Chattanooga Men's Basketball

Nov. 20 - at VCU - Siegel Center

Postgame Quotes

Lamont Paris, Head Coach

On battling down the stretch.

"A couple things happen here and there, but you give yourself a chance to make a play on the last possession. Boy, Malachi Smith came up big there."

On Malachi Smith's game-winning shot. 

"I'll be honest with you, I was really hoping it went in. Obviously I wanted to win the game, but he had a couple of those type of shots earlier and didn't have that much luck with it. I felt like it had a chance and he made it. It was over a long defender that played good defense on it. He made that shot. He made that play. That's something you have to do every once and a while."

On coaching this team. 

"For me, personally, it's hard to describe to be perfectly honest with you. This is what I live for. That's what I told the guys in the locker room. To watch these guys achieve in these moments, one to experience the moments, but to achieve those moments and rejoice in the aftermath. I'm a very blessed man that this is what I do for a job around these particular guys. It's a tremendous amount of fun. I'll say it from every mountain top I can. Mocs fans, if you haven't seen these guys, you owe it to yourself to watch these guys play. Get out and watch this team. It's a great crew, great group and talented. It's a great assembly of young men."

Malachi Smith, So.-G

On the game-winning shot. 

"I told the team that if I get the ball, it's going in. I know the work I've put in on all the late nights. I knew if I got the ball, it was going in."

On big road win at VCU. 

"It's a good feeling to come in here and win. We play a lot of good teams on the road and this really helps us when we get to conference play. The crowd was loud and we knew that coming in. We're an older team and we kept our composure. That's something we hang our hat on."

On the team's depth & ways to win. 

"Going into the season, we were confident that we can beat anyone. This type of win shows that we can hang with anyone. We have key players that contribute in different ways. Silvio [De Sousa] and Dave [Jean-Baptiste] did their things in the second half. Guys like Darius [Banks] and KC [Hankton] doing the little stuff that's not on the stat sheet, shows we can win a bunch of different ways."