University of Memphis Athletics
Postgame Quotes
Dec 11, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 11, 2011
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Murray State (10-0) 76, #21/20 Memphis (5-3) 72
December 11, 2011
FedExForum (Memphis, Tenn.)
Postgame Quotes
Memphis Head Coach Josh Pastner
Opening Statement
Yeah, that was not a good game. Obviously, I give Murray State all the credit; they deserved to win the game.
Our three keys of the game—we had the keys to the game—was to take the three out. And, that didn’t happen. As I’ve always said, you have to take the three out, and they came in shooting 43 percent as a team. Today they shot 45 percent.
The second key is that we had to keep them off of the free throw line because they were averaging about 80 percent from the free throw line and about 20 attempts. They went to the free throw line 29 times today.
The third key was that we couldn’t let their role players beat us because we spent so much time talking about (Isaiah) Canaan. Today, the role players beat us. Canaan is their best guy, but the other players stepped up and made shots. We have to give them credit for doing that.
Our guys battled back late; we were playing out of desperation. We had some chances, so I’m proud of the guys for giving effort in a lot of areas. In the end, we take a loss. Obviously, and I’ve always said this, it goes straight to the head coach. There are things the players could have done better, but the head coach has to take responsibility in a loss.
Talk about the turnovers in the game.
Yeah, we had some turnovers early. We had 10 in the first half—too many. We only had five in the second half. But, a lot of our turnovers were on fast break opportunities where we had chances to convert and we didn’t. That ends up biting us in the butt later on.
Talk about the near comeback at the end.
Well, we didn’t have any timeouts. I used three in the first half and two early in the second to stop the runs. After the last media timeout at under four minutes, I didn’t have any timeouts, so we were just kind of going. So, we just told the guys to go and were moving, scrapping and playing out of desperation. Chris (Crawford) got a really good look at it. You have to be able to sleep at night knowing he got a good look at it. He’s a good shooter. It went in and out, but that happens.  
Murray State Head Coach Steve Prohm
Opening Statement
Our guys were tremendous tonight, and our effort was great. We were able to start off the game in a positive way and let Memphis know we were going to be here and make it a long game. We got the lead in the first half and went in with some foul trouble, but we withheld it and went in the locker room up five. They started the second half like any good team would and took the lead, but we got a couple good breaks to go our way to stay in it. We continued to guard them and pressure them.
Memphis is a tremendous basketball team. They’re just going to continue to get better and better throughout the year. They’re talented at all positions, and this is good character win for our guys. One through 13, I couldn’t be more proud today.
Talk about the resiliency of this group:
Some of the guys were cramping; Jewuan (Long) and Donte (Pool) were cramping, and basically all five of our starters were involved at the end of the game. I probably in spurts didn’t sub them out like I could have to get them a little bit of a breather. Latreze (Mushatt) gave us some really good minutes. I thought Zay Jackson gave us some good minutes as well as Brandon Garrett. Everybody was so locked in, and it was a great team win. I can’t say enough about how proud I am of these guys.
Edward Daniel had another good game down low. Talk about his performance:
He was 7-for-9 from the free throw line and had 13 points, nine boards and four blocks. I can’t say enough about him. You get on him every day at practice because you know he has so much to give us. Against Southern Miss and against Memphis, probably two of the three best teams we’ve played so far, he’s played really good.
