Chattanooga Basketball - Postgame Quotes
Furman at Chattanooga
McKenzie Arena - Chattanooga, Tenn.
Feb. 13, 2010

Chattanooga Head Coach John Shulman
Opening Statement:
"I thought our kids played their tail-ends off. I thought our kids played hard. They didn't always execute perfect, but after the week we've had, I thought our kids played their tail-ends off. I am proud of their effort. You take free-throw box-outs and a couple prayers that Jordan Miller makes and that is the ballgame. I'm not throwing my guys under the bus. I thought our guys played their tail-ends off. We missed some shots, but I will be thrilled if we play with that effort the rest of the season."

On Furman's shooting:
"It's demoralizing to see that many shots go in near the end of the shot clock after playing the kind of defense we did. But what do you do? I can't ask Jasper Williams to foul him on a three-point shot, can I? I can't ask Keegan Bell to foul him, so what do you do? There are some things that are not in your control as a coach and as a team. The things that we are in control of are our box-outs on free-throws and execution. We can't control if Miller throws up prayers. That's why I thought our kids kept on battling. It isn't easy out there and it isn't easy out there right now. We didn't play perfect and we didn't play great. We got beat. I thought our kids tried and I thought their effort was very good in a difficult situation."

On the next few days:
"We are going to take Sunday and Monday off. It was already planned and designed that way before all of this happened. We will take Sunday and Monday, and I will try to get into my own head and figure some stuff out."

On the new rotation:
"We lost our third and fourth leading scorers. It's tough to find your team on February 13. You try to find your team in November; not in February."

On the approach to the last four games:
"We are going to take two days off, and Tuesday we are going to get back to work. We are going to work our tail-ends off. And we will work our tail-ends off until they make us pack our uniforms up. That's what athletes and competitors do, and that's what we are. So we are going to go back to work and get better."

Sophomore Keegan Bell

On the team's defensive play:
"To be honest with you, it was better. We were much better than we were against Samford. We played hard, scrapped hard and they made some shots, but I wouldn't say that our defense was bad at all. If you go back to the tape, our defense was good. Where we messed up was with rebounding and blocking out at the free throw line. In Division I basketball, people are going to score on you. We didn't come up with a victory or some bounces - here and there were some defensive mess-ups - but we played a lot better than we did against Samford. I was proud of our guys and we fought tonight."

On Furman making difficult shots:
"It was deflating, but then again how many of those are they going to hit. Coach talks about how we do that all the time in practice were we do a 4 on 4 defensive drill. We are their forever and they hit a shot over our hand. Sometimes it is going to happen. Even though it is deflating, there are not many times were you are going to hit shots like that unless you are playing against Kobe Bryant or LeBron James. There were just a few of those tonight. Yes, they are deflating, but we are going to keep defending and doing what we do, and we did that tonight."

On getting back to work:
"Just where we go everyday, just go back to work. It is funny that everybody acts like we are defeated or deflated, and we are not. We go back to work and get better. Coach is doing a great job of getting us prepared. It is really our fault, we are not doing the things that he coaches us everyday. It not his fault, we have to get better. We have to do what we have to do. We have great practices, but when we get to the games, it is like we lose our heads. That is a sign of a young team, but we will get back to work. Coach Shulman does a great job of getting us back to work, and that is what we are going to do." 

On the mistakes:
"It is definitely tough. It is tough to look at all of us. He prepares us so well, and you don't want to disappoint anyone or mess up. It is also when we mess up that we disappoint him, but also everybody else. It is hard to look at everyone and know each of the little mistakes that we all made. It is not just one person but also a group of people. Every single one of us is messing up in some aspect. Yes it is disappointing, but we will get it right. We have four more games to get it right, and we will." 

On preparing for the conference tournament:
"I guess you could say that. We are not waiting for the tournament...we are trying to fight and get better all year. We still want to go out and win these four games. Being a competitor, it is not like we are going to try this out for the tournament and see if it works here. We are just going to try to win and get better. I feel if we can get on a run here and get a little confidence, who knows. We could make history and go in there and win four games in a row with out getting the bye. Obviously, we are not going to get the bye, so that is what we have to do. We have to go out and be scrappy like we have been all year."

Junior Deantre Jefferson

On the offensive output:
"With the guards penetrating, it loosens it up in the post. With Keegan (Bell) running it helps me out a lot. I was able to get some easy layups. Also, feeding off my teammates who gave me the ball, I was able to make some moves."

On preparing for four games in four days:
"I think you have to take it game by game. We have little things that just to get through March that you have to get corrected. One is our rebounding, defense, and contesting every shot. Each game we try to enforce it more and more. It just all builds up to March. Each game we are trying to win, and use our defensive strategies. You are seeing improvement game by game. By March we will be ready, we just have to get those tiny things worked out. Everybody is in there second or third year of hooping. Those knick-knack things need to end."

Sophomore Ricky Taylor

On doing the simple things:
"We didn't do the simple things that we are normally suppose to do. We will mess up one time, and get the ball back and mess up again. This is all because of the simple things that coach talks about everyday in practice since August. He has been talking about the simple things to win games. It came down to the simple things and we didn't make all the simple plays."

On making mistakes:
"We didn't do the simple things that we are normally suppose to do. We will mess up one time, and get the ball back and mess up again. This is all because of the simple things that coach talks about everyday in practice since August. He has been talking about the simple things to win games. It came down to the simple things and we didn't make all the simple plays."

On fighting until the end:
"The next four games we need to play defense to the fullest. We have to take it on ourselves to go out and try to win and try to make them miss a shot. It is not over for us. We are going to fight to the end. One of the main concerns I want to enforce on my teammates is that it isn't over and we are going to fight to the end."