Postgame Quotes
Tennessee-Wesleyan at Chattanooga, Tenn.
Chattanooga, Tenn. - McKenzie Arena
Nov. 11, 2011
Head Coach John Shulman
On the exhibition game against Tennessee Wesleyan:
"Now we know what we have to work on. You have to play those games to have an idea of what you have to work on. You get a false sense of security when you're in practice beating and banging on each other. That's number one. It's not a secret what we have to work on. We gave up layups. We get in a panic. We quit building a wall and we gave up layups. We didn't give up any three's the second half, we gave up layups. Layups are going to go in the majority of the time. We have a great idea of what we have to work on, and that's defensing and rebounding."
On the play of Tennessee Wesleyan:
"Wesleyan came in and played a matchup zone, and we have worked zero minutes on practice against that matchup. Give them credit because they have a good little point guard. He is a Chattanooga kid and played really good. I am not disappointed; I just know what we need to work on. At least, we have a good starting point. I thought we were very unselfish and took great shots. That is a positive, and we were also playing without Omar Wattad and Dontay Hampton got hurt two seconds into his opportunity to play, that didn't help us. Dontay makes us better defensively and Omar makes us a better basketball team."
On the three-point shooting of the Mocs:
"I think a three that Ricky Taylor made we went in, Jamal went across the middle and skipped it out, that's playing inside out basketball. I thought we took great shots from the three-point line. I don't think we're going to shoot 62 percent from the three point-line every night, but I do think that if we take good shots, we have a good shooting basketball team. If we take bad shots, we're going to shoot a poor percentage. So we shot 14 less three's this year than last against them and made seven more. We're going to take great shots. You notice if you don't take great shots, you'll come sit by me. It's going to be a hard lesson for some guys to learn, but they'll learn it or they aren't going to play."
On the play of freshman Ronrico White:
"Rico is a good player. I have all the confidence in the world in Rico. For his first night in a college setting, I felt very comfortable with Rico being out there. That's the only way I can judge if you can play or not. You better have my comfort level out there, and I felt very comfortable with Rico out there. He's learning two positions and he's going to be a really good player for us. When he gets stronger, wow, is he going to be good."On the Mocs' three point shooting
"We've been really emphasizing on playing inside-out, and I think that we got a lot of open shots just by sharing the ball. I thought we had great patience. I give credit to our big guys and I give credit to our guards making extra passes. I know Ricky and Ronrico saw me a lot, but personally they saw me a lot making extra passes and that was beneficial. I think that is why we were shooting the ball better."
Senior Guard Keegan Bell
Thoughts on the exhibition:
"I think the first game is always going to be ugly, no matter what. You just get so pumped up, and I think last year we were so excited about how talented we were and we kind of pulled. This year we just made an emphasis. Coach made and emphasis and we made and emphasis we were going to do what we have been doing in practice. That's kind of how we've been taking shots in practice by throwing it inside and driving. I defiantly thought we saw that because there were times we could have shot it and we threw it inside."
Thoughts on the Mocs' roles and positions:
"You're going to have your roles in the first game and sometimes people might step out of them on accident, but that's why you play these games. We'll watch film and we'll break it down. Coach Shulman will make sure he redefines roles, as always, but I thought we did a pretty good job. I thought we played really unselfish and really together. I was proud of our guys in that aspect."
Freshman Guard Ronrico White
Thoughts on first college basketball game:
"It started out this morning. I couldn't sit still the whole day. I took a nap midway through the day and that kind of calmed me down. That's where I got my energy, but I was still a little nervous and I think I did a good job of calming down and just playing basketball."
Feeling about comfort on the court:
"I almost have a full comfort level. I still have to learn to get tougher to get through screens and stuff like that. I feel like the more I play, the better I will get at those things."
Thoughts on his offensive play and role:
"Wesleyan was playing a matchup zone and they were kind of leaving the corners empty so I was just filling in and trying to make a play for my team. After that first shot the goal kind of opens up, and you just feel like when you shoot it, it's going to go in."
On the Mocs' three point shooting successes:
"The shots that we were taking were wide open and we were playing inside out. The bigs did a great job of kicking it back out so we got open three's instead of contested three's."
