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DICK'S SPORTING GOODS NIT SEASON TIP-OFFNovember 24, 2010Scotty HopsonBruce PearlBrian WilliamsNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK VCU - 72 THE MODERATOR: Questions for the players, please. Q. I'll start off with Scotty. This is your first career double, double. What about being back in New York. You said this was the place you would get it going again. Why were you so confident? SCOTTY HOPSON: I had a few games before this where I don't think I played up to my potential. I hadn't done as well as me and Coach and the rest of my teammates had expected. So I wanted to start off with practice this week and get the team going, get on a good start and get it into the game. Me and Coach always say, "practice makes perfect." Practice leads up to a good game. This is what I think I did today. Q. Scotty, you felt aggressiveness going to the hoop. Noticeably different. You got to the line a lot when the shot clock was winding down. Just talk about that attitude. SCOTTY HOPSON: I feel like that's what's expected on this team. I'm a leader. When it's time to lead, we need a bucket or a big play, I have to step up and do that for this team. I think it's what is expected of me. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for the players? Q. Brian, 13 boards for you. You had gotten off to a slow start. What got you going tonight? BRUCE PEARL: Obviously being in Madison Square Garden, I'm from New York City. Never got an opportunity to play in this kind of atmosphere. So I was just excited. And my teammates needed it and they say if I play good we would get a victory. So I just wanted to win. Q. Brian, you guys dominated the boards in the paint 48 to 16. Was that stressed coming in? Can you talk about going out and executing that? BRIAN WILLIAMS: Definitely keep executing our plays in practice and I think it carried over to the game. The game plan we executed to the T. That's why we got the victory. Q. Scotty, a lot has been going on around this program off the court. Is it nice to have this game under your belt now and you guys can get back to focusing on what's going on out there? SCOTTY HOPSON: I think so. We basically are focusing just on going to the basketball court. What the athletes and coaches want us to stick to the aspect of the game. We are doing things right on the floor and playing well. Q. Brian, how many family members did you have? You said you felt you would have a few folks? BRIAN WILLIAMS: I only had eight tickets. But I think there was 50 people. They showed the love. I appreciate that and all the fans across the nation. Q. Scotty, Coach Pearl said it would take five people to break the press. That didn't seem to be much of a factor. SCOTTY HOPSON: We got two great point guards. Trae Golden, and we wanted those to be better than their point guards. When everyone is on the same page and come together and play with that intensity and carry the game, we're effective. The game plan, we like to play against them. I think we executed well. Q. Brian, being a New York guy, you talked to Tobias (Harris) about that too, him being a Long Island guy? BRIAN WILLIAMS: Definitely, Tobias played in the Garden so he was telling me with a to expect. I was ready to get out here and play. He played a great game too. So I think everybody on our team played a great game. So we got a victory. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for the players? Okay. Thanks, gentlemen. Coach will make an opening statement and take some questions. BRUCE PEARL: I think a couple of things. First of all, I need a stool. I need a booster. Those guys really stepped up. Scotty Hopson with 11 rebounds, Brian Williams with 13 rebounds. Huge. I thought our rebounding in the second half was a real key. They beat us to a lot of loose balls in the first half. In the second half we did a much better job. And I thought we really limited their two-point baskets in the second half. I think defensively our guys guarded really well. I thought Coach Jason (Shay) did an outstanding job with the game plan. We had a week to get ready for them. They were a fun team to get ready for. Because they do such great stuff in transition. With ball screen stuff, it gave me an opportunity to really do some teaching. They didn't have a big post-up attack. And I think (Jamie) Skeen had a hard time finishing over the top of Tobias and Brian and some of the size on them. I thought Tobias got us off to a great start. That was a real key for us. Because this VCU team had been playing extremely well. Tobias makes his first five shots. That's pretty impressive for a freshman. But I thought it was a good team effort. I thought we got a lot of contributions. If you look at the minutes played and you look at the stats sheet, we played a lot of guys and a lot of guys contributed. That's a good basketball team to beat. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Coach, obviously, different mood for you now than the last time you were in this room, I guess, three or four years ago, after the Butler-North Carolina. How big is it for Tennessee to get a win in Madison Square Garden for the program? BRUCE PEARL: I think it's big. I didn't want to get shutout here. That would probably be justice for a guy from Boston to come to Madison Square Garden and get shutout. But I was a big fan of Red Holzman, he was one of my idols growing up. This is the fourth straight championship this Tennessee basketball team has played for. We've been in the Disney Classic and in the Virgin Islands. Played over in New Jersey. We didn't win any of them. But this is the fourth time we played for the championship. And I think that's significant. I also thought that we had -- we were here three or four years ago, and Butler and North Carolina, and Gonzaga, three fabulous basketball programs. You think about those three schools. And they had great support. They had really good fans. I thought there was a lot of Tennessee people in the building tonight. And it was noticeable. I think it says something about where our basketball program -- I think there were people that have watched our teams play the last few years that aren't from Tennessee that have become fans the way these guys are playing. I was just really pleased with the support. There was a lot of energy in the building tonight. Q. You touched on Scotty a little bit. Especially in the second half he came out and I think he took four shots in four straight possessions and made throw of them. Noticeably more aggressive. Got to the free-throw line. Did you tell him something at halftime? BRUCE PEARL: I thought he was fairly patient. And didn't force -- you didn't see any body language that indicated I didn't have a big first half. But I knew Scotty is a tough cover. And once he got taken -- get in there and taking it deep, finishing with the contact and commanding a better whistle, getting to the foul line, I thought that was good. They're a tough team to cover. It was a physical game. It was a tough game to work. Because both teams were playing very physically, very aggressively. I thought we did a good job with VCU's pressure. I thought we attacked it well. And didn't turn it over much. We like to play fast. And I think playing fast brings out the best in us. Which you can see, that's a dangerous team. VCU, those guys can light it up. Q. Can you just talk about the experience of having your son on the team a little bit? What's that like, coaching him? And given everything you've been going through the last few weeks, does it make it easier or harder that he's here? BRUCE PEARL: I know it's hard for you to believe, these guys are so insulated from what's going on off the floor, I'm so on them about basketball and preparation, there's no time to spend any time on it. We don't talk about it at all. We have to work to become a good basketball team. Having Steve out there is wonderful. I love my players and I love my son. I think he's sort of -- what do you want to be known for? What do you want to be known for? He's a tough kid who gives everything he's got, and he's a defensive guy. And he's earned the respect of his teammates. That's the greatest thing that's happened to Steven. He's earned the respect of high major guys. And he knows his role. So his father is proud of him. Q. Coach, points in the paint and you played against size advantage, the advantage didn't show up on the boards tonight. Can you talk about the difference? BRUCE PEARL: Well, I thought, again, I thought we did a pretty good job getting to the rim. I would have liked to have gotten Tobias more touches inside. And because they were playing, they wound up playing four guards a lot. There were times during the mid-portion of that game, late in the first half, early in the second half when they were extending on us, it was difficult for us to get good looks and get that ball into the paint. We got to do a better job with that. Inside shots were the inside rebounds. Even though we missed some inside shots, we got some second-chance points. We had 16 second-chance points. We had 18 offensive rebounds. They had 15 offensive rebounds. A lot of their offensive rebounds were chased-down three balls. That still gives you another possession but it doesn't give you a chance to necessarily score inside shots, inside rebounds. I think we got a lot of put-backs because of that. Q. You kind of reopened the recruiting pipeline back into the area, with Brian and Tobias. Tennessee has always had a little bit of that with Ernie (Grunfeld) and Bernie (King). BRUCE PEARL: Ernie and Bernie. And two of the greatest players in the history of Tennessee basketball. And then Allen Houston sitting right behind our bench. Those are three -- what, the top ten, 15? Those are three great New York Knicks who played in this building. Allen lives here. Ernie and Bernard grew up here. High school legends. Brian is from the Bronx and from the Island. I'm sitting there listening to the starting lineups in Madison Square Garden and the first two kids that trot out there are from New York. So it was special. I know -- and by the way, all three of those guys are huge -- they are very involved in our program. Ernie and Allen and Bernard, they attend our games, they stay in touch with our players and our kids. Wouldn't mind coming back and keeping that thing going. THE MODERATOR: Last question. Q. Can you talk about the matchup between Melvin and Rodriguez. BRUCE PEARL: I believe Rodriguez was hurt. I believe Joey was hurt. And I think he either tweaked his ankle or did something. He was not -- he was not 100%. And one of the things we were going to do is go at him. We got two fouls on him early. That was part of our game plan. We were going to go at him. They're a good team. They're really good with him on the floor, 100%. If he was healthy, we would have gone at him even more and tried to get Melvin (Goins) and try to take that bull to the basket and see if we can get him in foul trouble. We did. I think that also helped us stay in the game early. THE MODERATOR: Okay, thanks, coach. End of FastScripts |
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