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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2007John BradyGlen DavisTasmin MitchellGarett TempleATLANTA, GEORGIA THE MODERATOR: All right, we're ready to continue with LSU. We'll ask Coach Brady and each of the student-athletes for some opening thoughts. Coach, would you begin? JOHN BRADY: I don't really know what to say. What am I supposed to say? Obviously, we'd rather be playing Friday as opposed to Thursday. But you know, you reap what you sow, and most of us find ourselves where we are by what we have done or haven't done. And really the challenge of playing Tennessee is going to be big for our team. Tennessee's playing as well as anybody in the league. They've won seven of eight or whatever the number is. But we're excited about it. We've been able to play well late a little bit. We've got Glen back healthy. Hopefully that will give us a little lift get him back on the floor. You know, the thing about Tennessee is you're going to turn the ball over some. Hopefully the turnovers that you have don't lead directly to baskets. You know, I've told our guys if we turn it over, let's throw it out of bounds so at least they'll have to attack us at defense. Then if we can get it by the first wave, maybe we can get a basket or two on the other end in an easy manner. I'm thinking if we can execute offensively, we can score some points. They score 80 or so, but they also give up 77, you know, we don't give up a lot of points. Haven't scored a lot either. But if we can get some easy baskets, take care of the ball, and not let turnovers lead to scores and trying to do some things with Lofton to keep him off a rhythm, you know, hopefully the last five minutes we can put ourselves in position to win the game. Our unbelievable SID told us that our 14 wins were by about three points per game, and our 11 losses this year is about 6.7 points per game. Now what is the difference? I think we have the smallest margin of differences in games of anybody in the league. We haven't had big ranges where we lose by four or five and get beat 26 like some teams have. We haven't had that range of scores. All of our games, besides probably one, have been a five-minute game. And we haven't been able to close the majority of those out this year as we did a year ago and hopefully starting in this tournament, that we'll be able to do that a little bit better than we've done previously. THE MODERATOR: Glen, your thoughts headed into the tournament, please? GLEN DAVIS: Win, that's the only thing that's on my mind, to get some W's. You know, not concentrating on anything else I feel confident in my body now. Mentally I feel like I'm prepared to play. You know, get out there with my team, and get consecutive wins, you know. So that's all I'm worried about. THE MODERATOR: Same for Tasmin? TASMIN MITCHELL: Well, like the big fella said, just win. We can play as a team, come out here with high intensity and try to get the job done and win this whole tournament, because in the SEC, anybody can win the tournament. But I think we're going to come out and play hard and give it 110%. THE MODERATOR: Garett? GARETT TEMPLE: Basically the same thing they just said; you know, it's a one-game season. We played Tennessee, you lose, you go home. So it's basically just like we were going into the NCAA Tournament last year. If you lose one, you go home. So hopefully we can run all four in a row like we did our last year in the big tournament. Q. Coach, what did you take from that first game or that game back in Knoxville earlier? JOHN BRADY: A loss. Got beat. You know, even in losing the game, you look back. Glen Davis probably had his poorest game of the year. Five points and, you know, probably didn't take the shots that he would have liked to have taken. We've talked about that. He's seen the tape. I think he only saw part of it, he didn't want to watch the rest of it. So you know, we had some turnovers that led directly to some scores and we need to correct that, but you're going to have that from time to time against Tennessee. But I think we guarded them pretty well. That was Lofton's first game back, and he probably is better now than he was at that particular time, but we've done it. The two times we've played them we've done a decent job on him. And we need to duplicate that, obviously. But we had an opportunity there and they made some real, a couple of timely threes that were just incredible. Lofton made one from about 24 feet with hands in his face, and I think Childress hit one in front of their bench with Terry Martin all on him from about 22 feet. But we played them well there, and hopefully if Glen's back, and he's playing well and we can defend them as we did there and hold them to 70 at home, hopefully we can find a way to get in the low 70s. If the game gets over 80, I think it's not a good sign for us. If we can be in the low 70s and Glen has a better game than he did in Knoxville, then I think our chances are as good as any. Q. Glen, would you talk about the game in Tennessee, and what kind of problems Tennessee gave you. GLEN DAVIS: Well, looking at tape and looking at, you know, half of the tape, I just have -- I just felt I didn't establish myself in the post like I should have. I took some, you know, I think I took bad shots. I think it's all about timing with the shots also that I took. And I think I took some shots at the wrong time and, you know, should have established myself inside more and just worked the block, play inside out, you know. I think that's about it. I felt they didn't -- looking at tape, they didn't double-team me as much as I thought they did. You know, they threw a couple of guys at me here and there, but there were some times when I could have made some adjustments and made some moves, you know, quick moves to the basket to get some easy two's. That's about it. Q. For Garett, you've had as much success defending Lofton as anyone in the SEC, can you just talk about what you've done on the match-up with Chris, and how you managed to hold him down like that? GARETT TEMPLE: Last year we did a pretty good job guarding him. He's just an explosive scorer. He's got a lot better since his first year driving rather than just being a good shooter. So you've got to stay up in him and not let him raise up, because his shot, though he's only 6'2" or 6'3", he can get it off almost with anybody in his face. So it's tough try to crowd him. On ball screens and stuff, make sure you get a lot of help from our teammates. So it's going to be a whole team effort, you know, not just me guarding him. Q. For each of the players, Glen mentioned the word "confidence," even though the resume and the seeding don't say that you're on the level with the other teams in this tournament, what about the confidence, you guys matched up in this field, in terms of feeling that you can play with anybody's that's here. GLEN DAVIS: Well, I think we know and the other teams know. I think we know and the other teams know that as far as us, we have confidence. Every team we've played and every game we've played there were mistakes that we made on the court. We're the ones that have control of that. We know what we did wrong. We know what we have to do this time. So it's going to be a better time around. I think the other teams know also, because it's not like teams have been blowing us out or we had to put up a fight. They know when they play LSU, it's going to be a tough game. That's why I think we have the upper hand, the advantage. So they're not going to take us lightly, even though our record looks bad or we have a low seed. They're still going to approach the game like it's a tough game. TASMIN MITCHELL: Well, me myself, I like being the underdog any way. Like last year, last year we wasn't ranked, and we were going into every game like we went into Connecticut; we were the underdog. We weren't the favored, we beat West Virginia. But I like being the underdog, you know, because when you're high up there, it's hard to keep that status. But now every team knows what we're about. Know that we're going to come out here and play. And they know when they play LSU, just because you look at our record and what we did in the SEC, don't take us for granted, you know. GARETT TEMPLE: Just piggybacking on what Glen and Tas said, we lost one game by, I think, 20, and that was at Arkansas. And we beat them at home, you know the other games. We beat Ole Miss, first in the West. Lost to them on that play, the last play of the game, at their place. You know, so we've had a lot of close games. Georgia hit a three on us with no time left on the clock. We beat the No. 1 team in the SEC in Florida. You know, so we have played well, and teams know that we have the talent to win games. We just have to put it all together and I have a pretty good idea that we're going to be able to do that for these next games. GLEN DAVIS: You know, I got to say something, you know, my coach brought to my attention at practice. He was like, "You scored five points against Tennessee." We have a chance to play Tennessee. Then I realized I made the most stupidest pass I've ever made in my life, and that's against Ole Miss the next game. And then, you know, I come back looking forward to playing the top team in the country and I'm hurt. You know, so cards fell in the right direction, so I think something's good going to happen. Don't count us out. Something real good is going to happen. JOHN BRADY: Not many of us get a chance for redemption, and Glen's got a chance for redemption. This is what I told him in practice. I said, "You had the worst game of your career in Tennessee. You lost the game at Ole Miss because you threw the ball away. And I guess Florida you didn't even play." And that's our next three games, if we're fortunate enough to proceed in that manner. So, you know, there's always something, you have to look at it to motivate yourself to play better. And I'm glad Glen sees it that way. He's intelligent enough and smart enough to understand where it is. And we've never -- you know, I'm not one to throw out cream puffs and say everything is Pollyanna and everything's Christmas, because it's not and hasn't been. Our team knows exactly what it has not done. We know exactly the unmet expectations is a terrible place to be and I take responsibility for that, and our team does to a degree. So, you know, we've got a chance here to maybe get something back. And that's how we're approaching this thing. I've got all the confidence in the world in these guys, you know, our team, our team plays. We're the second best field goal defensive team in the league. We're tied for first in points allowed. Our rebound margin is quite good. So the effort stats that we play with are there. We just have had some problems finishing some games, and we know that. And so it's been disappointing finding ourselves where we are. We're not running from that. We're not trying to hide it, and we don't make any excuses. Now we've got a chance for a little redemption, and we'll just see how we respond Thursday night. Q. John, I would hate to shift gears, but just your impressions of Dane Bradshaw. Does he create any unique challenges as more or less sort of a point forward? JOHN BRADY: You know, I think he's a good player. You know, and I think he means a lot to their team. But I'm going to tell you how I approach Lofton and that Smith guy is who we're going to really concentrate on guarding. And if Dane Bradshaw gets 30, then that's the way it's going to be. But I think he means a lot to their team, and they think a lot of him, and from what I read and understand he's a tremendous young person. I know he'll fight like crazy to guard somebody bigger than him. He'll be undermanned and overmatched and he'll show a heart of gold. I respect that in him. THE MODERATOR: All right. End of FastScripts |
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