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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 10, 2006Dane BradshawBruce PearlC.J. WatsonNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE THE MODERATOR: Okay. We're ready to begin with Tennessee. We'll ask Coach if he'll begin with some general remarks on the game and then we'll go to questions for the two student athletes. Coach. COACH BRUCE PEARL: South Carolina played great. I thought that they made some great adjustments, nothing we weren't expecting. We had seen them in the first two games and there were a lot of things that South Carolina did that bothered us, changes defenses, it's zone, their switching man-to-man, and it really stopped our transition which we which we rely a great deal on offensively. Defensively, once South Carolina got on a lead, they run that spread offense and where our full-court pressure didn't turn them over nearly enough, and they scored enough against the press. We weren't able to get the ball out of Kelley's hands. I thought Kelley was a real key for their game. He's one of the most underrated players in the conference. THE MODERATOR: We'll take your questions for the two student athletes. If you have a question for either of them, raise your hand, and we'll get the microphone to you. Hands up. Questions for either player. Okay. Let's start in the back. Go ahead.Q. This is for Dane or C.J. or both. Coach Pearl had talked earlier this week about the style basketball y'all played taking a toll on your team as well as other teams and that he was concerned about the legs. Did y'all feel that at all today? THE MODERATOR: Dane, will you take that one first? DANE BRADSHAW: That point in the season no team is one hundred percent, and just like anybody else, we got some bumps and bruises with our style of play. But when it comes down to it, you just love to make plays and be a more mentally strong team out there, and we weren't able to do that, and South Carolina executed their game plan to perfection against us.THE MODERATOR: Same for C.J. C.J. WATSON: I think, yeah, just like Dane said, we had some bumps and bruises, but we refreshed enough to make plays out there. We just didn't do it tonight.THE MODERATOR: Hands up. Other questions for either? Alright. Right here to the front. Q. Does the feeling that you have right now -- this is for the players, does the feeling that you have right now set you up with extra motivation going into next week?THE MODERATOR: Dane? DANE BRADSHAW: I think so. I haven't been around the locker room that silent and depressed in a long time, and you really don't take much good out of this, but maybe that is good that we had this feeling right now because we can't have that again if we want to be deep into the tournament, and hopefully we'll turn things around, and I think we'll find a way to get it done.THE MODERATOR: C.J. C.J. WATSON: I think there's a lot of motivation, especially for the seniors. May be our last game out. We're trying to go out there and have one more good run in it.THE MODERATOR: Hands up, other questions for either? Q. The turnovers, both C.J. and Dane, 21 turnovers in this game.THE MODERATOR: C.J., take that one first. C.J. WATSON: They made us play at a faster pace. We turned the ball over a lot, too many high passes, their zone kind of messed us up a little bit.DANE BRADSHAW: We got out of character a little bit in the first half, and then once you get behind, everyone is just trying to make plays and do their own thing to bring us back, and I think that hurt us a little bit. We weren't able to execute the way we wanted to and that lead to some turnovers. THE MODERATOR: Time for one or two more, players, anybody? Okay. Let's go to the front here. Q. C.J. or Dane, it looked like Chris was really having a lot of trouble of getting open looks today. What did you notice from them defensively?DANE BRADSHAW: I think in the first half he really did get some good looks, and Chris doesn't mind shooting over a contested hand. So he just didn't have a great day today, but he does so many things out there for us, and we expect him to bounce back, and every defense has a game plan against Chris, and they were just able to execute that tonight, but Chris will be fine. THE MODERATOR: For C.J., also? Did you want C.J. to answer that question, as well? Are you okay? Next question. Got time for one more. The middle front. Q. For both of you guys, South Carolina played you tough both games. I was wondering if you were a little concerned about it might be their day or luck to go their way.THE MODERATOR: Dane. DANE BRADSHAW: We were able to throw some great runs at them earlier in the season, and both games they were right there with us for long period of time, and they were able to just do that for 40 minutes today, and we were never able to get over that hump, and just because you beat a team twice in the regular season that doesn't mean they're going to be the same team come March, and I think they showed that.THE MODERATOR: C.J. C.J. WATSON: I think for them playing us two times in the season they come out, made a lot of switches in our defense and just kind of interrupted us and our offense.THE MODERATOR: Okay. We'll excuse the players. Fellas, you can return to the locker room. Thank you very much.We'll continue on with questions for Coach Pearl. Do you have a question for him, if you'll raise your hand and we'll get a microphone to you. Hands up. Q. Bruce, given Tennessee's history of playing so badly in tournament play, does this loss bother you from the standpoint now just to just not losing it, but how it might affect the team, kind of "here we go again" type thing? COACH BRUCE PEARL: More than that, I would think that just the fact that we're here in Nashville and so many fans have traveled to Nashville to support the Vols, and so we're disappointed because we know what kind of great support we've had. I can't worry about what their tournament record was in the past. For me, that doesn't have a lot to do with this team. Our challenge has been all year long as we talk about trying to get better, our inability to be able to practice because of our department and then in addition to that the fact that it's late in the year and you got to back it down a little bit. I thought we showed signs with our turnovers that we weren't as sharp, that just really hard to practice with seven guys. THE MODERATOR: Hands up. Other questions? Do you have one? Go ahead. Q. Bruce, have you guys gotten better the last couple weeks of the season? I know that's been what you've preached all year long. In your mind has this team continued to get better the last two, three weeks?COACH BRUCE PEARL: Chris, I think if you look at it, probably not. We had a great win at Florida, great win at Vanderbilt. Probably our last time we really played well was at Florida, and we come home and lose at home to Arkansas and Kentucky. I don't think we played our best basketball in those games and especially in the second half. And once again the second half, the field goal percentage is very, very high. We're sort of, you know, have a real gut check win against Vanderbilt. I'd say no, we're not playing our best basketball right now and haven't been and then how do you fix that? You usually try to fix it in practice, but I'm just not able to because of the body count. THE MODERATOR: Okay. Let's go right down here. Joe was waiting. I'm come right back to you. Q. Bruce, where do you think your team confidence level is both physically/mentally at this time?COACH BRUCE PEARL: I think for the first time the confidence has got to be shook a little bit. We were disrupted by South Carolina. A lot had to do with the opponent and what they did. It's not that anybody else is going to necessarily be able to duplicate that, their familiarity with our players and our personnel and our tendencies and I think that's what happens when -- my job is to put our kids in position to be successful. I'm going to do that the first time, and then we're going to try to do it the second time, knowing that they know pretty much everything that there is to know, and I just thought that South Carolina just -- they really outplayed us today. THE MODERATOR: Go ahead. Q. Bruce, what did they do to disrupt you and particularly with Chris in taking him out of a rhythm after the first couple of minutes?COACH BRUCE PEARL: They play a switching man-to-man or a zone defense and really keep a guy on Lofton pretty much the whole time. And the fact that we weren't able to score inside, turn the ball over so many times getting it inside was a factor. Major Wingate has five turnovers and Stanley has three and an Tre' has three. That's a lot of turnovers from your inside players when they didn't get a lot of touches. When they were get -- we got the ball in there I thought pretty good in the first half but didn't finish hat a high enough percentage. I would have liked to have gone in there much more. THE MODERATOR: Hands up. Alright. Go ahead. Mike. Q. You mentioned South Carolina's familiarity. What about just from a pure matchup standpoint, the number of ball landers on the floor. Does it make it difficult with the press behavior?COACH BRUCE PEARL: They have good athletes. They handled the ball well. We just -- we turned them over a few times, but they scored plenty against the 2. I thought they did a good job in transition. They beat us down the floor several times. So I was glad we were able to get the tempo of the game up. I thought that was our best chance to win it, but they played better in the up tempo than we did. THE MODERATOR: Other questions. Did you have another one? Q. Bruce, is there a bright side to this instead of playing in a championship game, possibly you'll have more time to rest.COACH BRUCE PEARL: I really don't see it, John. I appreciate you giving me the pass on that. I don't see there's any bright side to knowing that we're -- we came here, let's try to play for a championship. You're not always going to be -- you're not always going to have a team every year capable of winning a championship. We felt like we could. So we're real disappointed. THE MODERATOR: Okay. Let's go to the back. Got time for maybe two more. Take it right there. Q. Coach, you talked about not being sharp because of maybe because of the practice time. Do you roll the dice at all this week and try to balance the scales a little bit more towards practicing harder?COACH BRUCE PEARL: Well, given what I saw and what I've seen coming down the stretch, I think we're going to have to. I think we're going to have to. Because I think it will be good for our confidence, and I'm pretty sure we'll have to do it. A lot is going to depend on travel and where we go and what the matchup is, but I would say we're going to need a good run before we get get in the tournament. THE MODERATOR: Last question right here. Q. Coach, could you talk specifically about Balkman. He seemed to have a big game up-front. He seemed to agitate you guys the whole way through.COACH BRUCE PEARL: When plays well, they win. When he scores and rebounds and he's a high energy guy, and I thought he outplayed us on the inside. He was the best -- he was a really big factor on the inside. We've been challenged, you know, with our interior but it got exposed pretty good and South Carolina had not been able to do that to this point. Our inside guys had the better in the first two match-ups and tonight we didn't. THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
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