University of Memphis Athletics
Memphis Basketball Quotes vs North Carolina Central
Dec 15, 2014 | Men's Basketball
Recap | Box Score | Notes
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Memphis Head Coach Josh Pastner |
Overall Thoughts…
“I thought we did some good things. I liked our pace. First of all, defensively, North Carolina Central shoots 48% from the field and 38% from three. We held them to 39% from the field and six percent from three-point range. We did a great job defensively. I thought we guarded really well. We’ve been very consistent defensively through our first eight games. We’ve been pretty good on the glass and were +24 tonight. We were good in those two areas.
The biggest issues were our turnovers and scoring droughts. We started making some shots early and that got us going. Good things happen when you score. We still had 14 turnovers, but the biggest thing we didn’t have was that drought. We started making shots and when you make shots it gives you life and energy.
We’re still a work in progress. We still have some work to do. We have a quick turnaround and have to get ready for Wednesday against a very good USC Upstate team that beat Georgia Tech in Atlanta. This will be another good test for us on Wednesday. We’ve played a tough schedule. Three of the four teams we’ve lost to are in the top 20 in RPI. We have not played an easy schedule. It’s probably been a little bit of over scheduling because of the youth on our roster. I think it will help us when we get to conference play.”
On not having a scoring drought…
“I thought we did a good job moving the ball. People want to know why we’ve subbed a lot, but every game we’ve had scoring droughts and trying to find a combination to get you out of a drought. You’re going to try to find the guys to make it work. When you don’t have droughts you can leave guys in.
If anyone has known me as a coach, I’m a guy that will run with a group of five. We’ve had major droughts in every game and we’ve been trying to find a combination that gets you out of a drought. These haven’t been short droughts either. They’ve been 10 and 12 minutes in length. You’re searching and trying to find things.
We’ve been pretty good defensively and rebounding, but when you don’t make shots, it sucks the life out of you. It’s an energy sucker. That’s what happened when you go through a drought. We didn’t have a drought tonight. You can overanalyze everything you want, but when the team is scoring and making shots, the team is better. We have a better chance to win the game when we’re scoring. It is what it is. We have struggled when we’ve had long droughts. We have a chance to win a lot of games if we can avoid those droughts."
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Sophomore Guard Pookie Powell |
On getting the win…
“We were happy to be out there and get on the right track and get ready for Wednesday.”
On his five assists…
“We all just shared the ball. D’Marnier and I are always trying to get our bigs the ball.”
On getting the start…
“It felt good. Coach has a lot of confidence in me. I just went out there and did what he said to do.”
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Junior Guard D'Marnier Cunningham |
On getting the win…
“It’s a process just trying to take it one game at a time. I was more comfortable out there. I think on Saturday I was anxious. I was settled down and just played my game.”
On what he’s working on improving…
“I’m trying to be more poised and dictate when to go fast and when to slow down. I have to work on keeping a balance.”
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Sophomore Forward Jake McDowell |
On the team’s performance…
“It just seemed different from the game Saturday. It seemed like we were more together and having fun. Of course winning is fun, but tonight was a better game for us as a whole.”
On the point guard play…
“It was solid from Pookie, D’Marnier and Kedren tonight. It was a lot better than it has been.”
On his dunk…
“Kedren got the ball and I started running. I knew I had to try it. I knew no one was behind me. I was still in shock when I came down. I had to remind myself to run back.”
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N.C. Central Head Coach Levelle Moton |
On the game….
“We stunk. They took advantage of our stinkyness. We were awful. We acted like we had never seen a basketball before. We have a lot of new guys that have to understand our coaching and the fabric of how we do things. That’s my responsibility, so I take full responsibility for that. Hats off to them though. They made shots. We were open. The name of the game is basketball, so you do have to score to get points. We were open. We shot 16 percent in the first half. You definitely can’t win a basketball game that way.”
On difference of playing Memphis compared to other teams…
“It’s a make or miss basketball game. When you make that shot, those open shots, things look better. You have a little more energy and effort on the defensive end of the floor. Right now, we are a fair weather basketball team. We allow our heart and our energy to be predicated off of whether we make a shot or not. You can’t win basketball games like that. That is recreation.”
