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NIT SEASON TIP-OFFNovember 24, 2006Dane BradshawBruce PearlNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK BRUCE PEARL: I thought our kids played awfully hard tonight. I thought they battled and showed a great deal of character throughout the game. That was a game that could have gotten away from us, and it didn't. They showed a lot of toughness. North Carolina is a great team. Their size was almost overwhelming for us because of our lack of traditional size. You know, yet if we make you're free throws at a higher percentage, we maybe tighten it up a little bit more and maybe North Carolina's youth and experience becomes more of a factor. It was an exciting basketball game. It was a very well-played basketball by both teams. I think North Carolina is probably pretty happy with the way they played, and I think that -- I feel like we made some progress, without a doubt. Bradshaw is not going to get very many votes for the Naismith College Player of the Year, but I have a hard time trading him for any player in college basketball. Q. Did you think the ejection for the flagrant foul was excessive? BRUCE PEARL: There is a point of emphasis this year in the hard foul, and when there is a hard foul where the contact is excessive, and that may have been the case, you're supposed to get two shots on the ball. To then add the flagrant and the ejection, I disagree with that call. I didn't see it that way. I'll watch the tape, and Hansbrough is a great player, he went to the foul line 15 times. He had 45 and 1s last year and he made the basket -- he's a strong fella; he takes it to the contact. If you're going to try to block his shot, you have to make an aggressive play. I thought that's what it was. Q. This trip was supposed to be a measuring stick, better idea of where you guys are at; where would you say you're at now? BRUCE PEARL: I thought the team came together today. I thought we were up against it a little bit, crowd was against us, and the kids came together in a lot of ways. There was a lot of positive energy on the bench. I thought they stepped up to the challenge. We were down 20 at half or so, and I thought we were still -- I thought we could come back and make a run. Q. What was happening with Lofton the first half, and what finally got him on track there? BRUCE PEARL: Well, Chris is a phenomenal shooter, and we've got to -- he's as good a shooter in the country in taking contested shots but he's an unselfish kid and he doesn't want to take a contested shot. I thought we did some things execution-wise to get both Smith and Lofton good looks coming off the perimeter. We made 15 three-point baskets and shot a terrific percentage from 3. Q. Are they just that good offensively? Was your whole defense as good as it was the other night? BRUCE PEARL: I think they were just that big, and took advantage of us, as well as anybody could. You know, Hansbrough is 8 for 18; Wright 9 for 10; they are 17 for 28. There's only so much you can do. We certainly didn't front the post on as many occasions as we wanted to, we didn't pressure the ball up to prevent the lobs. For every lob they got, they got ten direct passes into the post. So our guys, I don't know that we -- I don't know that our post defenders met his physicality. Q. What about Brandan Wright, looked like he was unstoppable; he could go get it with those long arms. BRUCE PEARL: Length is tremendous. He absolutely changed the game with his length and his poise. He's a tremendous dimension. Q. Comment on Smith's play today, it looked like he got to the rim a couple of times? BRUCE PEARL: I thought we got better play, Jordan, five assists. Q. The seven assists, is Dane operating as a point? BRUCE PEARL: Dane is a point for us. He was last year. He led the SEC in turnover ratio, one of the leaders in assists. He covers their power forward, because we don't have anybody else that size. He was one assist behind C.J. last year; he'll lead us in assists this year. So he's our point guard that covers their power forward. It's not a traditional matchup, but that's the way it is. I think Dane is doing an outstanding job in this press conference, don't you? (Laughter) Flamboyant, colorful, great to have these student athletes up here. Q. Dane, can you talk about when you guys got down in the 20s, at that point did you just not want to get embarrassed? DANE BRADSHAW: Not at all. I think just the way that our team can make huge runs and we can shoot the ball so well, and the way our press works. We were in the locker room, y'all would have thought we were up by 20 the way we were so hyped. When we came out of the locker room we did our same huddle-up and got all loud. I'm sure North Carolina was wondering what we were thinking. Just so many emotions going through me right now. I'm not satisfied with the loss but in my four years of Tennessee, I've never been around a team that rallied around each other the way we did tonight. I was extremely proud to be on the team and we grew up a lot together tonight. It gave us a look at what it really takes to be a National Championship calibre team and it's great to have that look early in the season to where we can set that bar ourselves. Q. You're going to see more teams along the way, what needs to happen? DANE BRADSHAW: There was a lot of things out there where for myself, I fronted the post as best I could, but there was just some things, natural ability out there. Those are some very talented players on the other side. We'll look at the tape. The effort was there, but probably the defensive strategies that we were taught weren't executed on that end, and we'll learn a lot from the film. The effort was there, just a bunch of basketball terms we didn't follow on the defensive end. Q. What did you make of JaJuan's play? Did you say anything to him? DANE BRADSHAW: That was one of the key rallying points for us. He's a close friend of everybody's on the team. He's a very popular player on this team and he's a warrior, he's not going to back down from anybody. He's been like that from the neighborhood he comes from and everything else. So he's had to prove himself and plays with that chip on his shoulder. Madison Square Garden versus North Carolina, expect him to thrive on that. I just really felt for him because of his competitiveness and to have no control of the game any more when you're sent back to the locker room, I was almost emotional for him. BRUCE PEARL: I think the crowd felt bad for him. He was out there just competing his guts out, and even I think there were North Carolina fans out there, they didn't like the hard foul but were admiring his effort and play and intensity and probably glad to see him go because it hurt our chances to come back. Coach Williams was very, very complimentary in our post-game visit, very complimentary and it meant a great deal to me and it meant a great deal to me how he felt about our basketball team. End of FastScripts |
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