Everything Dennis Gates, Noah Carter Said After Losing to South Carolina
The Missouri men's basketball team fell to South Carolina 71-69 in overtime on Saturday to remain winless in SEC play.
Missouri head coach Dennis Gates and forward Noah Carter spoke about the game during the postgame press conference. Here is the transcript:
Dennis Gates
Opening statement:
Great atmosphere. I thought our fans showed up despite the storm outside. Ultimately, we got off to a slow start, but I'm proud of our guys for fighting back and containing the lead for the duration. As it relates to the end of the game in regulation, we were up by three, I signaled to timeout but I guess I signaled too late for the referee to see. They came down, tied the game and it ended up going to overtime. Got to the free throw line but weren't able to execute on the front end of one-and-ones and we let one get away.
On what he would have said if he was granted the timeout:
Just get your defense set, reset yourself and start fresh. Up three, don't give up a three and that's why I was signaling.
On the biggest obstacle behind not being able to generate sustained offense:
Sustained offense comes in different ways. I thought we were able to get to the free-throw line. Sustained offense means ‘Are you getting open shots?’ We got open looks, we got the right looks. I just thought the shots didn't go in when you look at the shot count.
Walking through the last offensive possession of the game:
I wanted the ball baseline-out-of-bounds because I thought we did a great job executing baseline-out-of-bounds throughout the season. Ultimately, you get the ball right there and at that point, South Carolina had a great defensive stop... they took us out of it.
On the decision to use nine players in the rotation:
I thought Jesus (Carralero Martin) played a tremendous game with a tremendous stat line. Those are minutes earned. Once he fouled out, I thought we took a step backward. When you look at Aidan Shaw's minutes he went down from 18 to 17 to 13. Tamar Bates and Noah Carter played a tremendous game, I'm proud of them. Nick Honor kept us in resolve, he had a couple of wide-open shots like that shot at the top of the key that I thought was going to go in but didn't. Sean East played tremendous as well, we just didn't close out the game. We had the lead for 24-25 minutes of that and that's what I'm proud of.
On what he's seen from Jesus Carralero Martin the past couple of weeks:
He has a high basketball IQ. He's a great passer, he's a connector, he has strength, meaning he's able to battle and switch. Those intangibles you can't get enough of. That's why his minutes have increased and mentally he's been in the right place and able to recover from mistakes. If you think about that fastbreak he had in the first half, he was so upset at himself for not converting, but that's where he's gotten better by being able to play through those moments that aren't going his way.
Noah Carter
On the final play:
We had a play, I got the ball up top. I forced the shot. I would say that it felt good, it did feel good. But yeah, they got the stop and we didn’t get it done.
