Postgame Quotes at Ohio – University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Athletics

Chattanooga at Ohio
Athens, Ohio | Convocation Center
Sunday, December 18, 2022
Postgame Quotes
 
Head Coach Shawn Poppie
On getting the win on the road
“I tell you what. A win on the road, I don’t care who you play, this place is hard place to play after eight- and-a-half hour bus trip or whatever it was yesterday, followed by we just came off the road trip. This this group is competing, and is a fun, fun group to be around.”
 
On finishing games
“The thing is we’re not playing a ton of bodies. So early on, we struggled down the stretch we couldn’t finish games. We talked a lot about it as a staff and you know, I think it was initially you think well, we’re just we’re playing it not enough people right? I wasn’t sold on that. You look around the country. There’s there’s a lot of people – Ohio State right now is number four in the country and play seven and press for 40 minutes. And so I thought it was our bodies as much as it was learning how to play 40 minutes and we’ve now gone two games in a row where I think we’ve got our best as we finished the game instead of the opposite. So again, proud that we’re figuring it out. I’m proud that they can take me going crazy over there on the sidelines at times and we do some dumb things. And it goes on to the next possession.”
 
On the play of Amaria Pugh
“We got in a little bit of foul trouble there. I was trying to manage fouls and I put her [Amaria Pugh] on their, best player. Gave a different look, right. Sigrun [Olafsdottir] has that length and kind of messes with your with your length a little bit. Mari just gets right up underneath you. Sometimes she’s trying to do what we ask, like we give up a layup here late in the game because she sitting in middle like we asked but it’s just too much of an angle. She’s got that kind of athletic ability and she’s getting the job done. Get the ball in the paint trying to make the right play, our bigs got to be ready for it, you know. She had some really, really big minutes for us tonight.”
 
On shutting down their leading scorer
“We said it at the half, keep making it hard for her. It can’t come easy. The first two threes were on me. She doesn’t shoot a great percentage. I wanted to kind of give space. I thought she had too many driving lanes in that first half. And so we talked about it going into second she’s gonna score. She’s a good basketball player and that’s kind of their philosophy. That’s how they play. And so we just need to make it harder for her and I thought we definitely did that in the second half at times and especially down the stretch.”