Chattanooga Basketball Postgame Quotes
Chattanooga at Samford
Pete Hanna Center – Birmingham, Ala.
Saturday – Feb. 16, 2019

Head Coach Lamont Paris
On the close plays that could have impacted the game:
"A lot of things.  The free throws down the stretch.  You have to rise in certain moments on some things and any one thing would have been able to do it for us.  Including just getting the ball inbounds and being strong.  We would have to come down and make two free throws if they would have fouled us.  You have to make some plays and we didn't make any plays.  The body of work was what it was, but at the end we missed two front-ends of one-and-ones in game-winning time." 

On the inbounds play at the end of regulation:
"You have to come back to the ball.  That is one.  You have to be sure of what you are throwing it to.  That is two.  Particularly when you have timeouts.  You have to want the ball, and I mean want it.  Sharkey wanted it.  If they don't get the ball back, the game is over, so he played that way.  We did not play that way.  That was the difference in that play, specifically. 

"We just did not come back aggressively.  Some nonchalants.  I will have to watch it again, but I sensed some nonchalants or lack of respect for the moment, possibly. 

"It is a moment.  It is a nervous moment.  Inbounding the ball.  That is it.  The inbounder is nervous.  There is five second to get it in, that is going three times faster in your head than normal.  Guys are not open.  Guys getting open are nervous.  When you get the ball, they are going to foul you.  It is going to be a one-and-one to win the game.  It is a gut-wrenching, nervous-type scenario and you have to perform.  You have to."

On needing someone to want the ball in tough situations:
"You can tell, because those people are clawing to get the ball.  Typically, in my experiences, when you want the ball, it really looks like you want the ball. It is hard for one person to deny you from getting that ball.  It is not impossible.  It happens.  We had two guys screening for each other and then running back and those guy were not able to get open in a timely fashion.  We didn't go to the next checkdown, which was to throw to the four-man who was coming up.  We stayed with those two guys who were getting open.  Eventually they were, but we didn't run over there to hand deliver the ball. We threw it with too much distance.  It is frustrating."

On the switch in momentum in overtime:
"Momentum is real.  When you feel like to had the game, it takes a couple of things.  One, you have to play.  You have to come out there and just make shots, then it doesn't matter.  You are going to get the win.  Or you have to really know, be veteran, or experienced, or confident enough that we can wipe away that we just gave the game away and we have to play five more minutes.  That is hard to do.  To do it, you have to fake like you are excited about overtime.  We should have been excited about overtime.  The guy missed one free throw.  If he makes both free throws, we have to go the full length of the court down 1 with 1.whatever seconds left.  We were fortunate to get into overtime." 
 
Jerry Johnson, Jr – 22 – Jr. – G
Overall thoughts on the game:
"I felt real good about myself going in, even more than usual.  It felt good in warm ups, so I knew I was going to come out and be more aggressive with my shot.  I saw the first two go in and then my teammates kept pushing me to be confident more and keep shooting it.

On the plays at the end of the game:
"Just on the last five minutes of play and in overtime.  That is what hurt us, especially the free throws at the end.  I am not really sure.  We gave this game away.  We could have prevented a lot of these things.  The only positive I can take away is what we should have done as far as rebounding and not letting Sharkey get to his right hand for layups.  We just can't take it for granted."