Chattanooga at Akron
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Akron, Ohio, James A. Rhodes Arena
Postgame Quotes

Lamont Paris, Head Coach
On improvement and fight from team in tough loss to Akron.
"This team, I promise you they are learning so much. I'm really happy at the pace we're learning too. There's just a couple plays you have to make to learn to win game and more importantly there's plays that you can't make that'll lose you the game. You can't come out in a funk and get down and find yourself in a hole. We kept chopping wood to get back, but it's basketball., You make runs and they make runs. It got us back to where we needed to be, but it's too bad that we get a game like this and I get a technical foul. I don't like doing that, but I had to fight for my guys. We just missed a lot of opportunities. We did some things well enough to get in a good position, but that doesn't make me feel great nor does our guys."

On getting stops down the stretch.
"We talked about getting a couple stops and see then what happens from there. That's what we were doing and that's what our mentality was as a team. We gave up too many offensive rebounds and second chance points in the first half. We had too many turnovers and gave the ball away too easily as well. Those are decisions we need to get better at if we want to win games like these. They hurt us tonight for sure."

On improving consistently throughout the season.
"We have to keep making steps to getting where we need to be at the end of the season. At the end, that'll be the ultimate answer to what we're doing, what we're trying to do and what we've done. We must keep improving. Our ultimate exam at the end of the year is approaching and we need to get better."

Nat Dixon, So.-F
On slow start to the game.
"We started out the first half sluggish. We need to go back to the drawing board and get that corrected. We need to put 40 minutes together and play like we did in the second half for the entire game. I don't think we started out well tonight and it cost us."

On battling back from large deficit.
"At the end of the day, I'm proud of our guys for fighting. We bounced back and fought with out looking at the scoreboard. We want to pull it out next time, though, so we'll be ready to try and put 40 minutes together."

On experience growing game-by-game.
"With each game, we're getting more experienced. The thing we can control is playing hard for all 40 minutes. No matter if you're young or a fifth-year senior, you can control that. Coach Paris has been harping on boxing out, fighting and getting nasty down there in the paint. We need to go back to the drawing board on that. Akron is a great physical team, but we could have nullified that by boxing out and sticking to our defensive principles."

Rodney Chatman, So.-G
On trailing out of the gate and response.
"It was a big hole we found ourselves in. Usually teams let up, but we battled back and cut it to single digits. We fought till the end of the game and I'm proud of the team for that."

On second half production.
"I started attacking the basket more. The first half I was settling for jump shots too much. I started attacking in the second half and it really helped me down the stretch. We were lazy in the first half, but we just tried to pick it up in the second half by attacking the basket."

On what needs to improve.
"We have to come out and play hard for 40 minutes, not just in the second half. If we do that we can win a lot of games. We played good defense, but could have played a little better. After we started chasing harder they were limited in the shots they created."