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NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS & FINALS: ST. LOUIS

March 26, 2010

J.P. Prince

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

Tennessee Â– 76
Ohio State - 73

MODERATOR: The victorious Volunteers are with us. We'll have Coach Bruce Pearl open up with a statement on the game, then we'll go to the questions for the three student-athletes of Tennessee.
Bruce.
COACH PEARL: Well, we talked about our team versus their top six or seven guys. And there is a good tendency to try to shorten your bench as you get into tournament play. Ohio State has played great basketball. They played with great chemistry, and they're a great, great champion of the Big Ten.
In this intensity of this game, I thought fatigue was a factor in the second half. I thought we didn't do a very good job defensively in the first half, but they played great, and they made shots.
But pretty much right from jump street in the second half, our defense, our depth, and our seniors really made a huge difference. Guys that wanted to take this Tennessee basketball program to a place it's never been.
I thought the second good thing was physically was our advantage was on the inside. We got the ball inside to Wayne and J.P. and Brian. They converted beautifully.
We dominated the boards in the second half, and I guess the only last couple things with Bobby making those last couple free throws and J.P. making two or three crucial stops on Turner late in the game, putting him in position to demonstrate that he truly is one of the best players in the country that nobody really knows about.
MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. J.P., on bang-bang plays like that last second one at the end of game, you never know what a referee is going to do. How comfortable or confident or scared were you with how the referee might see that last play?
J.P. PRINCE: I didn't really think about it. You gotta contest the shot. I knew he was going to flail, that's going to happen anytime at the end of the game. But I had a clean block. I used my length and had to make a play.

Q. Did you worry after the thing, were you looking around for the referee?
J.P. PRINCE: No, because I knew he was going to have to earn it if you're going to make that shot, after I saw Wayne, we got the switch, they didn't give him that call, I said he's going to have to make it. I wanted to contest the shot, make it as tough as possible on him.

Q. Wayne, could you just talk about the second half. You seemed even more inspired than the first half getting to the rim. What the difference was for you?
WAYNE CHISM: The difference in the second half was I started to put the ball higher off the glass. First half, I was putting it up soft and coming up short every time. So I had to adjust the way I shot the ball in the second half, and I did a great job of finishing.
COACH PEARL: He sure did.

Q. J.P., we've seen so many games that come down to the last few seconds in this tournament, and you know they're going to have the ball and they're going to have a chance, was there anything going through your mind about I hope this doesn't end on a fluke play, I hope they don't hit one, or anything like that? Because it's been over and over again we've seen that these last couple of weeks?
J.P. PRINCE: No, because Coach Pearl did a great job of preparing us. He said this game is going to go all the way to the end. That's what all the hard work in the summer and preparation, he did a great job of preparing us. And we never let up no matter what the score was. We knew we had to fight all the way to the end. We knew they weren't going to give up. He told us it's not over yet.

Q. How would you describe the feeling when that horn sounded?
J.P. PRINCE: I'm just proud of my teammates and proud of the whole university. We fought hard. We've been through a lot of adversity, and I just thought -- I think we've done a great job of actually deserving victory, we've worked hard.
It was an overall team effort. We knew our team could compete with anybody. We planned as a team and we've done just a great job at that. We're excited. We know it's not over. We still have another game to play. We just enjoy tonight, but tomorrow we'll be right back, and it will be all business from that point on.
WAYNE CHISM: Blessed. Feel blessed.
BOBBY MAZE: It felt great. Just all the hard work that you put in to see it kind of pay off. And previously, last season, we lost so many close games, games that came down to the wire. And this year we done a better job of winning those close games. And so to come down and to see J.P. get that block on the last shot, it was just like a relief.

Q. J.P. or Bobby, what was the key to your defense in the second half pretty much keeping them on the perimeter? I think it had a lot to do with their -- a lot of their missed shots. They didn't get a lot of clean looks.
J.P. PRINCE: Well, we knew in the first half they were hot. And I think we kind of tried to run with them a little bit. We got away from our identity for a second. We kind of forgot who we were.
I think the second half -- especially at halftime Coach came in, and he wasn't happy they were shooting 56 percent, which was -- it's just unacceptable.
And I think we buckled down and got back to our identity and Tennessee basketball, which is playing great half-court defense, and we did a great job, great communication. Days did a great job of helping the guards out. They really have to be commended, because with those ball screens, they're the ones that are the key to slowing them down and letting the guards recover.

Q. J.P., you looked exhausted out there at the end of the game. How tired were you? And I guess where did you find the energy for the last minute or two?
J.P. PRINCE: I was tired. I just knew -- I said on offense they'll take care of it. I just said I'll save it all for defense. That's all I did. I wasn't going to let them catch the ball, make it as tough as possible. I knew that last ten minutes I was going to make them work no matter what. I know nobody wanted it more than I did.

Q. Wayne, as a senior, talk about the legacy this senior class will leave reaching the Elite Eight, and maybe even further for the first time in school history?
WAYNE CHISM: This class really worked hard to take this team to where it's at now. After all the adversity we had to face, all the dismissals we had, all the stuff we actually went through, this team actually stayed together through everything.
And the way we stayed together tonight, that means this team is strong like a family. And what it's going to leave at Tennessee, it's going to be -- it's great. And this team's going to continue to do great things for Tennessee and try our best to get somewhere we've never been again.

Q. Question for Prince and Maze. Coach Pearl in his opening statement said it was a team against their six or seven and that in the end your depth made a difference. Can you describe what the fatigue looked like in Ohio State?
J.P. PRINCE: Well, earlier today in film, Coach told us a statement, I don't remember exactly what Coach Matta said, but something around the lines that we wish we were at Ohio State playing 40 minutes.
That's not true. We as a team, we all get tired. We all need help. We're not going to be perfect. And Cameron Tatum did a great job of picking me up in the first half and Brian Williams and Melvin did a great job picking us up, and we knew that their six wouldn't be able to run with us the whole game because we had more depth, and you could tell they were tired the second half. Their legs weren't all there and their shots didn't fall the same as in the first half when they were fresh.
BOBBY MAZE: I would just say that this is a complete team, and every day we need -- every one of the guys on our team, whether it's scouting, you never know who is going to have a big game, who was going to make a shot.
Josh Bone didn't play for seven or eight games straight and now he's playing two games straight out there playing. You never know when the opportunity is going to present itself on this team, and I think that's what makes it so great, is that we have so many different players and no one is ever complaining, always willing to help each other.

Q. Bobby, you've been the best free-throw shooter with less than four minutes left. How comfortable were you with the final opportunity, and did you relish that opportunity, or did you try and keep it the same or was it different?
BOBBY MAZE: Honestly, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that I was going to make those two free throws. Honestly, Coach put us in those situations every day in practice. I felt more pressure shooting them in practice because the losing team, you had this competition, guards against the bigs. And if you see us, the team that loses, if the big men win, they make fun of us. If we win, we laugh at them. So I felt more pressure during that than out there on the basketball floor, honestly.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Congratulations. We'll stay with Coach Pearl for a little while longer.
Questions.

Q. Bruce, how about on that last second play, how nervous or concerned or worried were you what the referee was going to see?
COACH PEARL: You know, you had three of the top guys in the business out there. You get to this level, they're great. The biggest thing was putting J.P. on Turner. And I substituted Brian Williams to put another guard in there on Bone, and I wanted Wayne, and I thought they would try to do some kind of a ball screen with their five man where they would put him on a big.
But Wayne is a guy that can move his feet. When J.P. and Wayne were in that situation, two of my best defensive players were in that situation, I felt pretty good about it.
We had talked about the possibility of fouling if it got in a situation where we could get a two-shot foul inside about six or seven seconds. But it was just such a wild scramble there at the end that all we could really do was contest. And I don't think they got a great look. I thought it was contested.
And our guys did a good job of not fouling.

Q. Same question I asked the players: How would you just describe what your plan was, how to defend them the second half, how to keep them away from the rim?
COACH PEARL: Well, normally at halftime I get asked the question a lot of times if we're down at halftime, What did you say to those guys at halftime? And normally, I mean, I'm very positive. Normally I will come back and say I didn't yell at them. I said this was this or that was that.
But I got after them really hard. 56 percent shooting, Ohio State doesn't lose when they outshoot their opponent. If we're going to do that, we might as well go home. Because it's done.
I challenged their toughness. I said I thought they were intimidated early in that game, and we were not the more physical team in the first half. And so I thought they responded a little bit better. We were a little bit more physical.
I'm proud of the fact that we got the ball inside. We knew -- it's one thing to say you have the advantage and it's another thing to have the patience to pound it in there.
And I thought Wayne -- Wayne did a great job of just holding on to his position, not -- Lighty is such a terrific undersized defender. He gets underneath you. We let Wayne watch lots of films of Lighty taking flops and getting fouls called. Georgia Tech's big kids -- I said, Wayne, you're just going to get hit and hit and hit and hang in through the contact, we'll get it to you. He did a great job of finishing at the end.
When he didn't finish it, Brian Williams or somebody else finished it for him, inside shots lead to inside rebounds. And when you're playing against four guards, even if we didn't score on the first attempt, we had a shot to get the second, to get the rebound. And that sometimes gets lost in the thought of, well, you can just kind of post game. Part of your post game is the offensive rebound on the back side because of all the attention that your post receives.

Q. Wanted to ask you, I think there was about a minute left and Prince was over on the wing in front of the bench there, looked like he almost turned around and said something or you said something to him, when he looked really tired, his hands on his head and he bent over. Were you concerned that he was going to be able to finish the game at that point?
COACH PEARL: He was exhausted. And he wanted a timeout. And I normally give it to him. But I thought -- I just thought that Ohio State, I didn't want to give them another shot at resting. Now, I did call timeout after Bobby made the second free throw because I wanted to set our defense. I wanted to make sure we did stay on the floor on shot fakes, that we didn't get crazy leaving our feet, that we remained vertical.
And I wanted to make sure that we got the guys to understand that we were going to switch out. We switched. We switched out on handoff and on the ball screen and just made sure we got a challenge. And, again, if you could get in the situation where it was about five or six seconds and they had an opportunity to make a foul, to go ahead and foul.
But we didn't leave that timeout saying we're going to foul this time, it was too much time. 12, 13 seconds, just too much time in there to look to foul. The cleanest foul is when they get to the 10-second line. And there's too much that could happen in the game. If it was inside six or seven seconds, we would have fouled.

Q. You mentioned the team versus six to seven guys concept. You seemed pretty certain you could wear them down with your depth and athleticism. Was there any thought in your mind going into the game that would amount to 20 offensive rebounds and a 50-to-22 advantage in the paint?
COACH PEARL: No. It wasn't necessarily, but you look at Ohio State and you admire their forwards are so athletic, and the difference for us defensively was Wayne Chism is able to guard guards. He's a big man that can extend the floor. And David Lighty has a tremendous advantage against every power forward he faces off the bounce.
He didn't have that advantage against our guys. And our guys -- we have enough length that if we had to switch he couldn't Bogart one of our smaller guards. The only reason I took the approach with our team -- we talk about our team versus theirs. We always talk about our 10 or 11 guys versus their six or seven or eight, depending upon what the rotations are. That's not new.
But I talked to the guys. I said, J.P., do you want to play 40 minutes of this game? Or do you want -- and have Cameron not play? I want to ask you that question. Tonight you can play 40 and, Cameron, you sit down and watch. Are you okay with that? J.P. said, No, I'm not. I said, Look at what Cameron Tatum did in the first half; played great, kept us in there. I said to Bobby, Bobby are you okay that Melvin doesn't play tonight? Bobby was like, No. And Melvin Goins I thought played some really great defense and a good assist/turnover ratio.
Here's what I'm getting to. Sure kids would like to play more minutes. Of course they would. They want to be on the floor. They don't want to sit on the bench. So I've got to constantly sell the concept of we'll play nine or ten guys.
And we have too many dimensions and not put it on one guy. I think just for me it makes better chemistry. Again, it was something that Tom Davis taught me, and it's something I've stuck with. It's something I've encouraged young coaches to try to do. We all have five or six guys that are better than the other three or four. We all do. And you just -- you've got to, in order to develop talent and in order to develop your bench, you've got to play them.

Q. You have a pretty short turnaround but are you able to savor what you've finally got, the point you've finally gotten to, the point that this team has finally gotten to? Both of you have been knocking on this door for quite a while.
COACH PEARL: Absolutely not. We really aren't. I thought the guys had a measured response. I want the kids to be happy and celebrate. Coaches have to work tonight. I'm big on not reflecting in season. This is no time to reflect. This is time to prepare for our next game.
And I am happy. I'm proud. I'm proud to tears. I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am. But we've got work to do now. We've got to prepare for a game, and we'll reflect when the season's over.

Q. Can you talk about just -- you mentioned it, but Cam Tatum in the first. Looked like you guys were really struggling and tight and just Cameron's performance.
COACH PEARL: If you look at the stat sheet, Wayne Chism is a senior, Brian Williams is a junior, Bobby Maze is a senior, J.P. Prince is a senior, a fifth-year senior, Cameron Tatum is a fourth-year junior. Those guys played very, very well for us. You'd expect that come tournament time. Melvin Goins, a junior, I thought he played very well.
And so Cameron did a wonderful job in the first half and really picked us up offensively, shot the ball extremely well. Cameron's got a level of toughness to him.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

End of FastScripts

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