Chattanooga Basketball - Postgame Quotes
Samford at Chattanooga
McKenzie Arena - Chattanooga, Tenn.
Feb. 10, 2010    

Head Coach John Shulman
On the game:
"It's been a long couple of days. I knew before the start of the game we were funky. We started with no confidence. They shot the ball great and were very difficult to guard. We started the game with no confidence, got back in it, but we just didn't have it. We had no energy and we had no confidence. We looked like a team that hass had enough distractions. That's all we've had is distraction after distraction. I am disappointed in the two young men's decisions, but as long as I am in charge, I have to make them men accountable for their actions. It hurts our basketball team, but I am sorry. I guess when you go to two NCAA tournaments in the past five years then you must have a pretty good life, and so I guess I am getting what I deserve."

On the team and suspensions:
"I told the team about the suspensions Monday evening. We've had one thing after another and we looked broken tonight. Absolutely broken and shattered. We're going to take tomorrow off, which was unplanned, and try to get our brains back. I am about sick and tired of saying 'you will find out what you're made out of when you're down' because I didn't like what I saw tonight."

On Samford:
"They are offensively gifted. They are good at what they do and they are very difficult to guard, and I have always said they are very underrated defensively. You're going to have to make some shots against them and you're going to have to make the offensive boards against them. You have no driving lanes. It's not a secret. We beat them 35-12 off the glass in the semi-finals of the tournament last year, and tonight we got beat 39-25. They showed our weaknesses tonight, but we are broken."

On McKeither and Odem's return:
"I need some time to think. I am angry at them, and you don't think really well when you're mad. I need to get through my anger so I can look at the situation, but, good or bad, we're going to look back on this and we are all going to learn from it. That's what life lessons are for. I hope they feel bad so they make better decisions next time. Hopefully they learn, grow and become better citizens and better people. If they do, it's well worth it."

Sophomore Ricky Taylor
On the game:
"It felt like we were down a lot. It felt like we put our heads down and didn't fight for 40 minutes. I know we have a great team, and we aren't worried about it. We just have to come back in the next game and fight."

On not having enough energy:
"I believe we gave it our all. We are a team that is going to fight to the end, and tonight wasn't our night. We couldn't make shots and didn't have the energy like we usually do. We just need that edge of energy and we didn't get that tonight."

On getting energy:
"I believe just everybody is coming together as one. With everybody being on the same page and knowing what is about to happen, talking on defense, and running the right plays. Once we get together as one, we will have the energy that we need."

Sophomore Keegan Bell
On the game:
"We just give it our all sometimes and sometimes it doesn't work. Give credit to Samford, they shot the ball great and ran that crazy offense. We slipped up three games in a row now, and it is just a frustrating defeat. We will get it back and get better."

On why Chattanooga lost:
"The Princeton offense and the stuff they run was really great and hard to guard. When they were making shots like they were, it makes it tough. We definitely game them some stuff. We had assignments that we were suppose to switch on things, and we didn't do a good job with that. Our mental ability of the game was not there tonight. They knocked down their shots and out played us by far tonight."

On the struggles:
"It is hard to say. Maybe it was the two game losing streak we had coming off the road.  We have been up, down, and all around. We have to find our consistency and it is going to be tough until we find that consistency."

On not scoring on the inside:
"I think it was a mixture of them doubling a lot. Right when we through it down there, they got down there. It made the buckets tougher. Sometimes the shots don't go in like tonight when some our threes were going in, but most of them were not. That is basketball sometimes, and that is frustrating. You have those games sometimes and unfortunately that was us tonight."

On how it feels to struggle:
"It is tough. You can't lie and say that it doesn't hurt or burn; it stings. It is Ty Patterson's senior season and we all want to play and fight for him. When we have stuff like this, it is more of a bitter sting. You can't stay down this is conference play. We are turning around and going to have to play a good Furman team Saturday. We have to be ready to play. We can't sulk on this too much. We have to go back to work, put the hardhats on, go to practice, and believe in each other. When we believe in each other, we are a great team. Don't count us out just because we are struggling right now. We have five games to go and we are going to figure it out and be the Chattanooga basketball team that we know that we can be.

Ty Patterson
On the slow starts:
"I think we go out and wait to see how the game goes before we make a play on defensive end to get us going on offense. We also just sat back and waited to see what the other team did and we can't do that. We saw that happen tonight."

On no energy:
"We came out with no urgency or energy on the defensive end, and we can't do that against good teams. We made to many mental mistakes."