Chattanooga Mocs Basketball Postgame Quotes
Chattanooga at Butler
Indianapolis, Ind.
Tuesday - Nov. 15, 2011
Head Coach John Shulman
On the strides made between this game and the loss at Indiana on Sunday:
"I completely agree with you. The problem is somebody had to win tonight and somebody had to lose. I know an 'L' falls by our name but our kids and their effort tonight, maybe, was unmatched the last three years."
"We had one basket in the last 13 minutes or so and with five minutes to go we still had a shot to win the game. Our defensive effort, and just our effort period, was tremendous."
On feeling like a conference game:
"It felt like a high-level conference game. I thought we did a phenomenal job defensively. Not an average job, defensively, a phenomenal job. To stay in the game with one field goal in the last 13 minutes, I thought we did a phenomenal job."
On the play of the offense:
"We executed better. They are very good defensively. They were very good defensively tonight and we still battled. I thought we answered. They went up 10 early in the second half and I challenged our guys. Are we going to die here? We have not been very mentally tough. This bunch has not been very mentally tough and we answered. Ricky Taylor answered with an and-1 and we got back in it. It is a three point game late."
On your defense late in the game:
"It is easy to defend when that ball is going in the basket. It is not easy to defend when we go 13 minutes and we score one field goal, but we kept on defending. I saw really neat signs of a basketball team tonight that I did not see last year. If the ball went in we were good. We just shot 36% - 14% from the 3-point line - and had an opportunity to beat Butler at Butler. I think we got better."
Senior Ricky Taylor
On the improvement between the Indiana game on Sunday and tonight:
"We made big strides today. We took the loss to Indiana seriously and watched a lot of film. We have nothing to be ashamed of. We competed, we battled and we played until the end and it just didn't go our way tonight. We are almost there. We are just inches away. We are about to put it together."
On getting on the same page as a team:
We definitely were on the same page here tonight. Against Indiana we made some mental mistakes, but they were correctable. We accepted coaching and did what they said. Unfortunately, it didn't go our way tonight, be we will bounce back. We will come back Friday full force and even better. We are getting closer."
On coming back after down 10 early in the second half:
"Because of the veterans that we have we passed that test of overcoming adversity. When they went on a run, we didn't get our heads down. We kept fighting and battling. A lot of teams are going to make runs and it is just how we are going to respond to those situations."
Senior Keegan Bell
Thoughts on the game:
"We played hard. It is still not satisfying. It is still frustrating, but I think we can bounce back and we are definitely better than we were the other day. I was glad we responded the way we did. They made their runs and we kept it close. They made some shots and then Ricky gets an and-1 to stop the bleeding. That was huge. That's what you need and you are going to have to have. There are gong to be games like this in conference where shots are not going in and it is a slow-paced game. You are just going to have to find ways to stay close."
