Chattanooga Basketball Postgame Quotes
Montreat at Chattanooga
McKenzie Arena – Chattanooga, Tenn.
Monday – December 8, 2014
Head Coach Will Wade
Opening thoughts on the game:
“I think we were able to play some guys who haven't been able to play as much. It is hard to get those guys in in the heat of battle. We were able to rest some of our guys who have been playing more. It is helpful in that it is hard to put some of those guys in if you don't know how they are going to react.
“I told those guys today at shoot-around, everybody is auditioning for Thursday night. Our rotation can get real short on the road in conference. If you want to play on the road in the conference, you had better do what you are supposed to do tonight. No matter what the score is. That's the only audition I can go off of, when the lights are on.
“We've been better in practice than we have been in games. We were better tonight, but we can certainly improve some. It is a chance to get some minutes and look at them with live bullets.”
On why the team looked more relaxed tonight:
“We practiced better. You are relaxed if you are prepared and feel good about yourself. I have tried to take a lot of the thinking out it. I probably over-complicated things to start. We've simplified things quite a bit. I was probably teaching calculus and I should have been teaching multiplication tables.
“We've got that down pretty good now. We've backed off. We don't run nearly as much stuff on offense. We have cut back on our defensive stuff, cut back on our pressing a little bit. At one point we had eight different presses in. We are just going to use two or three of them and get really good at those.
“We've stopped with the 'trickeration.' The reality is we have good players for our level. If we can get them out there and not really thinking and just playing off their instincts, we will get a lot better than any advantage we can schematically.”
On the balanced scoring:
“I was glad to see K.J. score. I was hoping he would score. He is the only one who hasn't scored. I was glad that he was able to lay it in there at the end.
“It was good to have guys in double figures. It was good to shoot the ball well. We've been shooting the ball well. To our guys credit, they spend a lot of time after practice working.
“Eric hit a bunch of threes tonight. He spends time. After shoot-around today, he snuck back in the gym. Jim (Horten) and I were actually sitting at the end and everybody had gone up to eat. He was in his shooting routine.
“We've been putting in the time and we are a good shooting team. I think it is going to play out that way over the course of a year. Balance in the scoring is a good thing. We did some good things tonight and it is good that it showed up on the stat sheet.”
Eric Robertson – Jr.-G
On his extra work before the game today:
“A few of us usually stick around and shoot after shoot-around. Everybody left and I was contemplating on going. I thought I might as well stay. I just went back in and got some more shots up.
On keeping your focus on the upcoming road game:
“The main thing is just us being together. When you are on the road, you don't have many fans. We are just making sure we stay together through whatever adversity we will see. Playing teams on the road, you will see a run like we saw at Tennessee Tech. They had a big run and we were not able to pull through. We've just been talking about the next time something like that comes up, just make sure we stay together.”
On the importance of a game like this right after exams:
“This game was clutch. If we didn't have a game, we would just be practicing and practicing. It was god to have a game just to put into action what we have been practicing all week. It was good to have one like this where everybody got in.”
Greg Pryor – So.-G
On practice this week:
“Our last few practices have been pretty tough. It feels good to be able to play against another team and come out with a win and finish the game strong. I think we built our confidence up enough to keep our second-half defense strong and not let teams come out and score 50 in the second half. That helped us a lot.”
On staying active on both sides of the ball:
“As a point guard, it is something I am going to have to take forward. It is going to make a big difference for us as a team.”
On tonight's hot shooting:
“As a team, we know we put in the long hours after practice. We know some days it is not going to go as well as it is supposed to. But we know, most of the time we are going to come out on top and have great shooting nights because we have put in the work for it.”
