Chattanooga Basketball Postgame Quotes
VMI at Chattanooga
McKenzie Arena – Chattanooga, Tenn.
Sunday – December 9, 2018

Lamont Paris, Head Coach
On limiting VMI's Bubba Parham to slow offensive output.
"We just talked about showing him a lot of attention as a team. It's really difficult guarding him with one guy, as you know. Dave [Jean-Baptiste] drew the assignment and I thought he did a really good job. I personally challenged him in the locker room before the game about what this was going to be, what a big challenge it would be, and how much effort we needed from him. He did a really good job. We just tried to make his shots very difficult. We didn't have many miscommunications that gave him wide open threes. We were able to a good job on him and he is such a big part in what they do offensively."
 
On style of game based on VMI's defensive look & start to second half.
"This was a hard game based on how we knew they were going to defend. We were going to have some looks beyond the arc, we shot 34 threes. That's probably more than I anticipated we would take. Any time you can start the half like that, that works wonders for your team. Especially defense, your guys work harder on defense. Offense often effects defense with these young guys. It was nice to get off to a start like that. Things can snowball like that, that's why you have runs in basketball because it gets contagious."
 
On the efforts from David Jean-Baptiste.
"I was proud of Dave for a lot of things. As on overall stat line, it doesn't get much better than that at the point guard position. You have five assists and no turnovers while shooting the ball well and scoring. That's as about as solid it gets. I knew he was instrumental in getting the ball moved around. I was really happy about that, and knew what he was doing defensively. More than anything I was proud and happy for him."
 
On starting SoCon Play 1-0.
"It's good to get off to a good start in the league. Ultimately, in this conference, you need to play well within the conference and towards the end of the season and into the conference tournament. The best way to position yourself to do that, is to play as well as you can in the regular part of the conference season. It's nice to get off to a good start and good a home win in front of our fans. It's always nice to get a win early on in the conference season."
 
On what this win means moving forward.
"It should give us a lot of confidence in a lot of different ways. From a shooting standpoint and from an overall offensive productivity standpoint. It has to work wonders for your individual confidence as well and we did things shorthanded today. It should do a lot for our confidence. We did some good things defensively in the second half against a good individual player in Parham, so hopefully it does wonders with our confidence on both sides of the ball."

David Jean-Baptiste, R-So.-G
On starting at the PG spot.
"I think it started with the players and the coaches' confidence in me to play the point for the team. For me, it was just being comfortable and knowing the players and coaches have my back. So, it was just going out there not afraid to make mistakes and play comfortably."

On guarding VMI's Bubba Parham.
"It was a team effort on him. Within in their offense he's coming off a lot of ball screens and a lot of screening action. I counted on my teammates and they were there for me to help stop the ball. It was definitely a team effort on him. It was just the coach's confidence in me to lock down the team's best player in there, and for that it gave me more confidence to defend him."

On moving forward after 1-0 start in SoCon.
"It was a great team win to start the league 1-0. It's a good feeling within the team right now. We're seeing this thing come together. It's a new team with new players and we've had some challenges. Now that the games have been coming along we're coming along too."

Kevin Easley, Fr.-F
On scoring game-high 26 points.
"I think Coach set up a lot of great plays to get the ball in the right spot. So the game plan really set me up. We got the win and that's all that matters."
 
On capturing SoCon-opening win.
"It was big time. I think last year we dropped both against them so pulling this out to go 1-0 is great. We're on a good winning streak right now and our confidence is great too. We have to defend at a high-level in the next couple games against some good offenses. We're excited to see what happens."

On game plan changing in second half.
"Their original game plan was to double the post and we started to hit some shots so it became one-on-one down there. Coach thought we had an advantage down there and we made some plays down the stretch."