Postgame Quotes
Chattanooga 55, Samford 39
Birmingham, Ala. | Pete Hanna Center
Thursday, February 8, 2024
 
Shawn Poppie, head coach
On defensive effort and the fourth quarter
"We've just got to finish better. We've been on them about killer instinct. When you've got them down, you got to keep pushing and we have a tendency to let off the gas a little bit. I don't know, maybe we're tired. I didn't think we had crazy minutes going, but you know, at the end of the day, we're pretty proud of our effort. 22 percent from the floor from Samford, that's pretty darn good defensively. We win on the road, when you do that anytime in this league that's a good day."
 
"They're a good basketball team. They made some shots. I thought they went to Carly (#5), quite a bit there down the stretch. They went small and unorthodox a little bit and then we just had some miscommunication on some ball screen stuff. The press break. We give them, I don't know, three or four possessions back, so we'll clean some of that stuff up. It's just a lack of focus when we think the game's over with."
 
On Raven Thompson grabbing important rebounds
"She rebounded really well. It's kind of interesting. I thought her (sic) and Jada [Guinn] were slow for the most part tonight. Raven stayed with it. I'm gonna tell ya, when she's in her game and she doesn't always have to be physical. She can be finesse every once in a while because she has all the tools. I thought she went to some of that late instead of trying to be physical. We became productive and she's such a good player for us. She's such a good player in this league and we're fortunate to have her on our team."
 
On Takia Davis' input
"I thought Takia Davis gave us a big push in the third quarter when she came in. It's two games in a row so maybe I need to look to try to find her some more minutes. You go back and listen, I've been singing her praises for a month and it's on Coach Poppie to find minutes. I thought there was a good opportunity there to just try to give us a different look off the bench at that five position. She came in a gave us a spurt, we got some stops, she was active. And then we got out in transition, she sprinted the floor, caught, finish. So it gave us a really good push there. I thought we needed in the third quarter."
 
On trouble with the three's
"I mean 39 percent ain't terrible. You don't expect Hannah Kohn to got 1-for-5 on the looks she got. So you put two more of those in and you say '7-for-13' you say that ain't too bad."

Karsen Murphy, Jr., F
On what it took to get the job done tonight.
"Our big thing this week was defense travels, so we really just had to lock in on the defensive end which I feel like we did. We had a couple slip ups a couple times where we relaxed, but that's just where we gotta grow and get better. When we were preparing for this whole weekend, our focus was on our defense."

On providing some efficient scoring for the team.
"I'm gonna shoot it when I'm open. I'm gonna be the relief when they get trapped in the zone or whatever it may be. I'm just really proud of how we caarried our offense over the day. We took what they gave us and a win is a win."

On shifting gears to Mercer on Saturday.
"Mercer's a big game for us. It's going to be really defensive-based, which all games are for us. Mercer has some skilled guards and big posts so it'll be a challenge for us, but we beat them once so we can do it twice."

Raven Thompson, So., F
On taking a win on the road tonight.
"We just got stops on the defensive end. When things weren't going well for us on the offensive end, we were still getting stops. We take that as a win."

On her double-double performance.
"A big emphasis for me was rebounding tonight. I knew I had to get the box out, so I was just doing that and getting to the ball. Then on offense I was just taking what they were giving me."

On the team limiting turnovers on the night.
"It was really importanr for us tonight. We did have a couple turnovers there at the end, but we just really focused on protecting the ball."