University of Memphis Athletics
Post-Game Quotes
Jan 13, 2010 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 13, 2010
Recap | Box Score | Notes
Memphis Coach Josh Pastner
On East Carolina
They're well-coached. Coach (Mack) McCarthy has won a lot of games. They're a team who is dangerous. Their point guard, Brock Young, is as good as anyone in the league. They're well-disciplined. Again though, if you hold a team under 60 points, you have a good chance to win the game.
On team goals?
It's frustrating because we still lost the rebounding battle. We held them under 40 percent shooting, which was our goal, but we let them shoot 35 percent from three, and our goal is to hold teams under 30 percent. We didn't accomplish that. The bottom line is that a couple of times we've just let teams hang around because we keep fouling them.
On Witherspoon's play?
Wesley Witherspoon tonight played well. My only issue with him is that he only had two rebounds in five minutes. That can't happen. He was great offensively. That really gave us a spark, but now we need to put that together with about seven or eight rebounds.
On defense?
We were able to force some turnovers. However, I thought our first half was as poor of a first half as we've played all year long. That's a credit to East Carolina and the job they did. I was disappointed in our guys. I told our guys that I didn't think we competed like we needed to. However, in the second half, we jumped on them. That was a good sign.
On the crowd?
The crowd tonight was terrific. They estimated that we had around 16,000 here. Unbelievable. Tiger Nation gets an A with a double plus behind it. A for awesome. Capital A.
On Doneal Mack's 1,000 point?
You have to give Doneal a lot of credit. He's had a wonderful career so far. He's a wonderful young man. He stepped up and made some big shots tonight. He played well. To score over 1,000 points at the Division One level in your college career is very special so Doneal Mack should be extremely proud of himself and needs to be congratulated. I also want to throw in there that Willie Kemp played well tonight. He (Willie) was terrific. I thought Willie and Wesley Witherspoon gave us a spark. I was proud of both of those guys to step up offensively when we needed them to.
East Carolina Head Coach Mack McCarthy
Postgame Quotes
You were able to cut the lead to seven and then Memphis went on a run to end the game. Talk about the run and what was different.
"They have a lot of ways to beat you. They are a different team than in the past. Fortunately, they didn't make a huge percentage of threes tonight, but the ones they did make seemed to be back breakers. In the second half, they did something they didn't do in the first half and that was getting on the offensive glass. I thought that was the biggest thing that kept us from making consecutive stops, and that has been a problem for us.
The other thing was they had 12 points off of turnovers in the first half and 12 in the second half, and that is pretty much the difference in the game. You aren't going to play a game without turning it over, but it seemed like they converted a high percentage of the turnovers for points. We had 17 turnovers and they got 24 points, and that is pretty strong."
Your team held Elliott Williams to eight points tonight. Talk about the defense on him and the rest of the Memphis team.
"I thought we did a decent job on a few people. (Wesley) Witherspoon really had a great first half, but we turned them loose too much. Willie Kemp hung around the perimeter and we helped off of him too much, and he made us pay, and it was the same thing with (Doneal) Mack. It seemed like they did a good job of sharing the basketball. They had 15 assists on 27 field goals. They are playing well and they are missing some things from last year's team, size and things like that, but on a given night that doesn't necessarily hurt you.
The one thing was if we had been with the normal lineup, I think the backboard might have been a more positive force for us, but that was one thing we failed to take advantage of. We have got to get more production out of the post guys, especially when it comes to rebounding the basketball."
Brock Young seemed like he really had to grind it out tonight to get anything going for your team. Talk about the pressure that Memphis put on him.
"They really made it hard on Brock (Young), they double teamed him a lot and made him give it up. They denied him the basketball. I assure you that him and Chad (Wynn) and some of the other guys that played extended minutes will sleep really well tonight on the way back."
