Jan. 25, 2007

Recap |  Box Score

Charlotte head coach Bobby Lutz
"We obviously caught Saint Louis at a bad time. Give them credit, they were really ready to play. Lisch was terrific, looked pretty healthy to me. That is a tribute to him to fight through whatever pain he was in. They played well as a team, but he was a huge difference in the game. Second half, we really struggled to guard them, which has been a problem for us this year. It didn't matter what defense we were in, we struggled to guard them. On top of that, they did a nice job of making their second shots count. They were very opportunistic, and were very solid defensively. We missed some pretty good shots, but overall I thought they played good defense. Obviously they deserved to win, in the second half they were better than us."

On presence of Ian Vouyoukas... "His presence in the middle...he's one of the best guys in our league. He attracts your attention. His statistical line isn't that impressive - it's solid - but his presence effected the game, no doubt about it. He got some big baskets for them, and he opened up some opportunities. Lisch was good throughout, Liddell elevated his game in the second half. Those guys are good players anyway, but when you have a big guy in the middle, it definitely creates some defensive problems for the opponent."

Saint Louis head coach Brad Soderberg
"Our defense was good tonight, so that makes me happy. We needed this win. I'm really pleased because my guys keep bouncing back. I was really concerned when we were flying back from New York on Sunday that we would have to go to the well another time, but it would be dry this time. We lost two to start league play, we regrouped and won two. Then we thought we had momentum and then we just didn't play well defensively at Temple and Fordham. I kind of pressed the envelope with them on Monday and Tuesday, and they responded. I thought we played really solid defense against a team that can really score. On top of that, we took care of the basketball very well. Kevin Lisch really had a breakout game from the 3-point line despite being injured in numerous places. The only negative tonight is that we didn't shoot free-throws very well. That was a big win for us."

On free-throw shooting... "We could have really spread the margin if we just would have made free throws. I don't know the answer, so don't ask the question."

On defense... "We actually went away from a system a little bit. We have a basic system of defense that we play, and we went away from it a little bit today in that I wanted Kevin (Lisch) to stay an arm-lengths away from Goldwire the entire time, and I wanted Tommie (Liddell) to stay an arms-length away from Alexander the entire time. When I watched those two on DVD, I say they could really score. That kind of goes away from our normal system, but I was willing to take the risk just to make life uncomfortable for those two guys and force somebody else to make plays. Drayton made more plays tonight than he probably normally would have if we played our basic defense because we would have had more help around him, but I was willing to challenge that guy to make the plays instead of the other two. I think we got really solid execution of our game plan tonight, and soundness with the basketball having single-digit turnovers against a team that plays a different defensive style, that is a good night for us."

On points off turnovers... "I thought we could have got a lot more. There was a number of times in the first half where we had numbers advantage in transition, and we didn't get to the rim or turned it over or settled for the 3. We need to keep working on that, it is something that is new to our program. We've worked on it a lot, we need to do more of it."

On Tommie Liddell... "This is the first game in our A-10 schedule that he didn't score over 20. This may have been his best game, though. He defended really well. He didn't turn it over. Just played solid basketball, I'm really pleased with the way he played tonight. He made half his 3s, so he continues to be a dependable 3-point shooter. I think an average fan will look and say Tommie didn't have a good night. I thought he had a great night tonight, really good."

On Justin Johnson... "He made some shots. He really got us a momentum basket at halftime, I thought Kevin made a really nice play to get him the ball for the finish. As long as JJ is active on the glass, he is a real asset to us. He is a good athlete, he is one of guys on our roster that can compete with the athletic 4-men that we see in our league." On the Lisch to Liddell alley-oop... "That was another nice pass. That is the advantage of going out in transition a lot. Once in a while, you get an easy basket by trying to press the issue in transition."

On working on defense... "We are going to keep working on our defense. I saw some things in our last two games before this that just were kind of slippages in fundamentals. So Monday and Tuesday, we spend a lot of time on defense. We spent 2 hours, five minutes defensively in a two-and-a-half hour practice on both days. That is a lot. I saw some improvement, particularly in the post with Luke, Ian, Justin, Bryce and Adam. I thought they did a really nice job tonight, their positioning was better, at least what I saw live."