Postgame Quotes
Elon at Chattanooga
McKenzie Arena
Chattanooga, Tenn.
Jan. 29, 2011
Chattanoga Head Coach John Shulman
Opening Statement:
"It is a pain every time that you play Elon. You have to understand how good and well coached they are. Coming off a double overtime game, we knew that emotionally we were zombies. It was important for the team and I that Legends Weekend was tonight and look the part. When we were out there, we looked the part. We made it interesting I will say that. I think that it is good for concessions. It is good for the crowd. We make it really interesting and everybody stays in the game. We have had two at home like this and if we are going to go where we want to go, then we have to do it and we did it. Everybody stepped up and got enough stops. When they are in front of me and I can control them a little bit I think that we are alright defensively. When they get away from me, it is like a vacation down there. It's a Chattanooga vacation. They get down there and talk amongst themselves. We don't guard anybody in the second half. I am very pleased to get a win."
On DeAntre Jefferson piling up the rebounds in the second half:
"I think he only played seven minutes in the first half. We needed a Big D type effort from him.
"I firmly believe that our team is very difficult to beat. Everybody has to contribute on a team. I think Dontay Hampton is contributing to make our team better. Jahmal Burroughs, I think had five offensive rebounds in the first half and had eight total. Big D and everybody has to contribute for our team. If you are just playing five guys, then everyone else gets bored. I don't think that anybody is board on our team."
On protecting home court:
"We talked about at the half in making a statement. We talked about last half about making a statement against Greensboro. We are not that good yet. To make a statement to the rest of the league, you go out there and whip Elon's tail. We are getting better I think. We understood who [Drew] Spradlin was and let him get his game off in the second half. Credit them and their system because they are very difficult to guard if you don't do certain things on ball screens with Chris Long, then he gets his game off. If you do that, then Spradlin gets his game off. They have good players. We also understand that if we don't take care of business at home, then you have no prayer."
On giving up big leads:
"I think that you have to learn and mature. I don't know that we know how to handle a lead. How you handle a lead. You have to punch them in the face on the defensive end. You have to keep getting stops. I don't know if we let up. I think the other night we let up. Tonight, their execution was better on a few things and we had to change up. We did a very good job of changing up how we were guarding ball screens. We changed up three or four different ways in the last eight-to-nine minutes. I think that it really helped us in keeping them a little off balance. We had some really strange matchups because we knew that if we switched the first ball screen, then they were going to put [Scott] Grable on Keegan [Bell]. At that moment, I would have killed for them to score a two pointer. I was just sick of seeing Spradlin make threes."
On getting better:
"Hopefully, we can get better defensively. We have shown flashes that we are okay defensively. I don't think that we are peaking. Omar [Wattad] has kind of been in la la land a little bit. We need Omar to get back. Now, he is getting a chance to get some rest for his back in the next two days. We have not had that opportunity. I think our ceiling is much higher than where we are playing at this moment."
Junior Chris Early
On the poise the team had after they tied it:
"Coach told us teams are going to take their punches, but we have to fight back and weather the storm. We did that and have two straight victories."
On the ceiling for this team?
"I do not believe we have hit our peak yet. We are still having problems defensively and have not performed offensively well at times either. The perimeter players for the opponent are getting a lot of three's off on us and making quite a few. We have to be more competitive out there and guard the three point line better.
On your game coming along and hitting your stride:
"I think I am being more patient, not forcing tough shots and not rushing myself. I am letting the game come to me. My teammates are giving me the ball when I am in good position.
On guarding Chris Long:
I am very familiar with Chris long; as I played him in high school a few times back in West Virginia. I know his game and I know his tendencies. Coach tells us defensively it is all want to so I believe I can guard players like Chris Long who are smaller than me. I just have to keep the guy in front of me and use my athleticism.
On Ricky Taylor's dunk:
"He planned on getting us a dunk during this year." "After the game he said, "I told you all I was going to get my dunk."
Junior Omar Wattad
On the injury you have and the extent of it:
"It is my SI joint - it came from a hip injury earlier on the year. I just have to fight through it. I am a competitor so I will be out there playing through the pain. I have been getting deep tissue massages, rehab from the trainer, a shot from the trainer. The last three games, it has been killing me, but tonight I made a conscientious effort on warming up better and really getting loose. It felt better tonight."
On summarizing tonight:
"I thought it was a good team effort, we were unselfish and had good ball movement. I think for the most part we had a good defensive effort as well. The goal is to hold them under 69 points, and we did not do that, but it is what it is. We got the "W."
On protecting home court:
"It is important to protect home court especially in conference. I take every game the same; home or away.
On the fatigue a factor:
"I was not fatigued, I can only speak for myself. We have 4-5 days before Georgia Southern."
On putting teams away better:
"There is no one answer. They had a big run, we went on a run. I could not tell you the formula to hold onto leads better."
On there beigns something you did different form Thursday's game?
The other night for UNCG, Evans started draining tough 3's and tonight Long hit some big three's. Good players' make big plays. However, we won by nine and stayed calm.
Head Coach Matt Matheny
Opening Statement:
"We dug ourselves a pretty big hole in the first half. It was a 15-point spread that actually could have been worse than that. I am encouraged by the way our players came out of the locker room at halftime. I thought that we started the second half very well and had some really good stretches in the second half of really good basketball. We made it a much more competitive game in the second half something that we will be able to build on."
On losing the game:
"It is tough. We spent a lot of energy getting ourselves back in the game. I think we had the ball one time with a tie score. I felt like we got a pretty good look on that possession, but we expended a lot of energy. When we tied it and had that opportunity. The way I remember it is that Chattanooga went on a 6-0 run and that was really tough to recover from. It was a pretty big blow to our efforts. I thought that we were competitive till the end of the game. We did expend a lot of energy to get back and just could not get over the hump."
On the inconsistency:
"It reared its ugly head quite a bit in the first half. We had some really good performances from our veterans and Chris Long is a great quarterback. He had another all-conference type performance today. As a coach, I love having him run our show. As a team, we have to be more consistent. I just felt like we gave up too many offensive rebounds. Even when we defended well in the first half, we gave up too many offensive rebounds. I felt like they got too many easy transition points in the first half, too. The inconsistency was clearly there in the first half."
