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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2011Festus EzeliKevin StallingsJeffery TaylorATLANTA, GEORGIA THE MODERATOR: We would like to welcome Vanderbilt. We'll start with an opening statement from Coach Stallings. COACH STALLINGS: Well, we're excited to be here. Looking forward to getting in the tournament atmosphere and tournament play. It's a lot different feeling when you're playing in a tournament, and certainly we need to experience that. We need to come and have that feeling and some of that pressure and that sort of thing. So obviously our goal is to be here this weekend, but we recognize that we had a competitive game with LSU a couple weeks ago, and so in order to be here this weekend, the first step in us doing that is to play well tomorrow night and find a way to be victorious. THE MODERATOR: We'll take your questions. Q. Specifically, the 3-point shot is such an important weapon. You guys have done a great job of defending the 3-point shot. Without giving away too much, is there sort of a philosophy you have on that and how y'all been able to have success shutting teams down from outside the arc this year? COACH STALLINGS: Well, we have done a better job this year than we have done in other years. Honestly, I've always felt like defending the three was a weakness. We have done a better job of that. We have made some modifications in our coverage and philosophically, probably have moved towards the fact that we just don't want to get beat from out there. We don't want to give the other team's best shooters good looks from the 3-point line. When there was no 3-point line, you really wanted to defend the basket and you wanted to defend the lane area, and the 3-point line has changed some philosophies defensively. And so we have just tried to do a good job on the guys that are really good from out there and fortunately for most of the season, we have done that. Q. Jeffrey, you guys, maybe two weeks ago, you were looking at a pretty high NCAA seed and you lost three out of your last four. Just wondering if you think you guys had some nagging injuries through the season and do you think that played into the way your season ended up, maybe a little fatigue as well? JEFFERY TAYLOR: Obviously, we were a little disappointed with how we ended the season. Especially since we had that long wining streak, things were really looking up for us. But we felt like we did a really good job throughout the whole season with the injuries, just sticking together, other people stepping up and doing things that they usually don't. So I don't feel like the injuries had anything to do with it. We have more, we have a lot of capable players, so I don't feel like that was the problem. FESTUS EZELI: The injuries? I mean, it definitely slowed us down a little bit, but when we got a hold of it and people started stepping up, like he said, it was nothing for us. We're a deep team, so that helps us out a little bit, yeah. Q. You don't necessarily need to do well as far as NCAA tournament bid, but still what is your attitude for the team going into this week? COACH STALLINGS: We want to play well against LSU. If we can, and we're fortunate to advance, then we want to play well against Mississippi State. To me, this has an opportunity to be four one-game ordeals, I guess. So we want to play in as many of those four as we possible can. We have not talked about winning a championship. We want to play well on Thursday night. And that's all our focus is about and all it will continue to be about. Like I said, if we're good enough to get by LSU, then we want to play well on Friday night. And fortunately these guys have done a good enough job over the course of the entire season that we're not here sweating out our NCAA tournament berth. That's good. So our focus can be on what it should be on, and that is, let's just play well. Q. For Festus and Jeffery, how important is it for you guys to play well on how you ended the season heading into the NCAA tournament. Momentum-wise. FESTUS EZELI: It's definitely good for confidence going into the NCAA. That's a big tournament as well, but it will be good to start it off here. The next game is always the most important one. And that's going to be good for to us start off here. JEFFERY TAYLOR: Just like he said, to play well here and leave here with a good feeling would probably serve us well with what we have coming. So we definitely want to play well and we definitely want to leave here not feeling disappointed or feeling like we left anything out there. Q. For the players, do you feel like this tournament is an opportunity to prove that you can put teams away when you have them down and to work on a killer instinct, if you guys are lacking that right now at this stage of the season. JEFFERY TAYLOR: It's something that we have been struggling with throughout the season. Obviously if we get in that situation when we're down here, it's something that we need to do in order to be successful going down the line. So, yeah. FESTUS EZELI: That's another thing we need to get better at is that right there, a killer instinct. And our philosophy through the season has been to try to get better every day. And the game is another opportunity to get better, and I feel like we just try and work on that. Q. Could you elaborate on, you said you want your guys to experience the atmosphere and the one-game ordeals of the tournament, what do you hope they can get out of that here? COACH STALLINGS: I think that first of all, it's interesting that there's a perception that we have not played well the last couple of weeks because we have lost three out of four. You were in Lexington the night that the losing started. Did you feel like we played poorly? No, because we didn't. And we lost, but we didn't play poorly. And then -- well, actually, that wasn't the first game. We had a very miserable 10 or 12 or 14 minutes against Tennessee, and then we got beat by the best team in the league. For the most part, so did everybody else. We didn't play very well defensively, but that had a lot more to do with them than it did with us. So we don't arrive here feeling badly about how we have played. Ironically, and I think people forget this also, our record was better in the second half of the SEC season than it was the First half. And we're disappointed that we were in a better position two weeks ago than we finished. We're certainly disappointed with that. But I look our team and I like our chances. We would like to play well and we would like to gather some momentum going into next week. And I think it will be good for these guys to feel the pressure of, if you get beat, you go home. And I think that's a good pressure to experience prior to the one that really matters, which is next week. Q. Just curious with the quick turnaround, in the event that you win, I mean, are you doing any prep work already on Mississippi State or just waiting until after the LSU game? COACH STALLINGS: Well, I hope that I can say this as non-offensively as possible, but that's not a question that I want to answer, because I don't care to share what goes into our preparation with the other coaches in this league, just like they don't want to share what their preparation is with me. And I don't blame them. But I can tell you that philosophically, we prepare for the people, the team we're playing, and that's our approach, is to focus on whoever it is that we're playing, and that's LSU. Q. Coach, ideally coming into a four-game tournament, you would like to have a long bench and you have a pretty good long bench, but maybe not as much as maybe some previous years. How big a concern is that to you? COACH STALLINGS: It's not a concern. It may become a concern if we're fortunate enough to be here to the weekend. But it's not a concern. We played nine early in the season when we had nine that were healthy and productive. Hopefully those nine, those same nine will be available to us beginning tomorrow. Whether we decide to utilize all nine or not is another story, but our hope is, is that those nine that we began the season with, albeit that they're not all at a hundred percent, they can be productive and contribute. And that will be more important if we're lucky enough to stay around here to Saturday or Sunday. Q. Can you talk about your protocol of what you do in a tournament like this when you're playing every day, that 24 hours between games of preparing and getting guys rested and kind of who are the unsung heroes in that operation. COACH STALLINGS: Well, I think that the trainers and my assistant coaches are the guys that do the most work. Obviously it's up to the players to convince their minds and convince their bodies that they can bounce back and play. But again, we have played in a three-game-in-three-day format already this season against extremely good competition. Therefore, we're used to at least that part of it. Again, we haven't done the fourth day, but I think that the trainers and the assistant coaches, because they do the film work and they do the scouting preps and the things like that, so I would say those two groups are the ones that they're kind of the unsung guys in the in between times, between when a game ends and the next one begins. THE MODERATOR: All right thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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