Chattanooga Basketball Postgame Quotes
Samford at Chattanooga
McKenzie Arena – Chattanooga, Tenn.
Saturday – Feb. 14, 2015
Head Coach Will Wade
On second half's defensive effort…
“I thought we did well. At the end, they drove us a little bit, but I thought defensively we were better. Part of the reason why we were better was because we didn't turn the ball over as much. We only had four turnovers in the second half, so we didn't put our defense in tough situations in transition maybe as much as we did in the first half where we turned it over 10 times. I think a little bit better offense, a little bit more patient offense, certainly helped us. Helps our defense out too.”
How important was it to take out Jones-Gibson?
“He's a big part of the game. Evan Taylor made some big shots, but we really wanted to concentrate on Jones-Gibson. I think he had eight up until maybe the last 90 seconds of the game. He finished with 13. He was a focal point on what we were doing defensively. He really killed us (last time); he's been killing everybody in the league. He's been averaging I think maybe 18 or 19 a game in the league, so he was a focal point. Our guys did a good job. Tre' McLean really did a nice job on him and that was good to see.”
On Eric Robertson…
“When he shoots it like that, you think every one of them is going in. He got good looks and knocked them in. He played very well. He had three blocks defensively. He's a little bit longer than people give him credit for defensively. He made some nice plays on the defensive end as well.”
On Justin Tuoyo…
“He's a presence for us. When he's in there we have different team. Our defense is different. Teams are starting to pull him away from the basket a little more on ball screens and that sort of thing. We need to do a better job hiding him and guarding ball screens better with him. He's a difference maker for us down there blocking shots. It's not necessarily the shots he blocks, it's shots that he alters and shots that teams have to pull up against us for that they would normally finish at the rim. He's definitely a big-time presence down there. I'm glad he plays for us.”
On limiting Michael Bradley…
“We just wanted to attack the paint and really get paint touches before we shot. Putting pressure on the rim and putting pressure down there. When he caught the ball he backed us down a couple of times. We didn't offer very good resistance. I thought Duke (Ethridge) offered the best resistance down there. We didn't offer good resistance on him. Really just attacking the paint; we attacked the paint and Bradley and Peters both fouled quite a bit just when we were aggressive going to the rim.”
Junior Casey Jones
Have you embraced your role as a facilitator?
“Coach tells me I have to kick the ball out when they're building it and stuff like that. That's all it really was...kicking the ball out. Late in the game we're running two on one, and I'm just passing the ball for easy baskets so that's a couple of those for the night.”
When Eric Robertson plays like that how much does that open up things inside for you?
“Not only as driving lanes, but offensive rebounds too. When he's hot out there, even though it's not him taking shots, the opposing team feels like it's the whole team hot. When someone takes a shot, they're watching the shot to see if it's going in, so you can sneak up there and get some offensive rebounds. It helps us out like that. Obviously you have to guard him. If I'm driving the ball and Eric is on the same side in the corner, you have to guard him.”
On free throw shooting talk during halftime…
“Coach Wes (Long) was really upset with us. He helps us on our free throws almost every day. He's that guy for us. He's the shooting guru as Tre' [McLean] would say. He helps us on our free throws, and he was just disappointed in us. We practice on them every day, and we go in there and shoot three-for-10; we owed it to him to come out in the second half and shoot them better, and we did.”
Sophomore Justin Tuoyo
On half time's talk about defense…
“We just had to come out and stay aggressive. I think we came out not knowing how good they really have gotten over the last two weeks. We weren't really sleep on them, but they came out really aggressive. We had to wake up at half time. Everybody got themselves together, and we came out second half trying to do everything we can to get a few stops for us.”
How much easier is the game for you when Eric Robertson hitting shots?
“It makes everything easy. We joke with Eric all the time; when he gets gone like that then nobody can play with us because he doesn't miss. When he comes out like that, he definitely had a good game for us, and he's been doing it the whole year. It just goes with the hard work he's been doing for us. When he comes and plays like that, it's fun to watch.”
On being back at home playing…
“It's always good playing at home. It was our first game at home in two weeks. Coming back to the crowd who's always in attendance...it's always good to play at home. We shoot better at home too. It just felt good being back today. We're looking forward to next week. We know it's going to be real fun and exciting. It's good to get this one back home, then we get our feet wet this week and get ready to roll.”
Samford Head Coach Scott Padgett
Opening statement
“I thought Chattanooga did a great job of really attacking the glass. I thought we had a pretty good first half and their offensive rebounds, second chance points, second opportunities, it kept us from being able to get two points, four points away. We could never make any real run because when we got a miss, we couldn't get the rebound to get out on a run and get into transition. I thought their length really hurt us today. We did a poor job; it was the first drive every time. When we drove the first time to the basket and tried to challenge them, I thought they did a really good job playing without fouling and then being able to challenge. They were basically three inches taller at every spot than our guards. They got a lot of block shots. I think they had 10 in the game. I felt like one of the keys going into the game and things that we were successful on offensively at our place was we would drive, they would converge, look to block a shot, we would drop it off or kick it out, then the next guy drives, and we get that second, third drive and kick; now after they scrambled we'd get an open look. We didn't do a very good job at getting to that second and third drive. We kind of took it upon ourselves, different people at different times, but we took it on ourselves to try and make 'the' play.”
On second half turnovers…
“I think we got two or three of that right there late. The last play of the game we got one and the play before that we got one. They went probably 18 or 19 minutes with us only turning it over twice. They did a really good job of handling our pressure, especially in the second half. The 10 turnovers that we forced, that was kind of what got us going in the first half. We just weren't able to do it in the second half. You have to give them credit for not forcing things because a lot of teams, what they do is the pass that's open, it's a hard pass, it's a longer pass so they try to thread that needle, and they didn't get greedy. They didn't get greedy all night. They found the open guy and threw it to the open man.”
On Chattanooga's bench points…
“Most of their bench points came from one guy banging three's all night. Eric Robertson had 21 all by himself. I think they had 24 bench points, and he had 21 by himself. I'm sure this was a big game for him being a kid from Alabama playing against a team from Alabama. He actually came out the gate and made his first three and it was huge. He's a guy that we knew about going in. We talked about him, Ronrico White, Greg Pryor and Martynas Bareika if he played as being the guys you have to get to at the three-point line. I thought there were times in our zone where we're not identifying who's who because we're running at Casey Jones at the three-point line and the next guy in the corner is Robertson. Casey is really just out there to swing the ball and be a decoy and we're running at Casey and Robertson is watching wide open in the corner. We've dealt with these similar types of offenses before. We just didn't do a good job at handling it tonight in the zone. We have a lot of work to do. It's a good thing we have a week until the next ball game.”
