University of Memphis Athletics
Post-Game Quotes
Dec 05, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 5, 2009
Recap | Final Stats
Arkansas State Associate Head Coach Chad Dollar
Post-Game Quotes
Talk about the efforts of the big men, specifically Martavius Adams.
The big men had some good efforts even though they were in foul trouble. Martavious stepped up to the challenge tonight. He did get in foul trouble, and that held us back a little bit down the stretch. He played a really, really good in the first half, and that gave us the momentum we needed to build a lead against a great team.
Jejuan Brown had a career high tonight, talk about the way he played and the impact he had on the game.
Our big guys stepped up to the challenge tonight. They played really well and aggressive. It all started tonight with us feeding the ball inside and feeding the big men. Jejuan did a really good job throughout the whole game and that was huge.
Overall thoughts on the way Memphis played.
Memphis is a great team. I watched them on tape quite a bit last week. They have a good team and over time the pounding on the inside wore us down, and they were able to blow the game open. We want to take some positives out of this game and move forward.
Memphis Head Coach
Josh Pastner
Opening Remarks
"Boy that was an ugly win. But you know what, a win is a win and winning is hard. I tell everybody that winning is hard. It's not easy to do, so anytime you can get a "W" you're better off because you can chalk one up in the left hand column. Again, I said in the beginning when we're not good offensively the only way we're going to win games is we've got to be real good defensively and be good on the glass. We forced 19 turnovers and held them at 36 percent from the field, and we won the rebound battle.
We were not good offensively, that's for sure. But we scrapped. I told the guys this was a grind out game. We're going to have to grind it out. That's kind of been our identity is we're going to have to scrap and grind, and the guys did that. It was ugly, but it was a "W"."
On the slow start
"We started out 11-2, and that put us in a hole. It was like playing Christian Brothers. We got ourselves in a hole and had to work our way back. We had some chances in the second half that we didn't convert. We had some good looks, but we missed a lot of point-blank layups; Holy Toledo. Will Coleman and Pierre Henderson Niles had 21 rebounds between the two of them. Yeah, he (Henderson-Niles) was 1-of-9, and he's got to make those. We've got to stay really positive with him because he's going to make those shots. There's no question about it. He's just got to keep getting good lift and effort and keep staying after it, and he's going to make them."
On Will Coleman battling through foul trouble
"He kept competing and played hard and did a great job. I didn't start him in the second half because I wanted to obviously preserve him. But he came in and played smart. We talked about that. You've got to protect your first foul. Sometimes you third or fourth makes it a bigger deal but really it's about protecting your first foul. That way it's not a silly foul. If you're going to commit a foul, it's got to be out of a complete effort play. "
D.J. Stephens came in and did a good job in terms of bringing energy. He did it against Oakland when we were in a little bit of a rut and came through. The same thing here; he came in and gave us a little spark. There's no question about that."
