University of Memphis Athletics
Memphis Postgame Quotes
Jan 28, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 28, 2006
Memphis Head Coach John Calipari
"We had a good second half. We shot the ball well from the three, but they were open threes, and we only took 21. Second thing, we were 19-for-30 from four feet today versus 13-for-36 (in Thursday's game vs. UAB). So now all of a sudden your margin, instead of being 8, 9 or 12, becomes a big margin."
"I thought Waki Williams was tremendous. Playing behind our offense, which is what he is supposed to do and doing it with great energy, versus lethargically moving. He did it with great energy and then all of a sudden we find out that he can score as much as anyone else if he moves with great energy. We didn't post him. We posted him on drives. We drove and threw him the ball."
"We have to start doing some things to open the game versus just pressing. I think what we are going to do is go with great ball pressure and deny wings to start the game because I want to know who is not ready to play. They may be out 12 seconds into the game. Your guy's just catching it and you aren't putting pressure on the ball, our entire team, our bench, everyone will be saying, `Coach get him out.' Again we had guys start this game like we don't have to play."
"The energy in the second half was tremendous, and that's how we have to play. Not everybody played well. Darius (Washington) didn't play one of his better games, and that's fine. But the energy was there, and Darius had great energy. That's how we have to play."
UCF Head Coach Kirk Speraw
"We kind of forgot some of the things that work for us against these types of teams. It didn't help either that Anthony Williams got into foul trouble, and that took him mentally out of the game right away. As a team we had no inside presence."
"We did some good things but let it slip away from us towards the end of the first half, but were still only down 12 points. We came out the second half with no life to what it needed to be and our defense broke down."
"A big problem that has been with us all year long really reared its head today and that is the last 15 minutes of the game got away from us."
"Memphis is athletic and good, but if you can keep them from running you can hang around. If you let them drive into the heart of the defense, they will be hard to beat and they were today."
