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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2011Tobias HarrisScotty HopsonBruce PearlATLANTA, GEORGIA TENNESSEE: 74 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Tennessee. We'll start with an opening statement by Coach Pearl. COACH PEARL: Well, it wasn't a game for the purists. A lot of fits and a lot of starts. We didn't start with any energy, and that was disappointing. I thought that the guys came off the bench, and we had an amazing rally in that first half. There were a couple starters out there, but there were a lot of guys that came off the bench and just brought great energy. Played great defense and to go in up at the half was very, very encouraging. Florida in the second half, their offense was absolutely on fire. In front of Coach Donovan, and our defense was nonexistent. We weren't effective communicating. We weren't dictating where Florida could go, very much like the start of the game. And when you allow a team to score 56 points in the second half or shoot the way they shot and send them to the foul line as often as we sent them, you got no chance to win. So obviously we're very disappointed and the turnovers on our end probably were also a factor. When we got shots, we were okay and we did a good job on the offensive glass, but too many turnovers. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for the student-athletes. Q. Scotty, you had a great second half scoring, but couldn't get going in the first. Could you contrast what happened in those two halves? SCOTTY HOPSON: Well, in the first half, we kind of knew they were going to hedge hard on the ball screen and I got the ball back to Tobias and he made plays, so I think that was the main focus of the first half. Q. What do you think happened in the second half? Do you agree with the coach it was just kind of a breakdown there? SCOTTY HOPSON: I think coach hit the nail on the head, as far as our defense was nonexistent and Florida shot the basketball tremendously. We didn't slide our feet. We sent them to the foul line, they stepped up and made their free throws, and they played great down the stretch. TOBIAS HARRIS: Yeah, like coach said, they shot the ball really well. They got to the free throw line a lot. I thought we fouled them a little bit too much down there, some tick-tack fouls, but you couldn't do nothing about it. And just on our offensive end, we settled too much instead of getting to the free throw line and getting to the basket. Q. For Scotty, how frustrating was it maybe the last 10 minutes of the game when it just didn't seem like there was any flow at all to the game, it was free throws, free throws, free throws, free throws. There 62 free throws I think in the game? SCOTTY HOPSON: It was very frustrating, but trying to keep the guys, tell them to keep their poise and keep their focus and understand this game is not over. But like I said, Florida executed down the stretch and got the win. Q. Tobias, did Florida do anything differently on you in the second half than the first? TOBIAS HARRIS: I wouldn't say they did anything different. They pretty much played the same way. They didn't really do too much different in the second half. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for coach. Q. What do you think this does to your NCAA tournament hopes this year? COACH PEARL: Well, I think obviously we could have improved our seeding tremendously by beating Florida. I still feel like we are a team that's worthy of the tournament and based on our strength of schedule and RPI and the number of wins over the top 50 and the top 100. But I know a lot of great teams are out there, and so we'll wait until Sunday and find out if and where we're going. Q. There was such an extreme difference in Scotty's two halves tonight. Could you comment on that, as well as Tobias's great first half, and then maybe not getting the opportunities in the second half? COACH PEARL: Well, one of the things that we did in the first half was we knew that Florida would see the way we have been using Scotty. Scotty's been averaging about 20 against Florida last three or four games he's played against them, and he got 19 tonight. He's been turning corners on ball screens like crazy, and so we decided we were going to throw back on that ball screen more than we usually do, and we got it back to Tobias. And he had a lot of good attacks off the throw back of the ball screen. So I think that had a lot to do with how effective he was. In the second half, we didn't throw it back quite as often, and Scotty was trying to turn those corners in the ball screen and get a little bit to the rim and get fouled, but he turned it over too often. Turned it over too often. And that was an issue. So we don't have a post up game. From the standpoint of we got Tobias a couple of deep looks, but we don't have a five-man that we can throw it into like Macklin or Tyus. It's just not something our fives are capable of and something we look to do. We still had 36 points in the paint, just like Florida. A lot of ours were off of drives which draw the defense, and that puts us in position offensive rebound, our posts are pretty good at going to the offensive glass, because we try penetrate and draw and try to draw a foul. So that's probably why Scotty maybe scored a little bit more in the second half. But if he could have done so without turning it over as often, we would have probably stayed a little closer. Q. You talked about Florida and how they can hurt you with five different guys. They had five guys in double figures again and shot 82 percent in the second half. Could you talk about the pressure they put on a defense. COACH PEARL: Well, they do. They have got great stuff, great spacing. And when you let them reverse the floor, defensively, they're really effective. And so at Florida where we held them to 61 points, they couldn't go middle. We wouldn't let them go middle. We established that. We did a pretty good job of that in the first half, but in the second half, we didn't do a very good job. And obviously there were a total of 8 free throws shot in the first half and 54 by both teams in the second half. So they got in bonus real quickly. And that was us not doing a very good job of moving our feet. And so the flow was very, very different from the first half to the second half. Q. What happened in the sequence that led to your technical foul? COACH PEARL: It was a bad technical. Very bad technical. And it really hurt our team. It really hurt our team. And so I felt that Steven Pearl had driven and I thought he got fouled, so I just said I thought he got fouled. Q. What did Florida do any differently offensively in the second half because they couldn't get anything going in the first half. Did they make any adjustments? COACH PEARL: They just were able to reverse the floor with their ball screen. They were able to get the ball from one side of the floor to the other. That's the whole key to their offense. They did a pretty good job. They shot it so well. That was probably the key. The real key is they were able to reverse the floor and mix in their post up game and that. Q. You stated an absence of a post game, which isn't a revelation, but how difficult is it to manage an offense like this one? COACH PEARL: It puts a lot of pressure on your defense, and this year, when we defended and rebounded, we won. When you don't shoot the three ball very well and you don't have a post to throw the ball to and to score in the paint, you got to get pretty creative about trying to score points. That's just a challenge for us. So when you don't defend, it becomes a real challenge. It's a real issue. Q. I think that's, if I'm right, four games in a row where your second half defense has just really struggled. How much of that's just being away from the bench or what else could be going on? COACH PEARL: It's probably the first thing I talked to our team about, and that is exactly what it is in front of us, and that's not unusual. Obviously we do a lot with our preparation, we do a lot with our preparation, and I can't play, I've got a fairly decent basketball IQ, and so I got a pretty good idea, we work hard in preparation, I know what's coming and I can help them. But down at the other end, they didn't communicate themselves with that, with the sense of urgency that's required. Part of it is Tobias obviously played some heavy minutes, and I would say maybe they rely on us a little bit too much. But it is okay, because half the game they got to be down at the other end and then they got to man-up and find a way to get that done. We absolutely did not. We did not get that done as a team. And we when we held Florida to 61 points, which was about 10 or 11 below their average, I thought we did exactly what you had to do, we just couldn't do it again. We could not do it again. Florida's one of the top teams in the country. And they certainly played like it. I thought our kids gave a really good effort, but there are just too many weaknesses, too much inconsistency within the framework of how we play. And offensively, obviously too much reliance on a couple guys. It's good to see Skylar McBee come out today and play with great energy and great passion and knock down some shots. And Brian Williams rebounded the ball and battled in there. It was good to see. So I think that our basketball team can be a dangerous team in the tournament. We demonstrated that we're good enough to beat anybody on our schedule, we just weren't good enough today to beat the best team in our league. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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