Postgame Quotes
February 25, 2012 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 25, 2012
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ECU Coach Jeff Lebo
"It was a tough loss for us today. We battled hard, but we didn't have enough guys offensively step up. Shamarr (Bowden) was terrific tonight, playing major minutes. Not only was he good offensively, he spent the majority of the night on (Jordan) Swing defensively. Shamarr, (Darrius) Morrow, and Robert (Sampson) were pretty solid tonight."
"We have a lot of guys right now offensively that aren't playing with a lot of confidence. I feel for them because I would like to interject them with some confidence, but it does not work like that. You have to perform on the practice court and you have got to perform in a game situation to really have true confidence. Miguel Paul's confidence is shaken. He has really struggled here in the last three games with 20 turnovers. He came in before those games leading the league in assist-to-turnover ratio. When your point guard is struggling like that it is hard. We had Miguel, Erin (Straughn), (Maurice) Kemp, Corvonn (Gaines), and Paris (Campbell) go for a combined 2-of-18 from the field at home. That was a big deal for us tonight."
"Give them credit; we made a run at the end, Robert made some big buckets, and we thought we had a couple of steals at the end which didn't go our way. We had two good looks in the last minute to take the lead, one from Shamarr in the corner and one from Miguel at the top, but just couldn't put it in. I really thought the key to the game were some turnovers that led to some easy baskets at a crucial time in the second half that really hurt us."
On UAB's offensive rebounding
"They had 11 offensive rebounds in the first half and ended up with 15. A couple of those were long shots that ricocheted out. That I understand, but they really hurt us early on the glass and got multiple attempts. We shot it so poorly to start the game and I told them I really liked our shots, but to relax and we will start to put them in. Finally we did start to make some shots. I looked down at the end of the half and we had shot 44-percent to their 34-percent, and you think I don't know how that just happened but it did."
On Shamarr Bowden's scoring performance
"I don't know if I was expecting that, but you expect him to shoot the ball at a high rate. We were hoping coming in, he would be in the upper 30's to 40 percent 3-point shooter. He has shot well the last two nights, including the game against Memphis. We can't get three or four players going on the same night. We need two or three of them going on a particular night for us and we haven't gotten that lately."
UAB Coach Mike Davis
"We had a week off and I thought that it helped us to prepare for this game. I have a lot of respect for Coach Lebo and the job he has done here with his basketball team. Having two guys sitting out, we were a little shorthanded. We wanted to go at Morrow early, and out of transition we wanted to play faster tonight. We thought that helped us out instead of trying to score in half-court sets."
On his team's play down the stretch
"We are used to that. We have had droughts of seven and eight minutes, so I think our guys sometimes start to play the score instead of the game and that's on me as a coach. I have got to make sure I do a better job of getting our guys into different things. I thought we tried to keep the ball away from them at the end instead of attacking and trying to score. I take my hat off to our guys, (ECU) came back and took the lead, then we came down on two straight possessions and scored out of our sets."
Senior Darrius Morrow
On UAB's offensive rebounding
"It killed us in the first half, with them having 11 offensive rebounds. We did a good job in the second half, only giving up four, but we can't let a team get double-digit offensive rebounds. You are not going to be successful in this league, especially against a good team like UAB."
On playing from behind
"Basketball is a game of runs and we had a good run in us. We tied the game late and then they went on a run. We were fighting back the entire game and when you are fighting back the whole game it takes a lot of energy out of you. We just came up a little short."
Junior Shamarr Bowden
On his career scoring night
"I relaxed and let the game come to me. I played off my teammates and tried to knock down open shots. I got a rhythm going early and my teammates kept finding me."
