Post Game Quotes

Nov 15, 2011 | Men's Basketball

Nov. 15, 2011

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Memphis Head Coach Josh Pastner

Opening Remarks
That was an excellent team in Belmont that we just beat. You look at the rest of their schedule, and they are winning 30 games. I’m really, really proud of our guys. I thought we had a really good effort for 40 minutes. The only two things I can say are that we have to make our free throws, and we have to rebound better; we have to defensive rebound better. We ran them off the three-point line. They shot 30 percent from three, which was good of us to hold them at that as good of a three-point shooting team as they are. A couple of times where they hit a three, we were in what’s called a full rotation. And, they’re as good of a team in the country at playing against rotations. We had to do our job and not give a full rotation. When we did, they hit some open shots. I’m very, very proud of our guys. We only had nine turnovers—seven in the first half and two in the second.

On sharing the basketball
Twenty assists on 30 made field goals. That means the open man is the go to man. Joe Jackson had seven assists; Charles Carmouche had five; Will and Antonio Barton had three each. We missed some free throws, but we were able to win the game because we had single-digit turnovers. I’m so proud of our guys for taking care of the ball. That was a good basketball game; that was a high-level basketball game. There’s no question about it.

Did you think your team could score 97 points against Belmont?Talk about the offensive performance. 

We had good balance. Guys played well. I was proud of the guys. We had good minutes from everybody. Stan (Simpson) came in and played well when Tarik (Black) got in foul trouble early. I thought Antonio (Barton) came in and gave us good minutes. Chris Crawford really did a nice job. He slipped on the logo early, so I didn’t think he came right back. He had been practicing so well. I know he’s going to come out ready to go in Maui. Everybody played well. I tell you, Wesley Witherspoon was just terrific; he was elite today. He played at a very elite level. I’m very, very proud of Wesley. Our big men did a good job. Defensively, we’re hanging our hat on defense. We held them to 40 percent from the field and 30 percent from three. That’s quickness on the defensive end. The whole thing is we have to hang our hat on defense, and we have to rebound. That’s the other thing we have to get better at is rebounding. But, we have to hang our hat on the defensive end, and that’s what it comes down to.

Belmont Head Coach Rick Byrd

Opening Remarks
We had a tough decision on whether or not to press. (Memphis) is just so good and (Joe) Jackson is so fast. Not only when we picked them up, but our transition defense is not going to be as good as it could be. We got caught in our habits of pressing even though we weren’t pressing. That is a good thing in a way because our mentality is to be up there. I thought we did a lot of things poorly in terms of knowing what we were supposed to do. I was disappointed to see us go out on the floor and not execute the call whether or not it was the offensive or defensive call. That lack of execution had a lot to do with being down seven to where we ended up. (Memphis) shot free throws and layups the rest of the game.”

On the play of J.J. Mann and Kerron Johnson
J.J. and Kerron have been the two best players daily in our program. Since we opened the season, those two have been the best players. J.J. is a very good basketball player and he has had some really good games, but he didn’t shoot the three like he did at Duke. It was also tough for us to score it from the inside. If we were playing Memphis every day we would have to play a different offense. (Memphis) is just strong, tall and long and did a great job of playing team defense. I tried to stay with our game plan too long probably.