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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2007Takais BrownDennis FeltonSundiata GainesATLANTA, GEORGIA THE MODERATOR: Coach, please begin. DENNIS FELTON: Well, we're just really pleased and happy that we were able to win the game, and get a chance to move on to the next round. I thought our team did an awful lot of good things, forcing as many turnovers as we did. I think shooting the ball well from three gave us -- made things easier for us, and gave us some good rhythm and confidence and fueled the rest of our game. And Takais did an excellent job inside, not just scoring, but rebounding; his seven offensive rebounds were huge. So we ended up using more zone in this game than we have all season, and it was really effective for us. Q. I'm wondering as well as you've played tonight, will you talk about Florida tomorrow. Will you have to play even better to be able to beat those guys? TAKAIS BROWN: I think you have to play almost a perfect game to beat Florida, so that's all we have on our mind. We've got to put this game behind us and get ready for tomorrow. We're going to start in the morning getting ready for Florida, and we'll just have to be ready by 7:30. Q. T.K., how much did the outside shooting open up things for you guys? TAKAIS BROWN: The outside shooting opened up a lot for us. It made my job easier, I see a lot of double-teams a lot of times. It's good to know if I can't get out, I can make teams pay for doubling down, and I've got players on my team that can knock those shots down. Q. For either player, do you feel like if you win tomorrow that you're in the NCAA Tournament? SUNDIATA GAINES: I don't necessarily believe so. If we win them all -- but it's a big chance. It's a big opportunity to help us out with our bid, and we've just got to take it a game at a time. Florida's a tough team, so we really can't just go in there not focused. So I think we go past Florida, and hopefully we get to the championship and we'll be secure. TAKAIS BROWN: I can't really say if it's going to get us in or not. It would be great on our resume for getting in. If we can keep going and play another great game after that. And if we lose or if we win, I mean, if it's a great game on our part, I think it should persuade the people that let us in. Q. Sundiata , can you talk a little about Stukes in that first half. Kind of made amends a little, with four three pointers during the six-minute stretch. Seemed to open up things for you guys. Can you talk about Levi a little? SUNDIATA GAINES: Levi has always been a good three-point shooter. My main focus was to push a fast-break offense, and try to create for others, and Levi happened to be the most open all the time. He was knocking down the shots. But he definitely stepped up to some big shots. I was looking for him, passing the ball more to him, since he was so hot. Q. For Takais, how much are you looking forward to going up against the bigs of Florida who have gotten certainly a big reputation? TAKAIS BROWN: I'm really looking forward to it. It's round three again. It's another chance for us to take a crack at the best team in the SEC, well, in the country as far as that matters. But I get to go up against the one-two punch of the SEC, so I'm very excited to play tomorrow. Q. Sundiata, Takais said you'd have to play a perfect game to beat Florida tomorrow. Talk about some of the specific challenges that the Gators pose? SUNDIATA GAINES: The first thing, they're a good defensive team. They have good shot blockers down low, and that really creates a lot of their offense on a fast-break points because they take that to their fast breaks. But I think most of all they're a good defensive team. They've got a lot of guys that can shoot the three. And they play together. Out of all the teams in the conference, I think they're the most unselfish team, which makes them be a premier team in the conference. But I think our team, we've got to go out, take our time, be poised and not try to rush too many bad shots because they take advantage of the bad shots, and pretty much play our game, shoot the ball, get the ball inside, get some big fouls and hopefully we'll come out with the win. THE MODERATOR: Okay, fellas, you can return to the locker room. Thank you. Q. Dennis, you obviously played a lot of zone tonight. The 2-3 zone, was part of the idea behind that to rest a little bit? Was it all strategic and can you play that much zone against Florida? DENNIS FELTON: Well, the biggest reason we played so much zone is because Auburn creates a match-up challenge for us. They're very quick and explosive at all their positions. Especially now that they've moved Reed into the starting lineup. You know, the guy Robertson, who was the starting point guard, we thought he was an absolute jet. And now he's moved to the two, and they put in a guy faster than him. So you've got two guys that are really explosive penetrators. Then you have more, you have Tolbert, you have Barrett, and then their post players aren't really post players. They're more small forward types that are difficult match-ups for our big post players. We ended up playing a lot of zone, and it was good to us in Athens earlier when we beat them. So I came into this game knowing that zone was going to be a big part of the game. We played more 1-3-1 this game than we did in Athens, and it was very, very good to us in the first half. We got a lot of turnovers out of that. So we ended up staying with it a lot because we just felt like we had a better chance to defend them out of zone than we did out of man. Q. Against Florida, can you play that much zone? DENNIS FELTON: Well, we'll have to see. I think Florida is so, so potent offensively that they're a real challenge regardless of what defense you play. But at least they do have more typical big post players that we can match up to the standpoint that they're not going to be run around, shooting threes, and beating us off the dribble when we try to take the three away. So we'd match up a little more favorably in terms of the kind of players we have. We'll have to find out. I probably won't go into that game thinking zone, thinking as prominently about zone as I did into this game. Q. Dennis, just the NCAA question for you, do you feel like beating the Gators will get you in? DENNIS FELTON: Again, I've been needing to answer that question in a lot of different ways in the last few weeks especially. I just don't know, because I don't know what the committee will decide. I don't think -- I don't think we should be out of the conversation right now presently where we're at. We played, you know, for all the reasons I've listed. We've played one of the top 20 toughest schedules in the country. We play in the best conference in the country. We play in what's turned out and proven to be the toughest division of the best conference. We have the fourth best record in this conference. We've had some terrific wins along the way and some of our losses have been -- we've been without some key players in some of our losses. So I don't think we should be out of the conversation presently. So saying that, I guess, I'm working to the point where yeah, in my mind, I think it would be a done deal if we managed to beat Florida. We came here knowing that we could have the opportunity to make that kind of statement if we could manage to beat Auburn and get a chance at Florida. You can't ask for a better opportunity to make the kind of impression that we're looking to make on the committee. Q. Dennis, it goes without saying that you need the same sort of performance from Brown and Stukes, what are you going to say to them to get them going? DENNIS FELTON: Well, I'm not going to say much of anything just to those two particular individuals. It's going to be more about preparing our team for what we're going to face, preparing our team to play as well as we can play. Getting them prepared for everything Florida offers and getting them prepared for the game plan that will give us the best chance to beat them. I don't think anybody needs to be reminded or asked to play as well as they can play. All of those guys want to play as well as they can play individually, and obviously we'd like to play as well as we can play as a team. At the same time, there is going to be a lot of pressure on those guys. Takais has obviously been a big part of our attack all season long. Everyone knows that Levi is capable of shooting the ball well. So Florida is preparing for that right now. So I don't think it's about trying to convince them to play well. They want to play well, and they'll be very, very motivated to play well. THE MODERATOR: Okay, thank you. End of FastScripts |
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