Chattanooga vs. UNC Greensboro
Chattanooga, Tenn. | The McKenzie Arena
Thursday, January 26, 2023
Postgame Quotes
 
HEAD COACH SHAWN POPPIE
Opening Statement
"I thought tonight was our most complete game on both sides of the ball. Our defense was good as our defense has been and then it turned into finally executing on the offensive side. We had some key contributions off the bench that we haven't had. Takia Davis, I thought was phenomenal. Karsen [Murphy] came in and got some minutes. Collectively, we pieced it together. Very, very pleased with the group tonight and we'll celebrate till midnight and then we turn right into Western [Carolina] on Saturday."
 
On being able to keep this level of play going to the next game [bottle up]
"It's one thing I feel like we've shown spurts it's kind of going to be interesting. We didn't score a field goal in the fourth quarter against Furman and won. Going back and watch film, we execute a lot of what we had done in practice, we just didn't finish plays. I thought tonight maybe some confidence because we shared it and we kept good spacing and then we finish plays. We play with some confidence to ourselves and I think that's the "bottled up" of that part. Playing to our capabilities for the first time on the offensive side. So that's what I hope stays 'bottled up'."
 
On preparation for this week
"We changed our philosophy up a little bit with practice and worked on some individuals early in the week. Focused a lot more on us than we did on UNC Greensboro and so I like to think that played a part in it. But now we have a quick turnaround into Saturday."
 
On shooting 61% in the fourth quarter
"We executed you know, I told the radio after the game, I told our team, us as coaches, we watch hours and hours and hours and hours on film. By now we're 20 some games in. People have tendencies and we put a few little wrinkles in to get us an easy basket and we executed I feel like eight-out-of-eight and those were getting us an easy one. When the offense is hard and you can actually get an easy one, it makes everything else have an opportunity to get to get good look. I thought we executed and finished on some things, some wrinkles that we kind of put in the last couple of days that helped with that."
 
On the play of Takia Davis
"That's the Takia we planned on having. It's taken a little while for her to understand our concepts and our defensive scout. We change every game of who we're guarding how we guard and there comes a time for us where we've struggled so much offensively that we had to make sure that we understood the defensive scout. You had to defend to have a chance and I keep telling her after every game - the last 20 – 'stick with it. Keep learning, keep learning, keep learning, because we're going to need you and I think you can be a really good player.' I thought she was as locked in as she's been all year. If she didn't know she was asking questions and engaged and she didn't look lost and got to play free. That's who she is and my hopes are back to the 'bottle up' if we can bottle that up and bring her back on Saturday and then again next Saturday, because that's a big, big spark off that bench."
 
 
Graduate guard Yazz Wazeerud-Din
On the team's performance
"Lately we've been struggling on Thursdays to like win. So like It felt good to get this one out. As a team we were more focused on, like, dominating today."
 
On the team overcoming the lulls
"We just stayed locked in because most of the time we have that little five-minute spurt where we lose focus. We just stayed focused and when we had that little spurt, we just locked back in and then just got back to it."