Postgame Quotes

Dec 20, 2010 | Men's Basketball

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#16/17 Memphis (9-1) 68, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (4-7) 63
December 20, 2010
FedExForum (Memphis, Tenn.)
Memphis Postgame Quotes

Memphis Head Coach Josh Pastner

Opening Remarks
I brought a couple of the guys in and talked about them keeping their heads up and remaining positive. The bottom line is we got the "W" and are 9-1 after 10 games. A couple of things, Jacksonville beat Florida at home today in overtime. Winning is tough, winning is hard. The bottom line is we found a way to win.

We had some spurts when we turned the ball over, but it wasn't a majority of the time. We had seven in the first half and six in the second half. We shot 70 percent at the free throw line and made our free throws.

I thought Joe Jackson, Charles Carmouche and Antonio Barton played great on offense in the second half and really gave us a lift. Will Coleman deserves the game ball. He was phenomenal on both ends of the floor and played with a lot of energy.

Tarik Black was sick with the flu all day; in fact assistant coach Jack Murphy was sick as well. We found a way to get the "W". Chris Crawford didn't have his best game offensively, but he found a way to produce defensively and on the glass. We outrebound them by six and had some big stops late.

Before the game you said you would be happy with 12 turnovers. You had 13 and outrebounded this team. How do you feel about that heading into the game Thursday?
We had great rebounding numbers from our guards. Will Coleman had nine rebounds, Tarik Black had five, Joe Jackson six, Charles Carmouche six, Will Barton five, Antonio Barton two and Chris Crawford four. That is good to have the balance rebounding throughout the team. I was proud of that effort. Rebounding by committee tonight.

Drew Barham came in and made a big free throw tonight, and then we got the rebound. We won the game, and we are 9-1. Again, the only thing better is 10-0 and we have a tough game on Thursday with Georgetown coming in here. It is going to be a fun game, and they are top-10 and number one in the RPI.

Let me tell you this, the way we are winning games is great, although I would like to win by 50. We are finding ways to win with key stops and making big shots late. When our backs are against the wall, we have found ways to win. That is going to bode well for us on the road in these kind of situations. We can use these examples and opportunities to say, "We've been here and we can do this."

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Head Coach Perry Clark

Opening Remarks
I certainly thought that we had an opportunity to win this game tonight, but give Memphis credit; their guys really stepped up. Joe Jackson really played well. He had 23 points, and really did a great job of helping his teammates with his dribble penetration. We never stopped the penetration, both offensively and defensively, in the last five minutes. That is the thing that I showed our guys. When this team (Memphis) gets in trouble, they look to penetrate and pitch. I don't know if that is a carry-over from (John) Calipari, but they really look to drive the ball and we never stopped it. There are no excuses; they just did a really good job.

What were you most pleased with about your team tonight?
I was happy with our competitive energy. If you're going to play a top 20 team, you have to be able to compete. The game is going to be fast and it is going to be played at a very intense pace. I thought that we were able to make decisions and play at a pace that was good. I'm not so sure that if we haven't played the schedule that we have that we would have been prepared to play this team. They really got up and down the floor quickly.

About your team's big men
We wanted to go inside, but I didn't think that we did a good job of recognizing match-ups late. Joe (Jackson) put so much pressure on us that they had us extended. A lot of times we had match-ups that we wanted and we simply just could not get the ball there because of the pressure.

How much did injury affect your team's performance tonight?
No more than them (Memphis) having their guy out did. You can't have a guy that starts for you go down and not affect you, but they had a guy out and we had a guy out. I have been doing this so long that you just have to play with the horses that you've got. It's the next guy up. It affected our rotation but Hollis (Hill) did a good job. It didn't come down to that, what decided the game was us not doing the job on the defensive side of the ball.