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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2007Jermareo DavidsonAlonzo GeeMark GottfriedRichard HendrixRonald SteeleATLANTA, GEORGIA THE MODERATOR: Coach, would you begin. MARK GOTTFRIED: Well, first of all, congratulations to Kentucky. I thought they stepped up and made big plays. Got to give those guys a lot of credit. I'm really proud of our team. We didn't win. I thought our guys competed really hard. You know, there were some areas of the game, obviously, if we had done a little better job in some certain areas, we might have had a better chance to win. But as far as competing, I thought that they did that. I was proud of them for that. The turnovers, I thought end of the first half, hurt us. Some foul shooting at times, defensive breakdowns here and there. But you know Meeks, Crawford and Bradley, I thought those three perimeter guys really stepped up and made big plays for those guys. You got to give them credit for that. They did a great job. But I'm proud of my guys. I'm proud of Jermareo, I know he's in a lot of pain today. He played through it. Ron tried to play today the best he could. I could see it in Ron's face, and, you know, I just love all these guys and they tried to do everything they can. And Ron tried and just didn't really have it today. His knee was hurting him pretty good. So we just had a mountain that was a little bit too high to climb. THE MODERATOR: Okay, we'll take questions just for the student-athletes. If you have a question for one of them, we'll get a microphone. Q. Ron, how did you feel, and what led to the decision to come out? RONALD STEELE: Well, you know, I felt pretty good coming in. You know, I think it was a play I might have landed on it funny, I don't know. But you know, I was in a lot of pain, and I just tried to go out and just do what I could. But, you know, I wasn't able to move, so I wasn't able to play? Q. The same question for Jermareo: How did your back feel, and could you go over how you thought the game played out, Jermareo? JERMAREO DAVIDSON: It was feeling pretty good throughout the whole game. I'm in pain all over again right now, but we came out and didn't get it done. We played hard as a team, we had some slips, we slipped up a little bit on defense, and the turnovers. Q. Coach talked about toughness and whatnot, you guys have worked on it, did you feel that was there, the toughness and the effort was there today, Richard? RICHARD HENDRIX: I think as a whole we fought hard all the way to the end. You know, our toughness was there, but you've just got to give credit to Kentucky. You know, they answered back with good runs and things like that, just did everything that it took to put us away. But I think our toughness and our effort was there today from start to finish. Q. Alonzo, can you talk about what they did at the end of the first half. I think in the last nine minutes they outscored you guys by 15 or so. Talk about what they were doing. ALONZO GEE: Well, we just turned the ball over a lot. And they picked up steals and just outplayed us the last five minutes of the first half. That was it, we just made silly mistakes and they took advantage of it. Q. This is for Richard and Alonzo: When these two were hurting and you don't know what kind of minutes you're going to get, can you talk about what that means to your team, and particularly today? RICHARD HENDRIX: Well, you know, I feel like when you know they're hurt, you don't know how much they're going to be able to give you. It feels like I know for me, personally, I know Alonzo probably feels the same, that we had to bring our game up an extra notch, and you know, try to bring a little bit more leadership on the court. Anytime you don't have these two players on the court to their fullest strength, it takes a lot away, especially from our team but, you know, I think personally from my standpoint, I just know that I have to try to up my game to another level in order to make up for their loss. ALONZO GEE: Well, just like Richard said, I mean Ron and Jermareo bring a lot to the table. You know they might not be able to play, we've got to step up, me and Richard got to step up our game up a another level. So it's tough without them playing. Q. For Jermareo and Richard, talk about the play of Randolph Morris and the problems that he gave you guys inside. JERMAREO DAVIDSON: He played a pretty good game. He capitalized on offense when we didn't get to the doubleteam quick enough or he made a great pass out of the doubleteam, and they were able to score that way. I think he played a pretty good game. RICHARD HENDRIX: Like Jermareo said, he's a great player. He did a good job tonight of taking advantage of our defensive mistakes, if it wasn't that we were a step slow rotating over and things like that, he did a great job sealing and using his body. Just using good angles and making buckets when it counted. Q. For Ron and Jermareo, do you all want to continue to play wherever that might be, and would you all physically be able to play? RONALD STEELE: Oh yeah, any time we have a chance to play, we're going to take advantage of it. You know, for me I felt like I had to have a real opportunity to play all season from my injury. So you know, wherever they want us to play, wherever they want us to be, we're going to be excited and we're going to play hard. JERMAREO DAVIDSON: Like Ron said, of course we want to play. Wherever it may be, we're going to go with the same intensity, we've got to think positive about it and make the best of the situation. Just come out and give it our all. And I think I'll be able to play. THE MODERATOR: Okay, we'll excuse you fellas back to the locker room. Thank you for coming. Q. Mark, just postseason thoughts, where do you want to go? Can you talk about -- MARK GOTTFRIED: Where do I want to go? Q. If you're qualified to go. MARK GOTTFRIED: Well, you know, I guess like everybody, you hold out that last glimmer of hope one way or another. But realistically, if we get invited to play in the NIT, we'll get our minds regrouped and do the very best job we can. You know, who knows, maybe the selection committee would pick us. We do have a pretty decent RPI, but our guys want to play. And our goals from the start of the year were not to be in the NIT, obviously, but this teams had to overcome a lot. I thought they've battled and fought, and we're not there. And that's part of life sometimes, that you fall short of your goals. But it's not going to change the way we approach anything, and we're going to play as hard and as well as we possibly can. Q. Coach, down by double digits in the second half, game's getting late, about five minutes or so to go, but you never went to the press, why was that? MARK GOTTFRIED: We did go to the press about five minutes to go in the game, and they got through it a couple of times pretty quick. And they did a good job of getting the ball out and getting past our front line of it pretty quick. So we had to protect the basket. Q. Mark, can you talk about the injuries that you had, how much do you think because of lack of practice time and of course not having Ronnie Steele in there affected both the turnovers and the defense? MARK GOTTFRIED: Oh, I don't know. I think to put it on that takes away from Kentucky's -- we've got to give them the credit, in other words, in my opinion. They did a great job. And I don't want to take anything away from what they did and blame it on our injuries or lack of practice time. You know, I think for those of you guys that have followed our team all year, everybody knows what we've dealt with the whole season. You've got a First Team All-American guy, maybe a preseason SEC Player of the Year pick that just hasn't been able to be healthy. It's made the season very laboring, very hard, very difficult. There's no difference in that today. We're a different team, obviously, when he doesn't play. But I think in today's game, make sure we don't take our eye off the ball. Kentucky deserves the credit. They did a great job. Q. Mark, as a coach, how difficult is it for you to see the way your team played in the first 15 minutes of the game, and the way they played the rest of the game? MARK GOTTFRIED: Well, you know, you've got to start subbing, you know. Your first five can't play 40 minutes, and we had to play a lot of young guys, which we've had to do this year a lot at key positions, especially the point guard position. And as we do that, our team changes a little bit. It becomes difficult. But you know, we've had moments throughout the year where this team's been very good. You know, watching the first game we played with Kentucky, when Ron had maybe his best game of the year -- you know, you saw these snapshots of the team, but we just never put it all together for a lot of obvious reasons. Q. Coach, what exactly was the thought process on Ron today? If this hadn't been a postseason game, would he have even tried? MARK GOTTFRIED: He really wanted to try. We certainly wanted him to try. But again I wouldn't want him to do anything that would jeopardize or hurt him. And he felt like he could play. We decided not to put him in the starting lineup, and our thought there was if, in fact, he had to come out like he did, which he did, hopefully our team was prepared in their mind to play without him. That's why we didn't start him. I think what hurt us so much this year is the in and out, not knowing. But today's situation is a do or die. You've got to give it a shot. He wanted to. We're going to give it a shot, And he tried the best he could. It just got to a point where he said, "I can't cut, I can't move, and it hurts," and that was it. Q. Mark, back here can you talk about Morris. He seemed much more active today than did he in the game in Tuscaloosa. MARK GOTTFRIED: He did a great job, and I don't want to take away anything from his game. We did a poor job going to double him a couple of times when he got good looks at the basket. But he was a lot more aggressive. I think he's the key to their team, no question in my mind. I don't think there's a lot of guys like him, when he plays at a high level, they're a very, very good team. They had great guard play today to go around his play on the inside. Q. Mark, you're up 21-11, and the rest of the half they outscore you pretty good. Can you explain what happened during that span. MARK GOTTFRIED: I thought they did a nice job picking up our defensive pressure, we turned it over, we had young guys make some careless turnovers. They turned a few of those turnovers into baskets. But I thought that was the difference right there in the first half. End of FastScripts |
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