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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2010Jermaine BealJohn JenkinsKevin StallingsNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE Vanderbilt – 78 THE MODERATOR: We're ready to begin with Vanderbilt. We'll ask Coach Stallings for his general thoughts on the game, and we'll take your questions just for the two student-athletes and finish with the coach. Coach, would you begin. COACH STALLINGS: Typical game with us and Georgia, very hard-fought, very physical, and I thought our guys did a great job of competing, a great job of being physical, a great job on the boards. These two guys were obviously terrific, and I thought our bench was really good as well. I thought Lance Goulbourne came off the bench and gave us great minutes. I thought Steve Tchiengang gave us great minutes. Festus was okay. Tinsley did good. Great to win. We've had very competitive games with Georgia both times this season, and tonight was not an exception. We're happy to win. We're happy to move on, and we look forward to move on. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the two student-athletes. Q. For John Jenkins. John, you seemed to be much more comfortable in the second half. Your first tournament play. Talk about that experience. JOHN JENKINS: Coach was telling me to go out there and be more aggressive. That's what I did. First time I came out kind of slow, trying to get myself into it. Second half I just really let loose. Q. Question for both John and Jermaine. Tomorrow against Mississippi State you're going to be going up against probably the best shot blocker in the country. How do you guys change your game or your approach knowing that you have to face a guy like Varnado? JERMAINE BEAL: To be honest, we haven't really talked about Mississippi State. Right now we're just happy we got the victory. We're about to go back and shower and have a game plan for Varnado and company. JOHN JENKINS: We'll focus on Mississippi State when we get the scouting report. Varnado is obviously a great shot blocker. He blocked my shot a couple of times, but we'll get ready for him. Q. Jermaine, after the first two games with Georgia, which were tough ones for you guys -- I don't know if this is silly, but was this a more personal matchup for you guys with something to prove? JERMAINE BEAL: I guess in a way you could say that. Everybody was talking about -- see how to say that. I guess you could say that because Georgia beat us there, and played at our house and went to overtime. So everybody was thinking that us and Georgia would be a nice matchup, but I'm just happy we came out and got the victory. Q. Both players. Talk about how physical the game was and how you guys competed in that area. It hasn't been that way all the time at Vanderbilt in the past. JERMAINE BEAL: Well, our game plan to come in was just to focus on rebounding and to play physical because we know Georgia's a big physical team. And I think we won on the boards. So we got the victory. JOHN JENKINS: We knew we had to come out strong. They're a good rebounding team. Our bigs and guards all did a good job rebounding us. That was the key to the game, I think. THE MODERATOR: We'll excuse the two student-athletes. We'll continue with questions for Coach Stallings. Q. Coach, did you make a defensive adjustment after the first time out. Three minutes in on Thompkins, who scored three back to back baskets in the second half? COACH STALLINGS: Not really. We tried to change our defenses a little bit tonight. Press some, take the press off, play zone, play man, play our second zone. We didn't want them to get a beat on us. They're a very good rhythm team. If you let them get into a rhythm, they'll find Thompkins time and time and time again. So one of the reasons we zoned was to try to keep the ball out of his hands. Leslie obviously was unbelievable, but the key to the game for us was Thompkins, and I thought we did a nice job on him. Q. Kevin, you see John not only in games but in practices. When he shoots like that, is there anybody that can stop him? COACH STALLINGS: I don't think that -- you know, he's not what I would call an unstoppable player. But if he's left open, he's unstoppable. And if we can get him open, he's unstoppable because he's going to make open shots. Just not very many days during the week where you see him not have a good shooting day. His jumper is fundamentally flawless, and he has a high level of belief in it, and so does his coach. Q. Kevin, can you talk about getting to the semifinals. You had the bye, got to play one game. Now you've got to turn around, and for you, just the second time in the semis here. COACH STALLINGS: We're happy to be here again. We just want to keep playing. And we look forward to tomorrow. We know Mississippi State's a really good team. We had a great game against them at our place. And they must have -- I didn't see the game, but they must have played extremely well to be able to get up on Florida early the way they did. And they present a lot of problems. There's a lot of things that are very difficult about their team to play. But I like how we're playing. I like how our mindset is. I like how we came out tonight. I thought how we came out today was very indicative of what we needed to do. We needed to come out and be very aggressive and very assertive, and we were. That was -- that's what we need to do despite -- regardless of who we play. We need to try to be the aggressor and try to be the more physical team, and we were able to accomplish that today, I thought. Q. Kevin, talk about that toughness, that competitiveness. How much has that evolved over this season to the point you are right now? COACH STALLINGS: I think it's certainly -- it's evolved quite nicely, but it was there early on. We didn't always know how to channel it, but even going back to our preseason scrimmage we had, exhibition game, there were some games where we let down early on in the season. But after December the 11th, our team became a better team, and it's been a better team since then. We've had some bad halves, and we've lost some games, but we've been a good team since that time. And a team that has a high level of belief in its ability to win. When you get down to it, that's probably the most important thing. Q. How happy were you with the rebounding tonight, in particular what you did on the offensive end? COACH STALLINGS: Ecstatic with both. Ecstatic. If it keeps up, then we might get to keep playing for a while. Q. Kevin, you guys played with such energy tonight. Talk about coming back, short rest, all that stuff, and then playing with the same energy tomorrow. COACH STALLINGS: Very first day of practice, we established something that we -- it's kind of a motto that we call any time, any place. And so if they wanted to play that game in an hour, we would be ready to play, and we would be willing to play. Our guys have that mindset, any time, any place, we'll play. We don't care. If that's when they schedule the game, that's when we'll play the game. We played at 8:00 in the morning when we were in Maui. I've never done that before, but we had a game at 8:00 in the morning. So we'll find a way to get ready. We know we've got a very formidable team and a very tall task, but we'll find a way to be ready to play. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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