Postgame Quotes
Chattanooga 75, Samford 52
Chattanooga, Tenn. | The McKenzie Arena
Saturday, January 13, 2024
 
Shawn Poppie, head coach
Opening statement
"Thanks to the 1400 and some change who came out, showed our kids a lot of support. You can start to hear it and feel it. I think there's an excitement from our fan base, from our team, as we're starting to figure things out a little bit. I think the last two games we've really had spurts of showing how good we can be. A lot of room for growth still, but it's a team that is very exciting to watch. I think there's a togetherness. I think we've formed a little bit of a toughness. Really happy with with how we how we played outside of that 7-0 start to start the game. You know, I got a little frustrated. There is some possessions in the first half. When you shoot as good as we did. We took so many possessions away from ourselves with not executing some sets that we had put in. I thought when we executed against the zone in the sense of movements to certain spots, we got any shot we wanted and then we shot the ball really well. So that was a little frustration in the first half. I thought we cleaned those things up in the second half. Really proud of a lot of different people. You know Raven Thompson to be plus 29 and 31 minutes is really impressive. I thought she came up with some big offensive rebounds. Some toughness. Karsen Murphy played a phenomenal game in her 20 minutes. Obviously Jada Guinn did some Jada Guinn things offensively, rebounding the basketball well. I think he mentioned in the statement we had 28 rebounds there. 23 and I know everyone keeps saying that you guys, you're small. And we are we are compared but we got some toughness in that locker room. Some discipline in that locker room and it's a good weekend to build off of for sure. From the Mercer game to now we got a really big one next Saturday."
 
On the offense of the team
"This team has an interesting structure to it. Karsen Murphy gives you the ability to stretch the floor. Our creators off the bounce are Rave [Thompson] and Jada [Guinn] and then you got two kids that, although they've not great shot great, how people have guarded, they've not had a ton of opportunity either in Sigrun [Olafsdottir] and Addie Grace [Porter].  That mixture, it's hard to pick your poison of how you're going to guard. We move Raven inside and out. A lot of times she sees double teams. Then what happens, you come off the bench and we different. Caia is a quick as lightning point guard and can get down hill and start to make some plays for people. Hannah Kohn we run a bunch of stuff for to get some threes, and if not it just stretches the floor for everybody else. And then KK [Farrell] is kind of just like you bruiser a little bit and can get the dirty work plays. I think that's what makes it fun. No one's the same. It's a bunch of puzzle pieces that we put together and can make a really good puzzle. That's where I'm happy. We're starting to figure each other out."
 
On handling the zone
"We spent both days on zone. I thought if they manned us, we've seen so much man, we didn't need to necessarily add anything into what we already had in our playbook. We literally did zone both days. Tried to add some new things in to try to get Jada some into the high post area and get Raven in the high post and almost slow things down and make it man."
 
 
Karsen Murphy, Sr., F
On getting more comfortable shooting the ball
"I think it's just trusting that I put the work in. I'm in the gym every single day shooting those threes, those pick 'n pops, the transition threes. I put the work in every single day, so when it comes to a game, just trusting in that."
 
On starting the game down 7-0
"We just talked about before going out, what kind of team are we going to be today? Are we gonna go out there and attack? Are we going to let them set the pace of the game? So when it started that way, I was like 'Oh no. We cannot start this way because we struggle getting out of that.' I'm proud of us and how we responded.
 
On playing against the zone
"We are now comfortable in the zone now. We have been working really hard on it every since the Cherokee Tournament. Zone is something that we know we had to get better at."
 
 
Jada Guinn, Gr., G
On how she feels her game is currently
"I would definitely say personally, I cam to Chattanooga to be the best player that I wanted to be. I think the coaches have put in so much work. I've been in the gym with them a lot ever since the summer, since I got here. I definitely think it's the best that I've been and as a team, we're all continuing to grow individually."
 
On the increase in her offensive output from last year to now
"I kind of knew coach Jon [Goldberg] since I was in high school. He kind of knew about the scorer that I was. When I was at [Tennessee] Tech I was more of a point guard, so I was in a different position. He knew the potential I had as a player. I still play the same kind of game, just be more aggressive."