Chattanooga Mocs Basketball - Postgame Quotes
Georgia State at Chattanooga
Chattanooga, Tenn. - McKenzie Arena
Dec. 30, 2010
Head Coach John Shulman
Opening Statement:
"That is why people get out of coaching. It makes you sick. We scored 76 points at home in our home tournament and can't win the game. That is really poor on our part. We have been guarding, rebounding and decided on a bad night not to guard. This is really disappointing. I hope the kids are disappointing and I hope it steams. Hopefully, we will learn from it."
On changing tendencies to get the team to defend:
"We tried every zone we got. We tried full-court stuff, half-court stuff. We changed the way that we defended ball screens. We just got dominated. We battled. Our effort was good. We battled. We still could not make enough free throws.
"We made every right call offensively. We got great looks at the basket, but you can't rely on making the shot. You can always rely on defending. You can always rely on rebounding."
On hitting 70 percent in the second half:
"I would say that we should have gotten beat by a heck of a lot more if it wasn't for our shooting. I commend our guys for their effort, but....if we can make some free throws, then it is a one-possession game. Even down with 17 seconds to go. You have to get stops. I think we helped them and did a poor job of defending."
"We could not get stops. Whoever Omar [Wattad] was guarding, they either drove on him or Curry made a shot. That is great. I love Omar. He scored 19 points, but probably gave up 30. I love Omar, but we have to get better defensively. He has to get better defensively. The team has to get better defensively. I don't know if we get tricked by the results from the Rinehardt or Montreat games. I am sure they did, they are kids. We did a poor job of guarding last night, but they missed shots, so we thought we got stops defensively. Well, we got tricked."
On holding opponents to 70 as a magic number:
"It is all about guarding. We let our offense dictate everything about us. It is disappointing."
"We get down and we get into a panic. We were down six with 14 minutes to go in the first half and we were in a panic zone. Relax and just play the game. Play in character. I thought that we got completely out of character tonight. Completely out of character."
On Dante Curry making threes tonight:
"He made six last night. Maybe, he should have transferred here instead of Georgia State, since he likes our gym so much. He is a Big East player. [Eric] Buckner is a high-major guy. [Brandon] McGee played at Indiana and Auburn. Curry was at South Florida. Marcus Johnson started at Tennessee and ended up at NC State. They have really good players. They guarded and we scored 76 on a really good defensive team. That is a positive, but I was really disappointed about our defense. I got to look at the tape and maybe it is not as bad as I think it is. Maybe, they made some shots over our hands. I can tell you right now that I think we got better looks than they got. I thought that we got way better shots than they got. Ours rimmed out and theirs rimmed in that is the game of basketball."
On rebounding and defense being a theme:
"I think it is a theme of all good teams. Just try to convince a 20-year old kid that came here to get his game off offensively. That is why you just have to keep on harping on it. It is strange. We get stops and they don't score 69 or more and we win. That isn't offense, that is good defense. Trying to convince them of that every single day is not easy. That is why this is so much fun."
On the team's composure during the last five minutes:
"If we could make a free throw...We did what we are supposed to do. We drove the ball and went to the foul line. You just have to step up and make free throws, period. We kept battling, battling and battling. We made the right plays. Chris [Early] did a nice job of getting offensive boards. It was like that we just kept banging our head against the wall. We tried hard. We never quit. We pop it, pop it and get a wide open look and miss. We would get our hands on it and they would get a ball. They would miss a free throw and get the board. We would go down get a great look and miss. I like that part about us. The game was not won or lost at the end. It was won or lost in the first 35 minutes of the game when you can't guard. We executed great at the end. Got Ricky Taylor a wide open crack at it. We had not run that inbounds play in a long time and ran it this afternoon in walk thru. We executed it perfectly. He was wide open. The ball goes in and we are all heroes, but it didn't. If that did not go in, you can't rely on making a 20 footer. You have to rely on defending and rebounding.
Senior Forward DeAntre Jefferson
On free throw shooting:
"I think they have helped, but free throws are more individual. I got into the gym some during the break and worked on them by myself to correct my form."
On the possibility of winning the game:
"Yes, if we had a few more defensive stops. Offensively we are a pretty good team. We have shown we can score with any team out there. Now it is just playing defense.
On Georgia State's hot shooting:
"I think when a team has a hot shooting night, you have to change how you are guarding a few people. If we had just kept broke down, and kept everyone stable we would have won this game."
On the team's scheme tonight:
"At the end of the day we had to get out on shooters, especially (Dante) Curry. When we went into zone, we didn't step out on shooters, which is what zones are made for. He mad two or three three's from that one spot in the corner."
On giving up 70 or more points:
"If a team breaks 70 or 80 points, they have a good chance to win and the other team isn't playing any defense. Especially for us, if we have a chance to hold a team under 70, we have a great chance to win.
Junior Guard Keegan Bell
On the start of the game:
"We just didn't come out with the energy or focus we needed too. When you play good teams, you can't come out and play flat. We let our shots dictate our game. When you don't make shots you aren't going to win.
On the final few minutes:
"We kept battling. When they missed free throws we didn't capitalize on the other end. We got the shots we wanted to, but they didn't go in."
On playing two non-Division I schools back-to-back:
"I think the difference is the speed and the big guys. The previous two games they had one big man, but tonight we played against really big athletic guys. They just disrupted our shots a little bit more."
On opponents scoring more than 70:
"We just gave up to many points. When you let teams start to get into the 70s and 80s, you have to keep answering. Tonight we kept going back and forth and forcing shots instead of going naturally. It is hard to get a good rhythm going offensively.
Georgia State Head Coach Rod Barnes
On the game:
"Not just because we won, it was a great tournament to come to. It allowed us to play against some really good competition. Our guys gave some great effort over the last two days, and as a result we got two wins. We also shot the ball a lot better than we had been. Dante Curry, who got tournament MVP, was really special this weekend. He had been shooting the ball well in practice. We gave him the opportunity to start tonight because Jihad Ali, our second leading scoring was out with an injury. It was a hard fought game tonight. We got off to a good start, but we just couldn't put them away. I really like Chattanooga's team. I think they have a chance to do special things in their conference. We played other teams in their league, and there is no question in my mind that they are one of the better ones."
On Jihad Ali and Dante Curry:
"Ali had surgery done this summer, but I don't think that was the injury. He pulled something in the back of his leg. He did it in about two minutes into the first game against Texas A&M - Corpus Christi. Curry ahs been playing some. He is a senior and has been around. We have been waiting for him to play the way he did this weekend. What a great time for him to step it up. Hopefully Ali will be back, but we are not sure right now."
On the team's shooting:
"You shoot 70 percent you win. I said if your team can score 72 our defense is good enough to beat anyone. It took a whole lot more than that tonight. We just have to keep getting better defensively. I am sitting over on the bench seeing us make every shot. I am looking at the scoreboard and we are up by four points, six points. I told the guys we have to get a stop, but it we just couldn't get one. We responded and made some shots. If we didn't shoot it well, we didn't have a chance to win the game."
On your preparation for the game:
"We played so many different type of teams. It helped us to prepare for the game. WE played against match-up zone, 2-3 zone. We played against a lot of different teams, which is unusual because I like to played teams that plays man-to-man. We struggled last year in conference against zone teams, so we played a lot of zone teams early this year to prepare for conference play. It helped us tonight, because our guys knew what was going on, and knew exactly what we wanted to do because we had sent he defenses before."
