VMI at Chattanooga
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Chattanooga, Tenn. - McKenzie Arena
Postgame Quotes

Lamont Paris, Head Coach
Opening statement after 70-69 loss to VMI and final minute.
"Disappointed in the loss. Particularly how it went down. We had opportunities to make plays and some of them didn't have to be great plays, just solid plays. We failed on that mission so I'm disappointed in that. There were so many options to get rid of the ball there at the end. You have to exercise those options. You could also be stronger in a trap since you know it's coming. It's some of the little things. We didn't play particularly well by our standards. But it wasn't terrible. We just didn't manage the last minute well enough. It's discipline. All five guys have to be disciplined. We had a great look at the end and just didn't finish. We played just OK."

On the play of Joshua Phillips and James Lewis, Jr.
"They were active. They did a good job of presenting themselves to the passer so they were open to be successful. They got rushed a couple times and ending up traveling. They were very active and we look to get the ball in there to them. All things considered, early in the game they were packing the paint. It wasn't easy to get it in there but when we did it was successful."

On second half adjustments and play of VMI's Bubba Parham.
"Halftime we talked about defense. I didn't think we played good defense in the first half. We were concerned about what we were running on offense when we should have been focusing on getting stops on the defensive end. There were sometimes where he [Bubba Parham] was just quicker than us. A couple plays were shots we calculate as misses. He made some tough shots. We tried to make him do things he didn't want to do, particularly handoffs. You combine that with three possessions where he made quickness plays and then made some shots in transition, those are four-point plus swings. Some of it is individual, but some of it is a group. It's a chain reaction type thing. I thought we did an overall decent job on all the other guys."

On the play of the offense and shot selection.
"I thought the offense was good other than some turnovers. I thought our shot selection was just OK at times. Some of those shots lead to transition opportunities for them. We didn't make the defense move very much either. We made one pass and it turned into a decent shot. Players and personnel dictate the quality of shots. Finishing plays was another thing. We had some that we missed down low. We had a couple self-inflicted wounds you could say."

Joshua Phillips, Sr.-C
On making late first half run to cut deficit.
"We need to have more of those kind of runs. Whether you come off the bench or you're starting, we all need to have the same mentality coming into games. If you play unselfish and together, it'll always win games. The past few games, James' [Lewis, Jr.] interior presence has been game changing and it's helped us. We need three's, but playing the in-and-out game usually wins more games. We need to forget about this game and move on to the next one."

On one play making the difference.
"I feel like everyone had one, two or three plays they want back. It's tough to lose like that. Especially at the last second when we played good defense and we just got caught looking at the ball. This one is tough."

On mentality coming in.
"We came in expecting to win. We just let this one slip away. We had too many small things that turned into big things. It was the little things we could have changed, but it ended up in a one-point loss."

James Lewis, Jr., Fr.-F
On one play making the difference.
"It makes you look at yourself and think what you could do better to pull out a win. Coach always talks about how we can have an advantage inside and if that's not there then we trust to kick it outside."

On moving forward after tough loss & working on interior defense.
"You just have to work hard everyday and get better. We do that a lot in practice, finding your man and boxing out. That's a big part of what we do. We'll be ready to go for the next one."