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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2011Kenny BoyntonBilly DonovanChandler ParsonsATLANTA, GEORGIA FLORIDA: 54 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Florida. We'll start with an opening statement from coach. COACH DONOVAN: Congratulations to Kentucky. I thought they played very, very well. I think when you get to this point in time in this tournament, I always think fatigue is a major factor. And it was a major factor I think for both teams because I felt Kentucky got off to a hot start shooting, but I really thought that that would subside as the game wore on. And it's really difficult to really shoot well for three straight days, for both teams. And I don't think it was very pretty offensively, it certainly was not for us. I thought we struggled. I thought we had some things around the basket we weren't able to finish. I thought we missed a lot of lay-ups. The biggest part was I didn't think that we were strong enough and physical enough around the basket. And then I thought that I was very, very happy we were only down five. I think when you go into the locker room, and it's 14-1 from the free throw line and some of the free throws were misleading because we fouled at the end. But there was such a huge discrepancy from the free throw line and Kentucky probably took the ball a little bit more physically than we did. And we didn't take the ball physical enough to the basket to at least -- and usually the free throw line is something that can offset a tough shooting night where you find ways to get to the free throw line. But I thought we guarded them very well. I thought they guarded us very well. The difference I thought was we weren't physical enough to get fouled as much as they were able to get fouled. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for the student-athletes. Q. For the both you guys, Billy talked about the connectedness of this team. How much was there or missing tonight using each other one the court? CHANDLER PARSONS: I think it was there. I think at times we were a little disconnected, but that comes with the competition. We have been here before, so we have to stay together for 40 minutes. And I think we defended well tonight. We just got to stay together and stay connected together on offense and just keep executing and running the plays coach calls. KENNY BOYNTON: I think we were well connected again tonight, but I think the difference tonight and other games is we just missed shots. We missed easy lay-ups around the rim, jumpers from outside weren't falling. So on nights like this we just got to play more defense. Q. How much of this is a confidence blow heading into next week? CHANDLER PARSONS: It hurts, but we have been here before. We're not going to hang our heads after one loss. We wanted to be on the other end, but you got to give credit to Kentucky. They played very well tonight. And we obviously want to be in that situation, but we got to move on and we got bigger things ahead of us, and we want to make a run in the tournament. It hurts right now and I'm sure it's going to hurt later, but we got to move past that and look forward to the tournament. Q. It seemed like you were hitting shots in your first two ball games. How much did tired legs play into tonight, because usually that's a sign of tired legs when you're missing shots you've been making. CHANDLER PARSONS: We are definitely tired, but we can't really use that as an excuse and not executing and not screening and doing other things besides shooting because they've played just as many games as we have. Both teams are exhausted, but we got to be tougher and fight through better. KENNY BOYNTON: I agree. We're taking no excuses. We just missed easy shots around the rim. Stuff we ought to finish. I think that we were tired, but you can say the same for both teams. We just got to finish well. Q. For both players, can you talk about Kentucky's length and how they closed out on the outside shot and made it really tough to get clean looks. KENNY BOYNTON: I agree. They have great length. Liggins, he was on me the majority of game. But I think in situations like that, if we come up play a team just like them, I think we just got to drive it to the rim more. If they come out at us, drive past them and go to the rim. CHANDLER PARSONS: I agree. Once we put the ball on the floor and get to the hole, we just got to go up to the hoop stronger and try and go through them instead of shooting floaters or going up there like that. We need to go more aggressively. Q. Chandler, Darius Miller obviously is a guy you've seen a lot of. Talk about his development, particularly the last couple of games. CHANDLER PARSONS: I think he's a great player. He's a miss-match when they put him at the four. He's quick enough and he has a good hand on where he can go by bigger guys. And then when you put someone smaller on him, he's versatile enough to take them to the post. So he's a very good player. And they run some stuff that really let's him do his thing out there. And I think that he's gotten a lot better. Q. Kenny talk about the technical. Exactly what happened there? KENNY BOYNTON: Me and the ref, we had a misunderstanding. I just tried to walk away and he was calling my name and I kind of ignored him. Q. For both players, did they do anything that really surprised you out there today? Were you looking for what they were going to throw at you? CHANDLER PARSONS: We were very prepared on what they were going to do. We watched some film on what they did last night against Alabama, so we were aware that they were going to not do as much dribble driving, do a lot of pin downs, things like that that they did tonight. And I don't think our defense was the problem. I think we were really prepared for what they were going to run. KENNY BOYNTON: I agree. I don't think they did anything different than when we played them a couple of weeks ago, but I think they did a great job. I think they did a great job offensively. We got some stops, but we just couldn't score on the other end. Q. You guys talked about the difference in Selection Sunday last year versus the NIT. How does this day feel for you because there's hopefully good news later, but you have this loss. CHANDLER PARSONS: Really, it's out of our hands, so we just got to sit back and see where they place us and see what teams that we're going to go against. But once we get there, we can't look ahead. We just got to go one game at a time and go from there. KENNY BOYNTON: I think we just wait and find out who we play. We really want to find out who we play as soon as possible so we can start getting ready for them. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions now for coach. Q. Can you talk about the lesson that can be learned from a game like this, that if you have a bad night, you're going home? COACH DONOVAN: Oh, yeah. I think our team has played really well. For us to run off the amount of games we have had, it's been pretty impressive. And I'm proud of what these guys accomplished up to this point in time. And there's been a lot of emotional games for us besides this tournament. But I think there's a great lesson to learn because you look at the Tennessee game and we kind of got back on our heels to close out that half, first half. And then we went on a huge run and we kind of really pulled away in the second half. The Vanderbilt game it took us a little bit longer to maybe pull away. And I think that you start to play better and better teams this time of year. And I think in our league, in a tournament like this anybody can beat anybody. But you really have got understand. And I thought that what hurt us was the fact that it was a five-point game at the half, and Vernon and Chandler have two turnovers and we give up a three-point play and next thing we're down 10 within 30 second. I thought that was a huge turning point for us. And then from there, we were playing catch, up and I think good teams really find a way to kind of keep their distance. And we made a run and got it back in to I think five maybe one time, but we just could never really get over the hump. Q. Did Kentucky's endurance surprise you at all given their lack of depth? COACH DONOVAN: No, because I think that they're a team that really, what I say, controls tempo. They're really a slow-down team. What I mean by that is they have the opportunity to fast break, and they fast break. But if you look at them, I really felt like if we could get stops and really run up and down the floor, because obviously we probably play more players than they do, I thought that we could really make fatigue a factor. I think because our inability to score, it allowed them to really control the tempo. They fast break when they wanted to, they pulled it out and ran offense when they wanted to. But the game was a very slow-down game. They ended up scoring 70 points, but I think some of that had to do with we were trying to get back in the game with three or four minutes and probably had to foul some. But it was not an up-and-down game, I didn't think. So I didn't think fatigue would be a factor. I thought maybe we could fatigue them if we could have capitalized on some of their missed opportunities, because we went through a stretch there where we defended them really, really well, but we could never really capitalize on either end of the floor. Q. Do you think that you could have taken the ball out of your guards' hands a little sooner and had them keep pounding into the post? It looked like in the second half you really tried to get it inside and stuff instead of the driving. COACH DONOVAN: Yeah, we tried to do that the whole game. But Vernon Macklin had five turnovers in the game. So that's five times he's got the ball in his hands, and never mind his shots. I just didn't think that our front court guys when they got the ball did very much with it. And they came down and they helped, but our turnovers by Vernon and Alex and even Patric in there, we got it inside and we needed to do a better job. But I don't think our guards, Erving didn't have a great game, and Kenny got some shots because they were really sinking down and helping on the post. So it really was hard to play one-on-one. And then I thought we missed. Chandler had a layup he missed, Pat Young had a follow-up layup he missed. Vernon was rolling to the basket, we threw it to him, the ball went out of his hands out of bounds. So I think we had the same level of balance offensively that we have had up to this point in time, I just think that our front court guys really did not have a productive game in and around the basket. And the other thing, too, I mean sometimes you make it more complicated, when someone takes 21 more free throws than you, it's hard to overcome. Q. If you guys have a shooting night like this against the tournament caliber team, what needs to happen for you to win? COACH DONOVAN: Probably you're going to lose. That's what happens. You go home. I mean you got to try to play defense, but if we play like we do offensively tonight, I don't know what else you can do if you're talking about playing a team like Kentucky or a really good team. If you look at the games that we played, we scored 56 points against Tennessee in the second half. We scored 54 points. When you're playing against a good team that's got a lot of really good players, it's hard to win games when you play in the 50s. Our defense wasn't bad. We held them to 41 percent from the field. It's just that we were so bad on offense. And they probably contributed to that, and also we did not capitalize enough. And then again, like I said, you got to get to the free throw line. We went to the free throw line eight times. I think that's the lowest number of free throws attempted we have had all year long. And we have been a team that's gotten to the free throw line 23, 25 times. That was very disappointing to me, the free throw line situation. Q. Kentucky's a team that goes about six or seven players deep. If I recall correctly your championship teams were about seven deep and had amazing balance in the starting lineup. I'm wondering when you get to the post season in the NCAA tournament, how much of a factor is depth? COACH DONOVAN: I don't think it has any factor on it. You think it's all more about matchups than anything else, that's really what it comes down to, in my opinion. The media timeouts are so long, the game's totally different. There's plenty of time for those guys. I don't see that being a factor for them. Q. You had a little run there Scottie Wilbekin comes off the bench gets eight for you, you get a run, Alex you get a couple of leads there and then sort of faded toward the end of the half. Can you summarize basically what happened there toward the end or was it just the turnovers or what? COACH DONOVAN: Listen, we're down by five and they shot 14 free throws to one. You know. I mean that's a huge, huge factor in the game. It's 14 to 1 from the free throw line. We took one free throw in the first half and they got 14. They did a better job attacking the basket and finding a way to get fouled and we did not do a good enough job finding away to get fouled. And I think the question was asked, what happens when you play against a team, if you are not scoring, you got to find a way to get fouled and we did not get fouled. The game was won at the free throw line in my opinion. Q. Same thing I asked the guys, how much was the chemistry there or not there tonight? Was that an issue at all with getting down on each other, having issues? COACH DONOVAN: I think like anything else there's a level of frustration. They all want to do well. But I didn't think it was too bad. I think they wanted to come out and play well. And listen, Kentucky played a good game, and I think certainly Kenny's technical showed a level of frustration. That was the most disappointing thing to me about the game was I thought our guys in certain situations got frustrated because we were missing easy baskets. I think there was some plays they thought the whistle should have been blown and fouls. But you got to be able to play through that stuff and be able to handle the adversity during the course of the game. And you got to be able to handle those kind of things and be able to work through that. And I didn't think we worked through that well enough. THE MODERATOR: Okay thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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