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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: PROVIDENCE

March 18, 2010

J.P. Prince

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND

Tennessee Â– 62
San Diego State - 59

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Tennessee student-athletes, Bobby Maze, Wayne Chism, Melvin Goins and J.P. Prince, with along with head Coach Bruce Pearl.
COACH PEARL: That was a very defensive minded game. Both teams really can defend. San Diego State put up some amazing numbers with their defense and rebounding this year and it was hard to score, particularly two point baskets. The way we won the game was the way the kids have been winning all year long, really resilient. We didn't play very well, San Diego State had a lot to do with them.
I thought with the most part with the exception of the first half we did a good job. And obviously we had players step up and make big plays. J.P. Prince played consistently well throughout. Melvin Goins had one of his better games. And if you look against the best opponents in the schedule at the biggest moments all season long, that's what Melvin has done.
The decision to have him out in the end of the game was not a traditional move. My assistant coaches and I talked about it. Because Melvin and Bobby are point guards, but we wanted him out there because he's playing so well. Obviously he stepped up. I thought Chism made huge plays when it mattered. And obviously the guys did a tremendous job from the foul line at the end. Bobby, Wayne and Brian Williams, who is by percentage not a good free throw shooter, and we made all six of our last.

Q. J.P., can you talk about your match-up with Leonard. It looked like you held him intact, what was the key to that one?
J.P. PRINCE: I don't think I held him in check. I think my team helped keep him under control. It was a different kind of match up, because he posted up. That was something I haven't done a lot this season. But I got a feel for him, just making shots as tough as possible. He an a good right-hand hook, and I just tried to make it difficult on him.

Q. That elbow, that shot you took, have you been hit like that this year?
J.P. PRINCE: No, that one caught me off guard. I didn't see it coming. My head was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That kind of hurt. I got up and recovered from that one.

Q. Melvin, you had career highs with 15 points. How do you feel about your performance tonight and the performance of your team?
MELVIN GOINS: I feel great just to have a chance to advance in the tournament. My team played well. If I didn't have these good players on my team, I wouldn't have had the open shots that I had tonight. I felt like I needed to step up for us to advance.

Q. Melvin, as a San Diego native did you have to put up with any trash talk this week or do you have friends who go there and how satisfying was the win?
MELVIN GOINS: I have a lot of friends on their team Malcolm Thomas and Billy White, D.J. Gay. But it wasn't really any trash talk or anything like that. It was just respect for each other's game. San Diego State is a great opponent and just felt good to get the win.

Q. Can you talk about, this was coach's 50th birthday, was that added motivation to you?
BOBBY MAZE: Well, actually when I woke up this morning I thought to say something to him, but I said I'm going to wait out, coach he didn't make no announcements. And I said the only way to give him his praise is to win this game. Now we did that, now I guess we can say happy birthday to him.
WAYNE CHISM: Happy birthday (laughter).

Q. Wayne, can you talk about your mindset going to the free throw line, 7.2 seconds left?
WAYNE CHISM: We work on those free throws every day in practice. It comes down to the last shot. It's always sudden death at the end of the game. I took my time and made the shot.

Q. Speaking of your mindset, talk about your mindset going after that missed free throw, like 45 seconds left and you got the three after that. It looked like you were not to be denied there. What were you thinking?
WAYNE CHISM: Through the whole game me and Brian were never inside the free throw line, try to get a rebound. We always know if it is a close game me and Brian will try to get the rebounds, because sometimes we know sometimes the ball come off a certain way. But me and Brian got in there and got the rebound.

Q. Melvin, on the three point, it looked like you guys didn't have to take a shot there. Were you just of the mindset you were going to hit it, was it just too open to turn down?
MELVIN GOINS: The shot clock was running down, I think it was 7 seconds when I took the shot. But before I even got the ball kicked out coach was hollering stick, stick, stick, so that just gave me confidence to just catch it and shoot it and it went in.

Q. Three point lead in the huddle, any thoughts of fouling and sending them to the line and what was your decision either way?
COACH PEARL: One of the things we did was call timeout to set our defense. I also was trying to ice Wayne after he made his first one. But I thought I needed to get in their mind what we wanted to do defensively.
We talked about fouling and trying to commit a foul at about the half court area. And I think right before Gay, actually when he gave the ball up was about the time we were going to foul him. But he threw a long cross-court pass to Leonard and Leonard is not a good three point shooter. It was our intention to try to foul in the mid-court area. And when Gay got free, he made the pass and so we weren't able to execute that. But I think one of the most important thing was we put pressure on. We were in a 2-2-1, and they had it inbound in front, negotiated it through traffic and the next thing you know the clock was winding down and they weren't across the ten second line yet.

Q. It seemed at the end of the games last year, especially at the end of the SEC Tournament, the opening round last year, it was your ability of your team to finish games was your problem. How do you think that's improved this year?
COACH PEARL: I think the guys that step up and make the shots like Melvin Goins, Bobby Maze, Wayne Chism making his free throws, putting the ball in the point guards hands. Last year Bobby was brand new to us and much better job not turning the ball over at all tonight against the San Diego State team that did press us a little bit. I think the maturity of our club, we have three seniors and we're not a great free throw shooting team but we made them when it mattered and I think it has everything to do, like Wayne said, we put ourselves through the practice situations. This team very much does for the want to go home. We want to continue to play, represent the SEC and advance in this tournament.

Q. I guess I was confused on Melvin's shot with 14 seconds left. I thought it was after an offensive rebound. You wanted him to take the three there?
COACH PEARL: He was wide open and he had been shooting the ball well and I did holler at him to stick that. And it was obviously a wide open, clear look. He had made three of them before. And I'm not sure about the shot clock. I think Melvin is right. I think the clock, you know, was kind of running down.

Q. You have a lot of really talented guards on your team; Bobby, J.P., Scottie, Cam, so a lot of guys. How do you balance giving them playing time and maintaining team continuity?
COACH PEARL: I think Melvin and Bobby are point guards. We have a three rotation with Cameron, J.P. and Scottie. I didn't think that either Cameron or Scottie were having particularly good nights. I didn't think either one of them were in the flow. And we actually played Skylar McBee a little bit. He played somewhere in the season -- this is it, and we can't kind of play our way into this and ease into it. You've got to step on the floor, you've got to be productive.
But we play a lot of guys. And I think that one of our advantages is our depth. We talk about our team -- our five man may not be better than a lot of fives that are here, but maybe our ten might be. So it's a long season. And when you get -- the fact that Melvin Goins had played consistently 15, 16, 17 minutes behind Bobby Maze, even though Bobby was a starter, I think kept Melvin prepared to be able to break out like this. It wasn't like Bobby was a 35 minute guy and Melvin was a five minute guy. Some nights it's going to be -- a guy is going to be feeling it, we're going to him more. Tonight we were calling Melvin's number a little bit more.

Q. Could you talk about the relief of getting a win in the opening round of the tournament? There were a lot of upsets or near upsets today. No. 2, what do you tell your team, you're going against a 14th seed Saturday, will it be another get them ready, so to speak?
COACH PEARL: I tell you first of all, the toughest one sometimes suspect the first one, it really is. And especially when you go up a team as good as San Diego State. We wanted to try to beat them at their own game in a sense that we knew we had to keep them off the offensive boards, and they only had 11. They average 14. We thought if we could get the ball inside, we could hurt them on the offensive glass.
Our two point offense -- we got the ball in there. We missed a lot of shots on the basket. They changed some shots. We had some pretty good looks. We did do a good job on the offensive glass. Yes, it is a bit of a relief to get that behind us. As far as Ohio is concerned, I promise you I take them one at a time. My coaching staff, we broke the staff up, a couple of guys had Ohio, a couple guys had Georgetown. I don't think it has anything to do with where they are seeded.
They won their league, their tournament. They played a good lead in the MAC. I know how good the MAC is. I understand the balance there. I know how many great coaches there are there. Fortunately we're going to have an ability to watch a few games in their leagues. We'll have to figure out the ball screen. They do a tremendous job in their offensive ball screen. We can't let them beat us with that. We're playing a team that was good enough to beat Georgetown, the No. 3 team seeded in this tournament. We will have no trouble getting ready in respecting our opponent.

Q. J.P. kind of deflected his efforts to the team on defense. Can you talk about the job he did on Leonard and what he meant to the team tonight?
COACH PEARL: Absolutely outstanding. J.P., to have six rebounds and to defend Leonard like he did physically, I knew we had a good match up there. Leonard is like Dennis -- he's Dennis Rodman. He is such a talented player, plays so hard. But J.P. is a tough kid. His toughness doesn't get enough attention. And he had enough size and length to bother Leonard. Leonard physically overwhelms a lot of people. And J.P. was able to hang in there with him and at times even do better than that.
If you look at threes four of San Diego State 's losses, they've lost 8 times. Leonard was in single digits. He had 12 tonight. We felt one of the keys was to not let him get off.

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