University of Memphis Athletics
Memphis/CBU Post-Game Quotes
Nov 09, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 9, 2009
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Memphis 66, Christian Brothers 45
Memphis Head Coach Josh Pastner
Let me just say this, winning is hard. I have always said that. I don't care if it is AAU ball, junior high, high school, college or pro. If it is in your line of work, winning is hard. Winning is unusual. To win, to be great, winning is hard. I told our guys that. It takes great effort, focus, execution and discipline. All I know is that we got the win. It wasn't pretty. We have a lot to work on. But the bottom line is that we got the win.
Question: The difference between CBU playing comfortable and uncomfortable was your defense effort. Was there a breakthrough in any way?
No, there was not as much as a breakthrough. As I have said from the beginning, we are not going to be good offensively night in and night out. As you see from tonight, we were 19-of-34 from the free-throw line and 1-of-12 from the 3-point range. So, when we are off offensively, we have to be really good on the glass and on the defensive end. We were on (the glass) good in one half on the defensive end. We held them to 28 percent in the second half, but we got out-rebounded. If we want to win at a high level, we are going to have to be good both halves defensively and both halves on the glass.
Question: You were so upset last week that you closed the practice to work on the defense and then they come out and do the same thing in the first half. Why?
I don't know. I wish I did know, because that would help solve a lot of things as to why we are being so lethargic. Our start today wasn't sound. I thought we had a very good shoot around. It was just one of those things. We may need to start picking up full court pressure from the beginning. A lot of it is just inner fortitude.
Christian Brothers Head Coach Mike Nienaber
"Memphis clearly stepped up after we had that 14-point lead. We made a lot of shots. When we got good shots, we were making them and it was fun while it lasted. I told the guys at the under 16 timeout, that it had been ugly, but we were tied at that point and that was encouraging. There are two problems with this team and that is we are young and we just can't create the intensity that Memphis plays with in practice. We can't create that level of athleticism in our practice. Memphis is one step quicker, a couple of inches taller and a little bit stronger and that makes all the difference in the world."
"Memphis made some good adjustments. We were making the threes early, but we couldn't get the passes for the threes later in the game. A lot of things we did, we were happy with, but we have a lot of work to do. We didn't get as many answers as I had hoped for tonight. As I told Coach Pastner, I wish we could scrimmage once a week because we can't go anything like that in our practices."
