Postgame Quotes
December 19, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 19, 2011
East Carolina Head Coach Jeff Lebo
Opening statement
"I thought that was one of the best two halves of basketball that we played. I think our zone bothered them during the game and was effective. We finally shot the ball pretty well, 47 percent which is nice to see, and 85 percent from the foul line. We did a nice job defensively, we took care of the basketball, and we only had 11 turnovers."
"Coastal Carolina is a good basketball team and we got them on a good night for us. They were not sharp, missed a lot of shots, and turned the ball over against us. I have a lot of respect for them, winning 28 games last year, 9-1 record coming in here tonight, with victories against an SEC team and an ACC team. I told our kids that was a terrific win. I built [Coastal Carolina] up pretty much because I believe they are a really good basketball team."
"I thought we did a lot of nice things and we got what we needed, which are four guys scoring for us. Shamarr (Bowden) and (Maurice) Kemp at the third and fourth scoring spot did a nice job for us. We got solid play off of the bench. You might not look at the numbers and see big things, but I thought Corvonn (Gaines) did a nice job; he was solid defensively (rebounding and guarding), and handling the ball out there."
Thoughts on applying the zone defense against Coastal Carolina
"We worked on it the last couple of days and we thought this may be a good team to zone. They are very good in their man-to-man. We wanted to keep (Darrius) Morrow out of early foul trouble. Their inside guys are very effective in man-to-man, both shooting over 60 percent from the field. The zone bothered them, they didn't get in any kind of flow, and we did mix man-to-man and zone in there so that kept them off balance a little bit. We were able to play a lot of zone because we scored a lot so that is certainly helpful to be able to set our defense. "
Coastal Carolina Head Coach Cliff Ellis
Opening Statement
"First of all, I commend East Carolina. Bottom line, they came out and played zone pretty much the whole game. We didn't handle it well from two sides. Number one, in the first half we had 12 turnovers that led to 17 points. That was the difference in the first half; you add to that 3-for-21 shooting and that doesn't add up to a good recipe."
"They shot the ball better, we out-rebounded them, but we were turnover prone in the first half. They turned them into easy baskets and we didn't shoot the ball well. You can put your arms around a lot of things but that is the game, turnovers in the first half and poor shooting, bottom line."
On ECU's Zone Defense
"I wasn't expecting it that early, and it's long. It's a good zone and I think they will have some success with it at home."
