Chattanooga Basketball Postgame Quotes
Samford at Chattanooga
McKenzie Arena – Chattanooga, Tenn.
Saturday – Jan. 11, 2020

Lamont Paris, Head Coach
On the play from Ramon Vila today.
"He's been playing well. He had a couple games early on that he played well in and then he had a little lull there where he wasn't playing as aggressively as he had been. I have a tremendous amount of faith in him. I think if you can get the ball around the basket, it creates a lot of havoc for other teams and their decisions they have to make. He has shown that he can produce on a one-on-one situation at a high percentage. He's one of the most unselfish guys I've ever been around in my entire career. It was a plan to get him the ball today. He's a great player and an unbelievable teammate."
 
On how the team produced 105 points on offense.
"It might sound crazy, but it was because of the way we defended. Our defense got us 105 points. I mean that and I said that to the guys in the locker room. The job we did on their ball screen situations and especially on Josh Starkey. He's a really good player and we did such a good job there. We made a couple shots, don't get me wrong, the lead extended and they felt like they had to be extra aggressive. If you don't turn it over, on the other side of the defensive pressure, are usually high percentage shots. We were able to get some of those. With our ball screen coverage, the plan that we had today, the execution was pristine. And I never really say that too much. Maybe pretty good, but it was pristine in what we were trying to do, and what we did do."
 
On the team's response after Wednesday's close loss to Furman.
"It's hard to say anything other than that I'm blown away about what they did in this game. In this league, games like this don't happen very often. They're a good team and have some good players. They've played Alabama, they played Georgetown, and no one did this to them. They had maybe one bad loss from a numbers standpoint, but I'm blown away with the response the guys made. It's a tight-knit group. I think you can see that and I hope the fans see that with the guys on the sidelines and how they come in and out of games with energy. I was taken back with how we responded overall."
 
On outlook for the team after today's performance.
"I think it could be an indication of what the team is ultimately capable of doing. I have a ton of belief and faith in this team, I do. Even when we don't play well, shoot well, or whatever it is. I have a lot of faith in this team, and belief in this team most importantly. I wouldn't want to say what this team can or cannot do, but I will never say about what they cannot do. When it gets going, we have a lot of weapons. You see how many guys can step in and make a shot. There's a lot of guys that can do a lot of different things."

Ramon Vila, R-Jr.-F
On how to get in a zone and continue feeling it.
"I don't know, honestly I think I just got four points off of one-on-one situations and the rest were free throws and wide-open layups. I was just lucky to be there and score the layups. But it's all about my teammates; they get me the ball down there and I just try to finish it."

On team's response from close loss to Furman and outlook toward Wofford on Wednesday. 
"In the game against Furman, people thought we actually played good, because Furman is top of the conference and always is a good team. We only lost by six, but Coach talked to us and we already knew it ourselves, we gave up too many points. We gave up too many offensive rebounds and we knew we didn't play well. People were like, "Yeah, good job," but we just worked harder in practice and refocused. I think we've had a really good two days of practice preparing for this game, and we responded. We will do the same for Wofford to get ready."

On holding off Samford run that closed the lead to 11 in the first half.
"We just talked about staying calm. I think the zone they played at the very end of the first half really hurt us, but we know how to handle a zone and full-court press, so we just talked to each other, and came out and handled the press extremely well, I would say. We got the lead back up to 20 within four or five minutes."

Matt Ryan, Gr.-G
On awareness of closing in on 100 points.
"I was. With about seven minutes left I looked up and saw that we had scored more points in the second half than we scored in the first half with those seven minutes left. So I was pretty sure that we were going to get 100. Then Stef [Kenic] hit a three and he's been shooting really well for us. Getting 100 feels good."

On Coach Paris speaking highly of the team's defense, which turned into offense.
"Their one guy [Josh Starkey] still had 21 points, he did take 19 shots but we kept everybody else in check. We did a really, really good job executing our game plan. I think that's why coach said our defense was pristine because we had a certain game plan against their point guard and how he uses ball screens and we really did a good job. I don't know if they really got anything out of using that ball screen. I think most of his 21 were layups or he was manufacturing in other ways. Huge credit to our bigs, Ramon [Vila], Stef [Kenic], and Rod [Johnson, Jr.], they did a really good job executing our game plan against him."

On what this win says about the team.
"I think it's important to be able to bounce back from a loss. We've got a big week moving ahead with Wofford and UNCG. The same way we put Furman behind us, we have to put this game behind us. Right now it feels good for everybody, we just won by 40 and put up 100, but we also lost two days ago. You've got to be able to put games behind you quickly, and I think we did that after the Furman loss. We got a big win today, but Wofford doesn't care. They want to beat us just as much as we want to beat them, so we've just got to focus on them next."

On holding off Samford run that closed the lead to 11 in the first half.
They made their run, we just responded. A couple shots that we took toward the end of the first half that we were making earlier just didn't drop, and they got a couple to go and cut into our lead. We got it to 20 at one point, but we handled their pressure in the second half, busted open the lead and didn't look back."