Postgame Quotes
December 09, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 9, 2006
Stokes Postgame Press Conference
ECU Head Coach Ricky Stokes
"Our guys are disappointed. I thought we did get some good looks on offense, but unfortunately the shots wouldn't go in. I thought defensively we played well enough to win this game. We knew they were talented. We did a good job of guarding McHugh Mattis, but Melvin Buckley was able to make some big shots for them. We're going to stay the course and just continue to work and get better."
On John Field's performance
"John did have a good game tonight, but we have to get everyone to play good at the same time. Darrell Jenkins also played good, but some of the other guards struggled making some shots. It also would've been nice to have a healthy Jeremy Ingram, he could've made a difference out there."
On Melvin Buckley
"He is a tremendous player. We did a fairly good job with him in the first half, but he really got going in the second and hurt us. He's a tough match up because he can stretch the defense out with his three-point shot and can also use his height advantage down low on smaller guards. They did a great job tonight of getting him the ball in the right places. "
On rebounding
"They really hurt us on the offensive glass. They are big and athletic and they just seemed a little quicker to the loose balls than we did and really made us pay with second chance points. We need to limit a team like that to one shot and their second and third shots were really a detriment to our team."
USF Head Coach Robert McCullum
"We feel very fortunate to come away with a win. We knew from experience that we would be coming into a hostile environment. We had three guys who were among our top seven players that were traveling for the first time. We played our first five games at home."
"I felt good when we were able to get off to a good start. I thought that was so key. We knew Jenkins had the ability to break it down off the dribble, as well as his ability to knock down three point shots. We were concerned about that."
"In the first half we had trouble taking care of the basketball, that's why we were only up by five points. I thought we did a better job of that in the second half."
ECU freshman John Fields
"Mattis is very athletic and he can leap. He gave us a little trouble under the basket. We couldn't find a solution, defensively, all night."
"It was very frustrating because we hit all those perimeter shots in practice, they just haven't been falling in the games. I just told those perimeter guys to keep shooting. It'll go in if we just keep shooting. These guys are just in a slump, I know they can shoot, I've seen them shoot and they'll break out of it sooner or later."
Junior Darrell Jenkins
"I think we're in a shooting slump, it can be fixed. We have shooters on this team and right now we're just frustrated. Once the shots start to go in we'll start winning games."
