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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2011Charvez DavisAnthony GrantJaMychal GreenTrevor RelefordATLANTA, GEORGIA GEORGIA: 59 THE MODERATOR: We have Alabama. We'll start with an opening statement by Coach Grant. COACH GRANT: First of all, let me take my hat off to Georgia. I thought they played extremely well today, very talented team. I think they have obviously had a great year and that's really what SEC basketball is all about. I thought that was just a very, very hard fought game and very, very proud of our guys. The fight that our guys showed tonight was incredible. The way we persevered and stayed together certainly makes me, as a coach, extremely proud. And I thought the win tonight came down to style of play. Our guys just continued to fight and believed in each other and found ways to get it done. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for the student-athletes. Q. JaMychal, when you were down 14 with about six and a half minutes left, it looked like Senario called you guys together and gave a pep talk. What was he saying and what were you thinking? JAMYCHAL GREEN: We were saying that we got to keep fighting, and we had the same thing going on when we went to Florida, we didn't compete. And we didn't want the same outcome. We wanted to win tonight and we fought to the end and got the job done. Q. Trevor, just wanted to get your opinion on their style of play. Did they do something different in the last week that y'all hadn't seen? It looked like you were out of sequence there for a pretty good part of this game. TREVOR RELEFORD: No, I think they did everything they did the last time we played them. I think we were just beating ourself at first. Once we started just playing together and playing as team like we should, then the game got better. Q. Trevor, Leslie wasn't as effective after the first half. Did you guys do anything different against him to stop his scoring? TREVOR RELEFORD: I think that coach looked at Tony Mitchell and told him, like, You got to stop him. You got to cut the head off the monster. And I think that's what Tony Mitchell did, he stepped up and played great defense. CHARVEZ DAVIS: Yeah, I go with Trevor. Coach, he looked at Tony and just told him to man-up. And Tony, he took it upon himself as a challenge and he did a great job in the second half. Q. Trevor, could you talk about the layup that tied the game in regulation and just sort of what you saw there and what you were looking for and what happened. TREVOR RELEFORD: Basically just like a flat pick for Mike. Mike was setting it and I came off of it one way and came back the other way because he kind of cheated it. And I mean his man really didn't help, he just kind of showed a little bit. And I just had to make a play just for the team and all the seniors and stuff like that. Q. For all three players, did you guys hear a whistle before Ware banked that one in with 8/10ths left? JAMYCHAL GREEN: We heard the whistle, but I'm glad he called the timeout. TREVOR RELEFORD: Yeah, I heard. I saw the coach trying to get the timeout and I saw the referee calling the timeout and that's when we stopped. CHARVEZ DAVIS: Yeah, I agree, we heard it early. Q. Charvez, what happened on your injury and how is it now? CHARVEZ DAVIS: I just caught a cramp. We'll go back, I guess we're going to look into it. So I'm fine. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for coach. Q. Coach, wondering, were those the exact words, "Cut the head off the monster"? COACH GRANT: I don't remember the exact words, but Leslie did a great job. I thought he was outstanding, especially in the first half. I think he had, at one point, maybe 13 of the first 17 points. He was outstanding. And we needed to do a better job on him. Obviously we challenged our guys to understand what it was going to take to try to get the win. But again, just proud of the effort that we were able to put forth and the fight that we showed just to stay with it and believe. Q. Looking ahead to tomorrow, a matchup with U.K., matchup with Ole Miss, can you kind of break down what you guys will be looking to attack on either side? COACH GRANT: We really don't know who is going to win. Obviously we played Kentucky earlier in the year. We played Ole Miss within the last two weeks, so a little bit more familiar with them. Our assistant coaches are going to scout the game, and obviously we'll get prepared for whichever one ends up being the team that we'll play. But we're excited to have an opportunity to advance. I'm looking forward to playing tomorrow. Q. Quick follow-up, what do you take from that win over U.K. earlier this season? I know it was a long time ago and teams evolve, but is there something extra that you can give the guys saying, Look, I know that they are the guys in this conference? COACH GRANT: Not at this point. Our total focus was on Georgia. We're going to take it one game at a time, and now that we have advanced, now we'll find out who we play next and see where it falls. Q. I wanted to ask you about how in the second half you went to the press. Was that a combination of knowing their legs were getting tired or trying to come back and get the score closer? COACH GRANT: We tried to come out early with the press and we were kind of out of sorts there in the first half. And as you mentioned, we couldn't get a flow, we couldn't. We didn't have any consistency in the first half with what we were doing. I thought in the second half we did. I thought we did a much better job of creating the tempo and style of play we wanted to go to. Georgia's an awfully efficient basketball team. They're very good and we wanted to get them out of rhythm and out of sorts, and I thought our defense in the second half, the cumulative affect of what we did, I thought took its toll at the end of the game. That's what I mean when I say a style of play win. Because I thought the cumulative affect of what we did at the end of the game, the free throw line, just some out-of-character things that they did, they gave us a chance. And our guys stepped up and made plays. Q. 10, 12 days you were in a sort of a similar situation in Florida and ended up 25 points, and you came out that have game talking about your team's character and needing it to be a learning experience. Do you feel like that was a learn experience and did it show today? COACH GRANT: It's great to hear JaMychal Green bring that up. Because I remember on the bench in the second half, him commenting that we have been in this situation before. So to me, that's growth and that's understanding, and it's great to see JaMychal, who is emerging as our leader, be the one that voices that and gets the guys to understand. You mentioned Scenario, you know, at the end of the game there, bringing guys together. So it's great to see your veterans believing and doing the things they need to do. Charvez was another one that was extremely vocal throughout the game in terms of what needed to get done and how we needed to stay together. Chris Hines, you can go down the line and just so proud of that growth, because that's something that at times this year just wasn't there. So I do think those experiences that we have had from the beginning of the season all the way through, everything that we have experienced, the good and the bad, has I think made our team grow and has certainly helped. Q. Did you think of this game as a must-win to get into the NCAA tournament and where do you think you stand now? COACH GRANT: Our focus is the SEC tournament. We're excited to be here in Atlanta. We're excited about the opportunity to compete for a championship. And the thing we talked about is we're promised one game in this, and that we have got to we want to be here for the duration. So we got to take it one game at a time and our goal is to try to compete for a tournament championship. So that's all we're worried about. That's all we have got. So we're excited to be in Atlanta, we're excited to have an opportunity to continue to play. Q. You guys were down 13 with about six minutes to go. At what point in those next couple minutes did you get it to where it wasn't an all out desperation charge? Did you feel comfortable at any point? COACH GRANT: I think we cut it to seven right under four. So now you make it a three possession game and I think that we come up with the big steal. Trevor gets the steal, makes one of two at the free throw line, now it's six. And that, I think, the momentum from there kind of changed the game. So we just kept chipping away, and I think it was, like I said, a cumulative affect. Georgia's an awfully good team. They made some big plays that they needed to make to kind of keep us at bay. We cut the lead. It was nine, we cut it to six. They stretched it back out to ten, and we cut it. All of a sudden they go on a run and they get it up 13 or 14. We just stayed the course. I couldn't tell you that I remember being down 13 or 14, I don't. I do remember specifically under four being down seven and feeling like, Okay, this is it, we got a good shot at this. We just got to stay the course, got to keep defending got to keep them off the free throw line and got to make plays on the offensive end. THE MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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