Diplomats Return Nation's Fourth Place Team

Box Score

SALEM, Va. - The Franklin & Marshall men's basketball team will be coming home with the fourth-place trophy to end their season at the NCAA Championships, falling to Guilford 79-67 in the consolation game on Saturday at the Salem Civic Center.

The Quakers (25-6) had four players in double figures, led by Clay Henson's game-high 20 points and Tyler Sanborn's double double with 14 points and 17 rebounds to wrap up their best campaign since 1972-73 with a national third place finish. Henson set the program's career three-point record today with six from beyond the arc this afternoon.

"I'm really proud of our team," said head coach Glenn Robinson said afterwards. "It was so difficult to have all of the emotion involved, coming here to play in a national championship, and play the kind of game we played against Stockton last night."

James McNally paced the Diplomats (26-7) with 18 points and was named to the NCAA All-Tournament Team. D3Hoops.com Rookie of the Year Georgia Milligan followed with 15 points.

Both teams came into the game wanting to go out on top. Early in the first half, Sal Salvati drained a triple and Milligan scored in the paint for a 19-18 lead. Henson's first three pointer of the day sparked a 13-2 run by Guilford to take the lead that would not relinquish.

The Quakers took a nine-point lead into the second half, but F&M fought back and got within one at 58-57. Senior Danny Selig contributed five straight points to start the comeback and four more at the end to collect nine points over seven minutes of work.

The Diplomats forced five turnovers and held Guilford to three-of-11 field-goal shooting in that time. Two Selig free throws capped the rally and made the score 58-57.

Rhett Bonner tallied the next five points to help the Quakers start pulling away again. Guilford went 10-for-10 from the charity stripe in the final 2:59 of the game to secure its 13^th win in 15 games by making all 10 free throws in the final three minutes.

Anthony Brooks scored six of his eight second-half points in the last five minutes of the game, knocking down the Diplomats only three-pointer at the one-minute mark.

Guilford held the advantage on the glass 47-30, the largest margin of rebounds against F&M this season. The Diplomats shot 43.8 percent from the floor and the Quakers were not far behind with 42.6 percent.

2009 NCAA Division III Men'sBasketball

National Consolation Game - Formal Press Conference Transcript

FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL HEAD COACH- GLENN ROBINSON

Initial Statement

First of all, I'm really proud of our team.  It was so difficult to have all of the emotion involved, coming here to play in a National Championship and play the kind of game we played against Stockton last night.  That was a physical and emotional effort that we expended and then to come back on such a short turnaround. I'm sure Guilford is facing the exact same challenge, but that was very tough. Of course Clay Scovill, one of our starters was unable to play at all because of his ankle, but we are really proud of the team for getting ready to play and coming out and playing, making such a close game out of it. We are just proud of them for the year that they had and for how far ahead of the predictions they came out.

GUILFORD HEAD COACH- TOM PALOMBO

Initial Statement

First of all, I would like to congratulate Franklin and Marshall.  They played really hard. I thought it was a well-played college game, both teams really laid it out there. I'm proud of our guys for how hard they played today.  We really wanted to win this game. This game meant a lot to us. Obviously we were disappointed yesterday, in not having the chance to play for a National Championship, but our guys were fired up today and played with a lot of energy. We really wanted it today, and I thought we showed that out there on the court.

Just your general impression of the consolation game and participating today having the opportunity to play today?

It was awesome. Honestly I have talked beforehand about the consolation game, it is another game, another chance to play. We didn't care if they are keeping score, if there are referees, and there are fans, we are going to try to win. I thought Franklin and Marshall did the same thing, I thought our guys were disappointed this morning and I was a little concerned as we were going through the scout that there was still a little distraction from yesterday. But once the game started, we played hard, and we won. We wanted today bad, we wanted to get it done. It has been a long journey and we just got done talking about it- there's only two teams walking out of here at the NCAA Tournament winning their last game, and we are one of them and we are proud of that.