Chattanooga Basketball - Postgame Quotes
Davidson at Chattanooga
McKenzie Arena - Chattanooga, Tenn.
Feb. 22, 2010

Head Coach John Shulman
Opening Statement:
“It's been a long couple of weeks and a long February. To lose five in a row and have to come back and have to face Bob McKillop's Davidson team, things didn't look good for the home team. I thought we played really good in the first half. I thought it was eerily similar to the Furman game. We played good and executed great, but we couldn't make shots. To come back in the second half, keep them off the foul line and rebound the ball makes this an awfully good win for a team struggling with confidence. I am pleased.”

On Ty Patterson:
“Ty has had a good statistical year. It's the senior's year and Ty had to be the lone senior, so however we do is on Ty. I hate to do that, but it's on Ty. He has been up and down with our team. I had a long talk with him yesterday and asked him how he wanted the season to end. I told him if he wanted to win that he would have to play with way more effort than he had been playing with. He did that tonight.”

On the difference between the last five games and tonight's game:
“We dug a little deeper tonight. I told them they had to quit looking at the scoreboard. I need to look up at the score and the team needs to worry about the possession. I told them, 'I will control the score, you play,' and we played. We didn't give them the chance to get back in it and we made winning plays tonight. Ty busting his tail to get an offensive rebound, getting fouled, going to the line and hitting two free-throws was the game winning play. We just hadn't been making winning plays. Winning plays are not three-pointers going in the bucket. Winning plays are box outs, charges, defensive stops and big rebounds. Jeremy Saffore getting a block and getting the ball is a winning play. Winning plays aren't in the stat sheet. The win is in the stat sheet.”

Senior Ty Patterson<br>On snapping the losing streak:
"It was great, it is always good to get a win after we've been down for so long. Then to beat Davidson – I don't remember the last time we beat Davidson."

On being the only senior:
"It is weird being the only senior, but I'm just glad we won. It's always good to go out winning on my last home game, but I'm more happy for the team."

On the key to tonight's win:
"The defensive end. If we defend and rebound, we're always going to have a chance to win."

On the pressure of being the lone senior:
There wasn't pressure, it was just the next game. We go out every game trying to win. We go out there and listen to coach and believe we're going to win. We can't feel down on ourselves just because we lose and if we keep doing what we're doing we have a great chance to win every night."

Ricky Taylor
On snapping the losing streak:
"I think we just finally came together. We were just tired of losing. I'm just proud of our team for the big accomplishment tonight and I think we just played to win. We just sacrificed ourselves and competed the whole 40 minutes."

On everyone coming together:
"In the back of my mind, I always knew we were going to be a special team. If we just all connect for the forty minutes, we're going to be a special team come tournament time."

On the significance of this game:
"I think it was one of the best [games]. It was Ty's last one and he's been my roommate, so this is the best one all season."

On what needs to be done going forward:
"Just believe from our past experiences, we're learning. We're desperate to win. We pulled it out tonight."

Sophomore Keegan Bell
On what this win means:
"We just wanted to be aggressive. We came into this game a very confident basketball team. We expected everyone to doubt us and think that we're out, but we have a chance to do something special. We believe it. As long as we stay that confident and stay together, we have the chance to do special things. This year is not over at all."

On the difference between this game and the last five:
"More confident. I thought we learned from the Samford experience. We go back to practice and we learn from this stuff. The biggest difference was our inside prescence. Jeremy Saffore has got to be one of the players of the game. He was a man in there, getting rebounds. He picked up his game to a big-time level. Just getting fouled and getting to the rim, that was a big focus for us."

On the defensive play:
"I thought we got after it a lot the whole game. McKillop is a really good player and he hit some of those deep ones. And we kind of messed up on some things, but we want guys shooting deep ones with hands in their face. It's hard for those to keep going in all game. I felt all game we were there. Overall it was a really good effort the entire game."

On how bad the team needed this win:
"I wouldn't say desperate, but we were hungry. We just had a lot of passion, a lot of juice. We wanted to do it for Ty and we wanted to do it for this basketball team and coach Shulman. We wanted to show people we know how to play basketball the Chattanooga way."

Head Coach Bobby McKillop
On Chattanooga:
"Chattanooga played an outstanding ballgame tonight, considering they had lost a number of games in a row. Ty Patterson was particularly impressive here on senior night. It's tough playing a team that shoots as well as Chattanooga."

On Chattanooga's second half:
"In the second half they shot significantly better than they did in the first half. Once they got the lead back they played with a lot more rhythm. They made some though shots. Ricky Taylor and Ty Patterson both made some very difficult shots."

On the expectations of Chattanooga:
"We were not shocked. Our players understand and respect UTC. They know what the tradition is here and they know the talent this team has. We are never surprised when they come out and play well."