the plays at the end there. Down three and they make a three. Then we come down and thought we had one wide open, and the ball slipped out of Aaron's hands. Then they go down and Aaron slips and falls, the guy takes it to the basket and makes the play. You have to congratulate them. Again, they made more plays down the stretch, we didn't make as many as we'd like. It was difficult to put things together out there today, but you've got to overcome a lot of things in the game of basketball, and we didn't overcome all of them today. "We'd get a little bit of a margin -- three or four or something like that -- and twice in a row we had really good shots. One time it was a four-point game and we had a dead layup and missed it, then they come down and make a three. It was really that kind of afternoon. I thought we were struggling all day. "Drew fought his heart out all afternoon. He had four or five right at the rim that he missed, plus two or three that he was getting ready to go up and threw it out of bounds or it slipped out of bounds. We were trying to go to him on that last play. We had it set up, but Aaron didn't think he could get the ball to him. We swung it around and got Kirk coming off a screen. He wasn't open, but he's the one who found Aaron in the corner. But we were trying to go to Drew on that play. "(Losses by three of the top five teams already) is a sign of what college basketball is. It doesn't make it any easier for us, but that's what college basketball is nowadays. And again, we have to congratulate Ball State. They did some great things."

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