Memphis-CBU Post Game Quotes
Nov 04, 2008 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 4, 2008
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Memphis 83, Christian Brothers 52
November 4, 2008
Post Game Quotes
Memphis Head Coach John Calipari
Do you sort this out later and watch the tape?
"I knew the start was going to be this way, I told them (CBU) is a good team. They're a senior group and probably a top-20 Division II team, and we pressed and did some good things. We really only played eight guys the whole game, and there were things I really liked as well as things we need to work on."
What do you need to work on the most?
"Well, I just don't think we have enough organization on the court. I can't tell everyone on that court what they need to be doing. Someone else, a player, has to do that. And that person has to have a feel for what is happening, and we're trying to figure out who that person is going to be. It might be Antonio (Anderson); it might be Willie (Kemp); it could be Wesley (Witherspoon). Wesley did some good things, but he also turned it over four times. I had to call a timeout because our young guys don't understand that every possession matters. We're about to bury somebody and really put the game out of reach, and they go turnover, foul, missed shot, turnover. But again there were some good signs tonight. I thought Pierre (Henderson-Niles) showed signs tonight. We haven't seen that in Pierre since he's been here. We saw things out of Pierre today we've never seen. He still has to lose weight and learn how to play when he's tired. A lot of times when he gets tired, he just stops. I thought in the second half Shawn Taggart tried to play on every possession."
How do you get to a point where you know what you're going to get from a certain player?
"Some of it is getting the guys healthy that are going to play minutes and letting the other guys understand. I'll say it again; you can't make four or five plays in a row and stay in the game. Some may say that you make one play and you're out of the game. But really it's four or five things in a row. And those are the swings you're talking about. For example, you didn't come up with the ball, so you come down and turn it over, and you can't do that. Those are six, seven point swings. We're not going to be a team that's up 30 this year. We're going to have to grind it out a little bit better. I love the way we shot free throws tonight, and we're going to have to. I mean, we couldn't buy a bucket starting out, but free throws kept us in it. So, we've got a lot to work on."
Christian Brothers Head Coach Mike Nienaber
On Overall Performance
"We did alright. It would have been nice if we would have made a few more free throws. I guess for Memphis fans that had to be pretty encouraging, the way they shot free throws, 30-39 to 11-24, and how many of ours were front-ends? That would have made it a little less painful if we could have scored a few at the foul line. I thought overall we did alright. Nick (Kohs) did some good things, I think he got frustrated. They killed us on the boards, which is part of the reason we lost the game the way we did. We have got to get better rebounding and we have to get better executing our offense. I thought we were quick at times taking shots. The quicker we shoot the quicker we have to go back and play defense and we can't keep them between us and the basket."
What can you take from this game moving forward into the regular season?
"We have got a lot of young guys that we need to step up and I thought they showed some things they are capable of doing tonight. I thought Connor Wetzel played some good minutes for us and so didScott Dennis. Those are two guys who we expect to play a lot of minutes. I thought they both played well. Jimmy Palmer came in and knocked down a couple shots and so did Zack Warner. Those are the guys that I am looking at being in my first nine and those are three freshmen and a sophomore that I am looking to fill the minutes of the two seniors that were in our starting lineup last season. I thought those guys all did a lot of positive things. We are going to look at the film tomorrow, a lot of times our guys were out of position and didn't execute things right, but that is what freshman do. Hopefully they will get better."
