Chattanooga Men's Basketball - Postgame Quotes
Chattanooga 58, UNC Greensboro 45
McKenzie Arena - Chattanooga, Tenn.
Jan. 11, 2010
Chattanooga Head Coach John Shulman
Opening Statement:
"My fear was that we were going to come out a little flat. We came out just a slight bit flat. We didn't panic. We didn't go crazy at half. It was very calm, cool and collected to tell you the truth. We got back to basics and defended. You can't go on that type of run if you don't defend. We defended. I think the only basket that we gave up is when the ball hit Tony Green, the official, who was out of bounds. That was the only bucket that we gave up for a long time. I tried to explain to them at half. It is not about your shots going in. It is about defending and rebounding. If you defend and rebound, then you give yourself a chance. We gave ourselves a chance. We gave up 45 points and 25 percent shooting and 20 percent from the three point line. We are playing without fouling. We are getting this thing figured out and a new guys steps up every night. If you told me that Chris Early would play like that yesterday in practice. When he spent the last 30 minutes sitting on a chair by himself because he was making me nauseous. I do not understand. That is why you don't understand 19 and 20 year old kids."
On the start of the second half:
"We felt like if we could go up in the first five minutes of the second half. It was a vital time. We talked about it. We weren't in a panic at half. We played as poorly as we could have played and we were down six. I thought we should have been down 18. We were only down six. We stayed in it for whatever reason."
"You go on that type of run and that type of run is fun to go on. You don't go on that type of run if your not getting stops defensively. If you score every time and they score every time, then there is no run. Everybody looks at your made shots, but you also made stops. Making shots is one thing. If you don't get stops, then that is not a run. I look at things a little bit different then everybody else in the world."
On cutting the turnovers down:
"They didn't double as we thought they would. We worked a heck of a lot on that in the last two or three days. I think that one of the reasons that we were a little flat is that everyone else was playing games and we were sitting there in the gym practicing. I told them that we have 16 games left. After this week, we will only have 13 left. So don't give me that we just don't have it tonight. Maybe that is in April when you are not playing anymore. You only have 16 of these games. You better have it. If you don't have it, then you better find it and we found it in the second half."
On how rough the first half was:
"I was just glad that we got into double figures to tell you the truth. I told the officials that you could put it (the half) on video and you could probably sell it at a clinic. It was dreadful, but we were in it. You play like that, you should probably be down 18, 19 or 20 points, but we were in it. It was not a blast job [at halftime]. It was calm, cool and guys the game should be over and it is not. Let's just do what we do and get one stop at a time, then we will be in good shape."
On the team's biggest strength:
"That is tough one there. We are getting better defensively, but I am not going to tell you that we are a good defensive team. We are getting better on the glass, but I am not going to tell you that. I would say that we shoot the ball well, then we go 2-for-13 from the three point line. I guess finding a way to win, scrappyness."
"With Dante Harvey getting ready to get back, he should play Thursday and Troy Cage should be playing next week. I would just say that we are going to have great depth and I don't know who is going to bring it. JO [Josh Odem] last Wednesday night looked like the freshman of the year in the Southern Conference, not doubt. He goes on the road and has 22. Tonight, he looked like a junior high player. Chris Early has been dreadful, but tonight he looked like the guy that was supposed to go to Oklahoma. It can drive you crazy because we are not real consistent. It can be very effective with the other coaches though because you have no idea who to prepare for against our team. If I don't know, then they won't know. I do know that.
Junior Deantre Jefferson:
On coming together in the second half:
"We're more of a team. Once, we became more of a team it helps my play. We're sharing the ball. We kind of know what everybody's doing and I really like playing like that."
Sophomore Keegan Bell:
On Ty Patterson's shooting:
"Ty has been carrying us a lot this year. Ty is just a special player. When he goes off and hits big threes for us, especially when we are struggling to score, it gets our team energized and gets us in a flow. Him making those threes changed the entire game for us.
On what Coach Shulman said to the team at halftime:
"Coach was disappointed [at half]. He said it was probably the worst half of basketball we had ever played at Chattanooga. He said our demeanor was down, our body language was low and he just challenged us to pick it up. When we start playing together and playing for each other. Everyone was struggling in the first half. In the second half, we tried to come out and pick each other up and I think that definitely helped."
On the poor shooting in the first half:
"Basketball is an ugly game. Sometimes shots just don't go in. We're a good shooting team, but you're not always going to shoot the ball well and that's why coach prides this team on defending and rebounding. We missed a lot early but we just kept shooting. Coach said it, we're just a scrappy team and I agree with him there. It's not always pretty, but we just try and find a way to get it done."
On shooting the ball well in the second half:
"I think we are a good shooting team, I think that's kind of an identity for us. Teams are starting to deny us, so we just have to get used to that. We're a scrappy/shooting team. Just them denying us, it leaves an open lane. All of a sudden we start proving we can shoot the ball and we have to go back inside. Then getting some easy buckets gets us some open looks. Coach really wanted us to throw the ball inside a lot tonight. They are spreading us out, but we didn't really know what they would do to start out, but coach called a timeout and told us to get the ball inside."
On Coach Shulman getting his 100th victory:
"On behalf of the team we want to congratulate coach Shulman. He's like a second father to me, and he's the reason I came here. He's a wonderful coach and he's done some great things here. We have a special bond with coach Shulman. In every players top five [reasons for coming here] is coach Shulman."
Senior Ty Patterson
On stepping up and being a leader tonight:
"Coach always says if I do something the team is going to follow. So I go out there and try and to my best to get things going. Coach tells me day in day out to stay at the top of my game because the team will follow me. I have to keep playing through it and the team will follow."
UNC Greensboro Head Coach Mike Dement
Opening Statement:
"Those guys have not played in awhile, so they were missing a lot of shots early. Then, they got their legs. They got their rhythm going in the second half. Patterson just like that boom, boom, boom breaks it open. He gets it [shot] off so quickly with good size. He is a great player. If he is going to shoot it like that he really stretches them [the defense] We had good shots, but just missed them. I think the other day we had six guys in double figures and we scored 88 points. We scored 48 in the first half. Then tonight we don't score. You have to stick it in the hole a little bit when you have the opportunities that we had. We attacked pretty good. They have bigger people inside. We got a lot of offensive rebounds and we couldn't do anything with it. They just stepped up and knocked down shots. They got us spread out a little bit. Then, they took it off the dribble."
On grabbing 18 offensive rebounds:
"We did not do a lot with it though. We are getting a lot of offensive rebounds, but if you don't get it in the hole when you are not shooting it. There is a reason that there are 18 offensive rebounds too. We are missing a lot of shots. Ben Stywall goes after it hard and Brandon Evans goes after it hard, but then when Brandon is getting it in there. He is attacking some really big people and he can't get it [the shot] off. Ben was the same way. We kicked it out a couple of times, but we just missed the shot. If we could knock those down, then that would make them even more valuable. We had to spread out defensively once they started hitting shots. Once the hit a couple of shots, they ran really well and hard to get more."
On missing second half shots:
"I thought that we had some pretty good looks as good as theirs. Early steps out as a big forward, he is a big forward. I know he takes the three. Then, he goes out and hits two of them. I have noticed some of the other teams in the league have that forward who steps out and shoots three point shots. That makes it very difficult to guard."
On letting the game get away a little bit late in the first half:
"We were up nine at one point, maybe a little more. The same thing kind of happened where we stopped taking the shot or making the play or making shots that we had made. They cut it down to six. It was our ball at half and they came back. You could tell that we played Thursday, Saturday and Monday. We are in that stretch with five games in 10 days and we are in that stretch. We looked like we played three games in five days. We played hard in the first half defensively man-to-man, but that kind of effort takes it out of us. It looked like it offensively in the second half."
