2025-26 Chattanooga Basketball Postgame Quotes
Game 12 at Bellarmine | December 17, 2025
Knights Hall | Louisville, Ky.
Dan Earl, Head Coach
Opening thoughts after 79-64 loss at Bellarmine.
"Yeah, utterly disappointing. There is an element to having the knack of stepping up and knocking down shows, and it comes from more toughness. Shots not falling are going to come and go at times, which is hard, and certainly hard when it's happening to a bunch of our guys all at once, but it's more important that you can't allow that to affect the other side of the floor. The team did not do that tonight. Mostly in the first half, things are going well and we have more pop and juice and energy, but then when things were not going well late, we give up easy baskets and allow them to shoot 71% in the second half. The same team that shot 31% in the first half. As far as I know, I don't think they brought out a new team in the second half. It's very disappointing. They did mix up defenses a bit, but at the end of the day, you have to be aggressive and not gun shy. It's disappointing."
On the difference between the two halves.
"I'm still trying to figure out kind of what happened. I do know they were physical in the first half, but we matched their physicality blow for blow. I was proud of our guys when they would drive and effectively move the ball around, and when we did drive it, it was usually straight downhill. We made it difficult for them to defend. And then the second half, we looked like a totally different team. All of a sudden, there's a crash situation and were going backwards while they're laying the ball in the basket. Over and over and over. And so, I don't know. All I can say is, again, it's frustrating when you don't make shots. I get it. It's a little bit of the nature for us, but you cannot just put your head down and quit time and time and time again on defense when things are not going well on offense."
On moving forward to Alabama A&M.
"They won a couple of games against a couple of good teams and we're going to have our work cut out for us again. We'll go see who's healthy and who's not, and you got to move on, right? Nobody feels sorry for anybody on this team. It's not like, oh, it's tough, you have some injuries or it's tough that you didn't shoot the ball well, or it's tough, this, that, the other. You have to move on and get better and that's where you have to be strong mentally as well as physically, and have perseverance to do so."
