Dec. 4, 2008

Recap |  Box Score |  Photo Gallery 

Melissa McFerrin
University of Memphis Head Coach

Opening statement

"From about the 16 minute time out to about the eight or six minute mark, I don't think that we believed that we had a chance to beat this team. And that was pretty telling when they put the spread on us. That's what we talked about in the locker room. We have to believe that we can go out and get teams that are better. I'll be honest, it wasn't in their eyes when they sat down for time outs. It's something that we have to do. We have to compete in that part of the game. Tonight, I think we were wondering when the next growth step would be and this is our next growth step. Timing and turnovers killed us. We didn't shoot the ball very well. We talked about finishing in the paint. I thought we got a lot of shots that we wanted in the paint, but we couldn't put them in. That has been a little bit of our Achilles heel in games that we've lost. Certainly I'm proud of the effort. I think our kids are sitting in the locker room right now and saying that we could have beaten that team, but we didn't give ourselves a chance in the early to mid-part of the second half.

What happened when your team was making the comeback?

Arkansas gave it to us a couple of times and we hit a couple shots. That of course gives you energy. During that grind time when things are hard, I thought that was where we lost it. I thought that fatigue played a little bit of a role, but we turned the ball over enough and gave them some lay ups. Its hard to win when they score 76 points.

Comment on some of your players' performances tonight.

We got in the double bonus really early with around seven minutes left. That was our strategy, just to attack the basket. We tried to score layups and get fouled. Paris went to the free throw line a lot in the second half. I thought Tehani Goldsmith played pretty well today as well. She got in the scoring column a little bit for us. She was in attack mode and got to the rim.

Was this a good night for Alex Winchell who had a positive assist to turnover ratio tonight?

Alex is getting better with every game. Right now, when fatigue strikes is when she begins to make mistakes. We're not in a position where we have a lot of ball-handlers to put in the game to ease her responsibilities in that regard, but she did handle it. She's getting better every game.

Thoughts on Ashley Thornton's struggles offensively, but defensive effort.

Ashley had a lot of shots in the paint and we rely on her to hit. Tonight wasn't that night. They got some hands on the ball tonight. They altered some shots and she missed a couple of point blanks.

Comments on Savannah Ellis who had 8 points and 12 boards tonight.
We need her there all the time. She's coming through with those rebounds, but she's just not getting them back up and putting them in the basket. She's losing her balance and kicking them out. We need her to get those rebounds and stick those offensive rebounds in. I can't say enough about what a force on the boards that she is for us. "

Tom Cullen
Arkansas Head Coach Tom Cullen

Opening Statement
"It wasn't a very pretty game. We got into an awful lot of foul trouble. We have to learn how to play without fouling. We actually shot the ball pretty halfway decent when we got the shot, but we turned the ball over 20 times trying to get a good shot. We just had way too many foolish turnovers. I think that is what kept the game close. Nonetheless, I think it was a good win for this team on the road. I think this was a spirited crowd that we played against. They were in the game at the end and we had to battle through that. We had to make some free throws down the stretch and hopefully we got better. It wasn't pretty what we saw out there, but hopefully we got better."

On the defense forcing turnovers and being able to get points off of turnovers

"We have to be able to do that. We have to create turnovers sometimes when we're struggling to score. But, you know, the defense was fine. And, I think, other than the fouling and giving up a few too many offensive rebounds, those were probably the downsides on the defensive end."

Well, what do you now with your next game at Kansas State?

"Well, we have to just keep getting better. We're going to face different challenges all the time. I mean, [Memphis] isn't a big team, yet we struggled just to stay even on the boards against a pretty small team. But, we found a way to win. I think they took us by surprise a little bit playing zone. We were more ready for man-to-man. I don't think we adjusted very well, And, at the beginning of the game, we started 1-10 from the three point line. But, I think we were 14-20 in the first half from inside the arc. So, we found a way to score other than shooting the three ball."