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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: CHARLOTTEMarch 17, 2011Melvin GoinsScotty HopsonBruce PearlBrian WilliamsCHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA THE MODERATOR: Who has the first question? Q. Scotty, how hard has it been for you guys to keep focused with all the controversy swirling around Coach Pearl? SCOTTY HOPSON: Our main goal is obviously student athletes and that's the main thing we're focusing on. Right now because it is a big tournament an NCAA tournament time, our main focus is coming out and getting a victory against Michigan. Q. Scotty, just give me your thoughts on your initial impressions of Michigan and how they play and what you've been preparing for? SCOTTY HOPSON: Seems like they're a tough team. Obviously they've got some good players, great point guard and got some good offense. It's going to be tough on our defense, but our coach has done a great job of preparing us and I think guys are excited and ready for the challenge. THE MODERATOR: Next question. Q. Whoever wants to take it. Did it surprise y'all that this story got brought up again? I know you've been traveling all over forgetting all these questions about the NCAA and your Athletic Director talks about it one day before the start of the NCAA tournament. Were y'all surprised? MELVIN GOINS: No surprise. We're not really focused on that. We're happy to be in this situation. This is an opportunity that most teams don't get to do so we're really focused on playing basketball. THE MODERATOR: Address your question to a specific student athlete. Q. Melvin, you probably are going to draw Darius Morris. Can you talk about the things he does that makes him tough? Obviously you're a great defender. MELVIN GOINS: He's a bigger point guard so that's all that is challenging. He sees the floor well. Gets his teammates involved, penetrates well. I think he has like 200-plus assists on the year so he distributes the ball very well. I have to keep him out of the lane and try to make it tough for him to distribute the ball like he wants to. Q. Brian, how would you characterize this season? BRIAN WILLIAMS: It's a lot of ups and downs, but I can say the season has been a blessing for us, where we came from adversity we faced in the situation and to be here is an ultimate blessing. Q. Brian, yesterday you said that this team couldn't put any undue pressure, stress on themselves. Does Coach Pearl's future put any pressure or stress on you? BRIAN WILLIAMS: I think the coaching staff did a great job of keeping the outside world outside. We keep what's on the Court on the Court. So everything -- I think everybody that's in Tennessee Orange is worried about a game against Michigan and nothing else. Q. Melvin kind of follow-up with the other question, Darius Morris. Do you feel like you have better success against bigger point guards? MELVIN GOINS: I think so. My size, I can use it to sort of get up under the guards and pressure them well and just try to be a nuisance to them and try to cause problems. I think I have success in the past with bigger guards. Q. Scotty, y'all played here in December. Does that help your comfort level coming back at all? SCOTTY HOPSON: Well, we do get a comfort level with the arena. I think the last time we were here we did lose, but at the same time we're trying to come back and get a win. We're excited to be back here and hopefully we'll have some Big Orange fans in the stands and looking forward to it. Q. Question for Brian. Has Coach Pearl addressed the team at all about this, does he have to, and what are your thoughts as far as him talking to you guys about his situation before the game? BRIAN WILLIAMS: Like I said before, Coach did I think a terrific job of keeping that away from us. Obviously, all of us watch Sports Center, ESPN. We focus on the task at hand. That's winning the basketball game and nothing else. Q. Has he addressed you guys? BRIAN WILLIAMS: I think the whole season he might have addressed us twice about the situation going on with him. THE MODERATOR: Have about two more minutes for the student athletes. Any other questions? To our left. Q. Cam, you're the only guy a hundred percent going to be back next year. Do you expect for Bruce Pearl and this coaching staff to be here. CAMERON TATUM: I fully anticipate Coach Pearl to be back next year. As all my teammates said earlier, we can only worry about control what we do in between those lines and focus on the preparation for our games. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions? Okay. Thanks guys. COACH BRUCE PEARL: I know there's going to be a lot of questions regarding my status, so I'll address that first and then we'll move on to questions. When you put yourself in the position where you provide false and misleading information to the NCAA and you go through an NCAA investigation, you put yourself in a position where you're going to be evaluated at the end of the year. And so that's what our status is. The announcement yesterday publicly came as a bit of a surprise, but if that's where we are, then that's where we're at and I think that you could hear from the comments made by the student athletes, we're trying to focus on them. This will be my 17th NCAA Tournament, 19 years as a head coach. This is Tobias Harris's first, this is Scotty's third, and this is Melvin's second, and we want it to be as much as we possibly can about them and our team, but just having coached my whole life, I've had a lot of teams. I hope to continue to have a lot of teams but this is their team. So the best thing I can do is to insulate them from what I can from what they can control, focus on our preparation and trying to play better basketball and move forward. Q. Bruce, what kind of indication did Mike give you as to when he would even start to evaluate you? COACH BRUCE PEARL: I think that as soon as the season is over, Andy when our season ends is when I've been told we'll sit down and talk. Q. What did you think of the timing then right before playing Michigan? COACH BRUCE PEARL: It is what it is. If there's been some change in the status, then that's going to be -- it's going to be dealt with. So, we're not going -- one of the things about adversity is you go through a basketball season and there are different situations that are adverse. You got foul troubles, you have injuries, you have guys that are playing well and struggling, and what you try to do as a coach is try to manage that adversity, handle it, don't let it be a distraction or an excuse for failure. And so one of the things I talked to the team about today was I said if we would have gone undefeated this season, we would not have learned or grown half as much as a lot of things that we've had to go through this year. It may have been more fun, but let's learn from some things. Let's learn by my mistakes and let's remember not to put yourself in this position again like I did. And then, okay, let's -- but then let's continue to go about the task at hand. It's like when my coaching staff had to take over the duties on game day, we made the adjustments. We handled the adversity. We maintained a very competitive team and so we navigated -- you navigate your way through. THE MODERATOR: Next question. Q. Coach, you said were you surprised by the timing of this. Has Mike Hamilton or anyone apologized to you for that timing, taking away the attention from this team, maybe not necessarily from you, but do you feel like that's detracted from your overall team acceptance and enjoyment of this experience? COACH BRUCE PEARL: I hope it's not going to detract at all from their experience. Winning or losing will -- is really what's going to add to the -- you know, the experience or not. That's what it's going to be, and I think Mike would have preferred for it to not come out like this. And so Mike and I have had a good working relationship, we continue to have a good working relationship and work our way through this. Q. Coach, do you feel a little bit like you've been thrown under the bus here? COACH BRUCE PEARL: Andy, I was the one that broke these rules, not Mike Hamilton, not our Chancellor and not these student athletes, and so I put myself in this position. Q. Bruce, does all of this lead you to the position where you're in a case where some coaches are in every year, feeling like you have to win a couple of games now to save your job or will that have any impact? COACH BRUCE PEARL: We focus on the games we have to win to win a championship. We had to win four games to win an NIT Championship. We had to win a certain number of games during the course of the season to win the SEC Championship. We had to -- you win a certain number of games. That's the same thing here. So, I know that winning is very very important and I know certainly the more you win, the more you help your situation. But I'm not going to place that kind of pressure on our team or on our coaching staff. Q. Throughout the course of this process, Bruce, what kind of situation were you given that you would be allowed to defend yourself in front of the committee on infractions in June as the Tennessee head coach? COACH BRUCE PEARL: You know, up until recently, I would -- it would have been -- that would have been the assumption along from what everything being said. That's still the case. The announcement was I'm going to be evaluated, and so how much of a departure from what's been said, I'll find out when I get evaluated. Q. Just following up on a question that he had, what was the conversation between you and Mike Hamilton since the announcement has come out? COACH BRUCE PEARL: Pretty much -- let me keep that between Mike and I, and we'll -- I think Mike and I would both prefer for me to be up here talking about Michigan, talking about Tobias Harris and the fact that we had a freshman All-American on our team and to watch Tobias grow, mature, play so well, very very satisfying, and to see Scotty Hopson make progress again this year from his sophomore to junior year, to see our team be able to be at times good enough to beat some of the best people in the country and then at times, you know, struggling. It's interesting if you look at our record in getting here, and I actually haven't done the math, I would imagine that there are some Big East teams that may have placed against more teams in the field, but we played 18 games against the teams in the field and there were four other SEC teams in the field. We played a great schedule and part of the reason why our record is what it is is we did play such a tough schedule. You know, I'm really proud of the way these guys have managed to get back to the tournament again for the 6th time in our school's -- six years in a row. That's never happened in Tennessee basketball history, and as you look around the country, that just doesn't happen a lot. I think that while most of our fans -- I know this isn't your question, but there are some cameras rolling -- so while most fans would say your greatest accomplish so far, Tennessee has been getting to the Elite 8 last year or three Sweet 16s, I almost believe that taking six different teams to this championship is probably something that I'm the most proud of. We found a way to win. Q. You mentioned that you were surprised. Were you disappointed that someone created this potential obstacle for your student athletes? COACH BRUCE PEARL: We have faced -- we've faced obstacles all year long. That's the thing about being on a team is dealing with adversity, facing these obstacles, the different challenges. The challenge of guarding John Beilein's offense is much, much, much, greater than the challenges of getting our guys through any kind of distraction. I promise you it is. Q. Coach, one of the comments that Mike Hamilton made, and we've talked about this on our show, was about your contract status, and he said you had an opportunity in November and December to sign a contract, you hadn't gotten it done and now he said you didn't have that opportunity. I'm just wondering what's happened between now and then that would lead him to make that comment. COACH BRUCE PEARL: That's something you'd have to talk to Mike about. THE MODERATOR: Next question. Q. On the Court, this week in practice, what kind of indication have you gotten from this team as to which Tennessee team will show up against Michigan? COACH BRUCE PEARL: You know, we think that the team that beat Villanova and beat Pittsburg and swept Vanderbilt and did a number of good things this year will show up. It's not sometimes about us. It's also about your competition. I thought our kids had a good preparation and we -- we're going to be -- obviously going challenged. Michigan is playing well. You look at their success, they're 8 and 3 in their last 11. Obviously all against the Big Ten. They've got a very cohesive group in the sense that their roles are clearly defined. They know what they do and what they do well. They value possessions. They've got some weaknesses we need to action exploit. They don't have many but they have some. Our ability to exploit those weaknesses will determine whether or not we're going to be successful. I would anticipate Tennessee's basketball team plays very hard and represents very well. Q. One follow-up, if I can. Bruce, have you allowed yourself to at any point think that potentially this could be your last basketball game as head coach at Tennessee? COACH BRUCE PEARL: No. You know, we're in a four team tournament. Michigan and Duke and Hampton are in this tournament. We have to win two games to advance. You can't win them all if you don't win the first. I think what you do is worry about what you can control. You spend time worrying about other things right now at this time which is not productive. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions? Q. Bruce, you have a comfort level from playing here in December? COACH BRUCE PEARL: Maybe defensively, but offensively we won't have much of a comfort level. I think we shot 30 percent or something like that. We played Charlotte here earlier in the year and defended very well but really struggled offensively. Being in Charlotte is great. It's an amazing city. It's a drive from Tennessee. It's probably one of the prettiest drives in the country. By the way, when you come through the mountains and so our fans will be able to get here and I really, I think the pod system that the NCAA has created is just -- it's tremendous for the fans, and for the kids and their families, just easier to get there. I spent a few years in the west regional when I lived on the East Coast, so it's nice to be from -- it was nice to have a five-hour drive to get here. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions? Okay, thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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