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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2020Kermit DavisBreein TyreeDevontae ShulerSt. Louis, Missouri Georgia 81, Ole Miss 63. THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Ole Miss. We'll ask Coach Davis for some general thoughts on the game. KERMIT DAVIS: I give Georgia a lot of credit. They dominated us right from the tip. Couldn't get back in transition. They just had more energy, more physical. Tried to make a run, we just couldn't guard for any length of time. We'd done a great job on Edwards in the win at Athens. He was I think 3-10 today, 3-12. Thought if you did that, you'd have a chance to win. We couldn't stop Hammonds and Tou. They were just too good for us. Gave up 55%, so Georgia deserved to win the game. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student-athletes. Q. Devontae, I know it's early, right after a game, but you have a big decision coming up. You waived the NBA Draft or the draft process last year. How do you plan to handle it this time around? DEVONTAE SHULER: I'm going to try to focus on myself, do things to try to make myself better as a player. Of course I'm going to make a decision. But other than that, I'm just going to work on myself, try to make myself better. Q. There was a stretch where y'all didn't score for six minutes. Coach was talking about energy. Were y'all motivated to be here? Did you want to play in this game today? BREEIN TYREE: I feel like, yes, we wanted to play in the game. We were struggling to score. This guy right here to the right of me always competes and always gives his all whenever he's on the court. Sometimes it just doesn't go your way. Like Coach said, you got to credit Georgia and how they came out to play. DEVONTAE SHULER: They definitely outplayed us and out-toughed us on a lot of possessions. We tried to make a comeback. We didn't make a couple right decisions on the offensive end, yeah. Q. Breein, now that you have a chance to look back at the whole season, what didn't go right? BREEIN TYREE: Just finishing games. A lot of times we had opportunities to win at home, and away. We just didn't make the plays to finish the game. Q. Breein, you were 6-5 on the road last year. What was different about this team when y'all got away from Oxford? BREEIN TYREE: Toughness, being able to go into another crowd and still play the same way that we played at home. Coming out, being aggressive on the ball, not letting the game get too fast for us. That's definitely something I know Coach is going to definitely want to change next year. This team is definitely capable of winning on the road. Q. Breein, right after a game, this past month have you taken time to reflect on your time at Ole Miss now that it's over? What are some things you'll have with you forever? BREEIN TYREE: Yeah, man, I have taken a lot of time to reflect on my time at Ole Miss. It's sad that it kind of ended this way. I met a lot of great people at the university. I learned a lot about myself, grew as a man, as a student-athlete. I'm thankful for every opportunity that I've gotten there. Sad that my career is over, man. It kind of feels weird. I feel like I did leave a mark on the university. Q. I know this doesn't affect you right now, but I'm sure y'all are hearing the news. What do you think it would be like to play in a tournament with no fans? BREEIN TYREE: Yeah, I feel like it would be a weird situation. Obviously the goal is to win the tournament, get to the NCAA tournament. It would definitely be weird for me. DEVONTAE SHULER: Of course, like Breein said, it would be weird. That's what we play for. We play for the fans. To see that they make that happen, it's really tough. THE MODERATOR: We'll excuse the student-athletes and continue with questions for Coach Davis. Q. You've talked all year about more toughness and physicality. Where specifically do you want to improve there on your roster? KERMIT DAVIS: Depth, for one thing. We couldn't guard the dribble late in games. Some of these games we couldn't close out. Not a lot of presence around the goal. We had our chances about four times on the road and couldn't do it. Then we throw a game out like this, we weren't very competitive. We got to go back and address it. In recruiting we've talked about that. We've got to address it with our team, guys coming back, try to develop toughness. We have a lot of work. We got some guys sitting out that have toughness. The kid we signed from IMG has great toughness, athletic. We have to add some pieces and get these guys coming back a lot better. Q. Do you think they were motivated and into it there in the first half? KERMIT DAVIS: Yeah, I mean, we came back after the tough loss at State. Watched tape that morning, came back, played hard in practice, played hard Monday, great preparation. Lively shootaround today. I can't put my finger on it. Those guys, great attitudes. We tried to get them uplifted, playing. Like I said, we just came out and we were affected by shot-making. Blake is either on or off. We missed some early opportunities. Some balls around the goal, that affected us defensively. The one thing we've always done for the most part is get back defensively. They got in transition. You saw, it was kind of lackluster defense. They were a really good group to come to the gym with every day. I've said that all year long. We have to address some areas in the talent and the toughness. These two guys did some great things. So Georgia was just better tonight. We've been better than Georgia three times. But Tom had his team ready to go and they played well. Q. Got it down to 8 after a slow start in the first half. Georgia hits the buzzer-beater. Did you feel like the air kind of came out of the sail? KERMIT DAVIS: We had it to 5 I think. They hit two threes at the end of the half. We ran a play for Breein. The ball just came out of his hands with about five or six seconds. That's not bad, give yourself a chance to offensive rebound. Nobody stopped the ball. He made a shot. It did. But still the game was 11, workable. The critical time was when we got it to 9, got a stop. All we talked about was driving the ball, driving the ball. Breein pulled up, shot one from 28. Next trip down, Blake shot one. Could have maybe had it to 5 and made it a game. From there they took it out, it was 13 or 14 again. Q. Since there are no longer games to prepare for, what are the next couple weeks like for you? KERMIT DAVIS: It's just recruiting. I'm going to give our team a week. Obviously you have to give a team a week after a season. We'll meet with everybody individually, staff, everybody, players, kind of assess exactly where everybody is. Obviously recruiting is a premium. We'll get back, me as a staff, I'll be gone on Saturday. Just kind of start addressing some needs that you see. With what's coming onboard, I don't know what this spring is going to look like even being able to get your team together in gyms and practice with what's going on, the lay of the land of college basketball. Those decisions will kind of be made by the presidents, ADs, NCAA over the next probably two to three weeks. Q. Tom said he was really pleased with how his team moved the ball against the zone. What did you see there? KERMIT DAVIS: Yeah, I thought we affected them in our 1-3. I thought we got our hands on balls. When we got in our 2-3 zone, we couldn't get matched up. They got to the high post, made some plays, got some easy plays there. I thought their team moved the ball a lot better than the first time we played them. They had 19 assists. I think it was 19, yeah. That's a good number. Baskets made, I know Tom has to be pleased with that. Our ball stuck a little bit. I just thought they were more willing passers tonight. Q. Have you had time to reflect on the past two years getting to coach Breein? What do you see in his future, where he goes from here? KERMIT DAVIS: He's got a great future. What people don't really know about Breein, he was voted in the top 30 seniors nominated for like the distinguished award for college athletes, that's character and classroom, community service and talent. Obviously he's been head of the SAC, our leadership committee in the SEC, the last two years. Student-athlete is really important to him. I think he's going to have an outstanding chance. He'll go to different invitationals, all the different things. Just like TD this year, he improved, had a great senior year, but he kept improving. Breein has to do the same thing, keep improving. He loves basketball. It's really important to him. I think he'll have a really good future in pro basketball. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. KERMIT DAVIS: Thanks, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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