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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2009Billy GillispieJodie MeeksDarius MillerPatrick PattersonTAMPA, FLORIDA Kentucky – 71 CLAUDE FELTON: We'll continue with Kentucky. Coach Gillispie, a couple of general thoughts on the game. COACH GILLISPIE: It was a great win for us. We've been reeling for a while. I thought we tried really hard in the first half. But they scored and made a bunch of threes. Got it to the basket and offensively rebounded. We didn't guard it like we know that we can. And in the second half we guarded much better. They missed some offensive shots that they might normally make. But most of them were contested, and I was very, very proud of us being able to guard and then execute fairly efficiently offensively over a 40-minute period. Q. Jodie, can you talk about the defense you guys played against Terrico in the second half? Looked like y'all were really focusing on limiting his touches more, maybe being more physical? JODIE MEEKS: Let me start off by saying he's a great player. He did a great job of coming off ball screens and knocking off shots in the first half. In the second half, we just either tried to ball screen or tried to contain him as much as possible. But he had some tough shots so you've got to give him credit for that. But I thought we did a good job of containing him better in the second half. Q. Sort of follows up the first question. Can you guys talk about you forced 11 turnovers in the second half. I think you probably got a few points off of those. What was the key to getting hands on balls like you did and creating turnovers? JODIE MEEKS: I thought we did a good job in the first half of playing hard on on defense. They just, you know, executed real good. In the second half, we were more active on the ball and helped each other a little bit more and got some steals in transition and got us going on offense? PATRICK PATTERSON: Pretty much like Jodie said. We were able to help out each other a lot more. Each player was in the passing lanes and putting a body in the lane and not letting the opposing player get to the basket a couple of times. Just having our hands active and helping each other a lot more. DARIUS MILLER: Just like they said. I think we picked up our defensive intensity a lot and really tried to focus on not letting them get second chance points. Q. Can you talk about what kind of defensive player Garrett Temple is to go up against for LSU and looking ahead to tomorrow, what kind of talent is he to go against? JODIE MEEKS: He's a real good defender. He's about 6' 6" or 6' 7". He's very long and tough to get around him. But my thick is not to worry about offensive, but worry about defending and rebounding, and just helping the team out that way. And the offense will come as the game comes. CLAUDE FELTON: We'll excuse the student-athletes. Thank you. Questions for Coach Gillispie. Q. Can you talk about Trent Johnson and the job he's done at LSU this year? COACH GILLISPIE: He's done a great job. He was named "Coach of the Year, " I believe. And he is very well deserved. There's a lot of good coaches in this league. And anyone that's known Trent for a long time or a short time and observed his team's playing, you knew he was going to do a fantastic job. They had some experienced players coming back, and he's done a great job of getting those guys focused on the right things. They're really sound in everything they do, and that is the reason they had such a good record in conference. But Trent, number one is a great person. He's a good friend and outstanding coach. Q. In your estimation, what was the difference the way you guarded Terrico in the second and first half? COACH GILLISPIE: They didn't get a lot of offensive rebounds in the second half. I don't know what the numbers were. I thought we did a good job of keeping them from getting to the paint. In the first half, I thought they were getting in there a little too easily. I didn't think they helped nearly enough. And they made some shots. We had a five-point lead and they came out, out of a timeout, made a two, a three, another three to give them the lead. That's the kind of team they are. It's a team that likes to shoot the perimeter jumpshot and they're very, very capable of making them. He's a tremendous talent, and he's a hard guy to guard because if you get too close he can go by and dunk it. If you don't get close enough he can make it to about 28 feet. So it's a hard match-up for us. Their guards are very, very physical. Their interior guys are very, very quick so they're hard to guard. But I thought Ramon got us started really well by guarding him at the start of the game. Then we had a little lapse and he kind of got going in the game. And I thought Darius Miller did a fantastic job of guarding him for the most part of the second half. Q. Like you said, you guys have been reeling, but you come out today and a long way from home, and that arena looks like it does most SEC Tournaments. What's that mean to be this far from home and under the circumstances to get that kind of advantage today from your fans? COACH GILLISPIE: So you're asking if we had a home-court advantage? Is that what your question was basically? All right. Our fans have always been great. Last year ways different situation in Atlanta. We didn't get a chance to play because of mother nature. And that's not anything anyone can control. But we always have a great following no matter where we go. And we definitely, I felt like we had a big-time home-court advantage today. That's great, but the whole deal of every single game is you have to play against the five guys on the court at that particular moment. I thought our guys did a very, very good job of helping each other over a 40-minute period, and really competed hard for the most part. I was very proud of their effort. Q. Turnovers and balanced scoring, how do those two things affect today's outcome for you guys? COACH GILLISPIE: Yeah, we didn't turn it over nearly as much. They played a lot of zone against us. I thought it was okay. You know, I would like to see Pat score a little bit more. I thought we did a pretty good job of getting the ball in there to him, and he had a tough time finishing today. He still had a fantastic game, but I think he'll finish better in the future. But it's nice when Perry plays like he did. That's the Perry Stevenson that we need to have play. And Darius Miller is a very nice player. I thought Porter played great and didn't make any shots, though I thought he played great. I thought Ramon Harris did good as well. Then Jodie got back to being his normal self. Q. I just want your thoughts on an LSU rematch. You guys played a thrilling game the first time around. You anticipate the same tomorrow? COACH GILLISPIE: Who was it thrilling for? Maybe it's thrilling for -- Q. The fans, I guess? COACH GILLISPIE: No, it wasn't too thrilling for the fans. Maybe it's thrilling for LSU's fans. But it wasn't too thrilling for me or our fans or our team. They've whipped us in our own gym, and we look forward to playing the conference champion tomorrow. We know it will be a very difficult match-up, but hopefully we'll be equal to the challenge. Q. What has to be different for from the first LSU game to win? COACH GILLISPIE: Just like any game, no matter who you play, you have to be good offensively, good defensively. You have to limit your turnovers and rebound the basketball. And they're sound in all those areas. They're totally sound, totally experienced. We have to execute every part of the game. You know, we had a tough first half against them the first time. That's because they made us have a tough first half. That's what they do to people. I think both teams when they play at their best and we played our best, I think they'd both be considered grinding teams. Defensive oriented teams and how well you play on offense usually determines whether you win or lose. Q. Sort of a similar question, what did you do particularly well today that you hadn't been doing the last couple of weeks? COACH GILLISPIE: Probably contested shots a little bit better, and we didn't give up too many offensive rebounds. When he we got a lead, we've had a couple of leads this year and we didn't finish the game out right. I thought we did a really nice job today of continuing to defend when we had a lead and getting defensive rebounds. We caused a few turnovers in the second half, and we trapped the ball screen a little bit, and we got in the passing lane a little bit more. I thought that was very key for us. End of FastScripts |
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