ECU-SMU Postgame Quotes
January 13, 2016 | Men's Basketball
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East Carolina Head Coach Jeff Lebo
Opening statement
"They're as good a team as I've coached against in a long time. In passing the ball, making things look easy. We fought hard in the first half, and that 3 from [Markus] Kennedy at the end of the first half really hurt us, he's not a three-point shooter. They shoot the ball like that every night. I've watched them play a ton. Their efficiency offensively is unlike any team I've seen in a long time. When they're on a mission, they're terrific. Our kids battled hard, on the boards -[SMU is] the number one rebounding team in the country and they hurt us on the glass, which they've done against everybody. They're a special team.
"We didn't have enough tonight. We battled hard the first half. I thought we did some good things. We scored in transition, but inside we struggled. We just didn't have any kind of matchup there inside. They hurt us there, I think 36 to 18 there in the paint."
"I thought B.J. [Tyson] and Caleb [White] battled hard. [Lance Tejada] finally made a couple of shots, but we didn't have enough offensive fire power tonight. Particularly the second half, we had a couple plays where we missed two or three in around the paint that they converted [into] three's on the other end."
On improving week-by-week
"We're getting better. We've got to try and find a way to keep the guys together, it's hard on them. Every night it's difficult. We don't have any margin for error. Being able to put together 40 minutes of basketball has been difficult for us against good teams. That's what I get at, 'Continue to fight. Continue to work.' That's all we know how to do."
SMU Head Coach Larry Brown
On his approach to coaching
"I'm not just saying this because I'm in North Carolina but it's obvious the effect Coach Smith's had on my life. I think Jeff would tell you the same thing, all the things that he values our kids value just because that's the way we've been taught. I haven't changed one bit. You want to get quality kids and you want them to play together, try to defend and rebound I think we do it and our seniors have really done that."
On the atmosphere and East Carolina
"This place is neat. I really believe this team is going to be a lot better in three weeks. I saw them play Cal and Cal is tremendous and they battled Cal. I think they need a signature win just to pump them up."
On all-around production
"I think we had as good an eight man starting rotation as anybody, but now we have seven starters. It's great to be part of this. Everyday I worry. Markus [Kennedy] hurt his ankle it was a bad injury, but we got through that. Nic [Moore] hurt his knee the other day, we haven't even had a day of real normal practice. We play a lot of four on four and work on fundamentals. I've never done this before, but we script a lot of stuff. People used to call it dummy offense. I don't want to be offensive, but we script plays and we are all learning to adjust. We got a very unique group of kids that really care about each other and we know its not going to get any easier so we just focus one day at a time."
On rebounding
"Every game like Coach Smith used to tell us we try to go inside. They work so hard on the board and they work so hard defensively we try to reward them. They're all willing passers and command attention so when we win on the boards, we give ourselves a chance to win generally."
