University of Memphis Athletics
Coaches Postgame Quotes
Dec 17, 2008 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 17, 2008
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Memphis 59, UALR 51 December 17, 2009 FedEx Forum Memphis, Tenn. Coach Quotes
John Calipari
Head Coach University of Memphis
Opening Statement
There are not many times that I'm at a loss for words, but I am at a loss for words. We'll get better. We'll go back to work. Our timid play has to stop and we have to move on. Guys that play 27 minutes can't say "Take me out," when they miss a shot, they have to play 27 minutes. We have to get more invested. We just started. If we get more invested, guys will have more self esteem. They will want to get fouled late in the game and get to the line. They will want to make basketball plays when the game is on the line. Then again, it is just like the Georgetown and Xavier games. We have nowhere to go with the ball. We have nowhere to go to finish them off. We're up 20 points and we make a couple of substitutions and suddenly it is an 11 point game. Now the guys are looking at me for answers. We have some stuff to do.
Steve Shields
Head Coach UALR
Opening Statement
I was proud of our guys and their tenacity. They continued to fight. You're exactly right. That is an extremely well coached basketball team. They are so long and athletic and they can hurt you in so many different ways on the offensive glass. They're coming off a game against Georgetown where they got 25 offensive rebounds. We knew that we had to value the basketball in this game. I thought a key stat coming into tonight was our ability to value the basketball. I knew coming in that Memphis is 5-0 when they force their opponents into 15 or more turnovers. They are 0-2 when their opponents get 14 or less turnovers. We had seven at the half and I felt like that's where we wanted to be.
Early in the second half, we turned the ball over a little bit versus their press. We ended up with 17 turnovers so that stat stays true. We knew that we had to rebound defensively and we did a good job of that. They had nine offensive rebounds and we did a good job blocking out for the most part. I thought we did a good job for the most part of closing gaps. We wanted to keep the ball on the perimeter and keep the ball out of the paint.
What does this game mean to your team?
The thing I am most proud of from our team's standpoint is our poise. We tried to focus on individual possessions and I thought we did a much better job of showing good poise offensively. I think that is something that going into conference play, if we want to win conference, we have to be a poised basketball team.
