Included are selected quotes from tonight's postgame press conference with UTC head coach Will Wade, UTC student-athletes Justin Tuoyo and Casey Jones and Wofford head coach Mike Young. The full press conference for Tuoyo and Jones is available above, while the pressers for Wade and Young are included below.
Chattanooga Basketball Postgame Quotes
Wofford at Chattanooga
McKenzie Arena – Chattanooga, Tenn.
Monday – Jan. 5, 2015
Chattanooga Head Coach Will Wade
Thoughts on Cochran in the second half:
“That's as good a performance as I've seen live. Impressive...unbelievably impressive. He did it over Tuoyo, and we switched out. I mean he did it a bunch. That was just phenomenal. I think he was 6-6 in the second half. I think he was 0-3 at half time; six of six in the second half so just a phenomenal performance by him. You have to tip your cap to him. That's a competitor right there. A great team spirit to them when he brought them back and that was just a tremendous effort.”
What's the talk about during time outs when you have a player like Cochran?
"We talked about chasing him and knowing where he is. We changed up what we did about two or three different times on him, and we changed people who guarded him three different times. So you know we were mixing it up. I mean give a ton of credit to him. That's an unbelievable performance.”
What were you proud of tonight?
“I thought we guarded pretty well in the first half. I thought Justin made some good moves down there. I thought he played a good game. I thought Casey Jones was his normal self. I thought our guys made some toughness plays. We didn't rebound the ball like I wanted to. I told our guys it was going to come down to the rebounding battle, and you know they out rebounded us and got more offensive rebounds than us and that's a problem when you play a team like that. When it's going to be a little bit more a possession game, that's a problem. We can't give up that many offensive rebounds.”
How do you recover from this game?
“We'll be fine. We'll get back to work, we'll watch the film and get back to work and we'll prepare hard for Western Carolina on Thursday. So nobody's feeling sorry for us. That's not going to make any difference. It's what you have to do.
"You know if you're going to be a good team, it's about how you respond. So we have to focus on the next important thing. We can't worry about what happened tonight. We're not getting it back. We have to focus on the next important thing and that's playing Western Carolina on Thursday. So we're going to choose to put all of our energy into preparing and getting ready for Western.
How do you feel your team answered to Wofford in the second half tonight?
“I thought Rico answered with two threes which was really good. I thought we had an answer for most of it right down there until the end we had an answer for everything. That's a credit to our guys. We responded the right way for the most part.”
Sophomore Justin Tuoyo
What's going through your mind when Cochran is shooting threes and making every one.
“Prior to the game, Coach told us it would be a game of runs. So as I see that going on I'm not really depressing too much about it. I mean we're trying to get a stop. But at the same time I wasn't depressing about it. I was just trying to get a stop. He just had a great game. Anything that we tried to do he just had an answer for it.”
Do you feel like you're starting to get a little more accustom to the game?
“Yes sir, I just been working on my game with Coach Wade every day after practice; earning trust from my teammates. It's just combining everything together. Everything just seems to work out better. They give me the ball, and I just do what I can with it.”
Junior Casey Jones
Do you ever feel comfortable with a lead like that against a team like Wofford?
“No, obviously we shouldn't. Cochran went six for six in the second half so there's no comfort level when you're out there with the lead. It's even hard to win when you're in the lead. You feel like the game is taking forever when you have the lead. You just have to play even harder when you have the lead. So there's no comfort in having the lead.
“Coach preached to us about focusing on the present, on the present play. You know he hit a three. He's a good player. He hit a three. We go down, and we forget about it. We go don't worry about the score but try to get a bucket ourselves. Go back down try to get a stop; that wouldn't work. Go back down try to get a bucket ourselves. We just focused on the present. Not the shots that he hit.”
How do you refocus going forward?
“It's really simple refocusing for us. We're a competitive team. We want to win. You know losses happen. We lose this one. Next time we get in the gym, we are going to be focused on the next game; Western Carolina.”
Wofford Coach Mike Young
Opening Statement:
“We're all better with great players, and I have great players. This is round one. I just told Will who is doing a heck of a job with this team and this program. Early January, and we see them again, I don't know when it is, February, early February. Our team is going to be different then, and his team is going to be different then and a lot to be decided.
“It's a long journey; a long process. They're very good; they have really good players. But you know I think we can all agree we just walked in here and stole one. Glad I've got Cochran on my team.”
What were you telling your guys as Cochran was hitting those threes?
“You know what, I've never had a team come to me with eyes like this [he demonstrates] as if to say 'oh my goodness, what is this guy doing?' in complete awe.
"Now there are other things that go into it. Skinner and Gordon, Neumann screening, and Garcia giving it to him when he needs it; he does the rest. I've seen him do that from time to time. That's the best. That's the best that I've seen. We have an arsenal of things that we can go to run him off. And how you chase him off of all those myriad of screens; I don't envy the person that has to do that. That's hard, and you know he does the rest. He has great balance, great balance, great hands and feet. You get that thing out of his hands and in the air in the snap of a finger."
