|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2012Dee BostArnett MoultrieRick StansburyNEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA CLAUDE FELTON: We'll get started with Mississippi State. We'll have Coach Stansbury make an opening statement and then take questions for the student‑athletes. COACH STANSBURY: Well, as always, it's SEC tournament time and it's always one of the better venues in the country. You bring all 12 teams together and you have an opportunity to compete for another championship. All teams and all fans, it's very special. And that's the thing I take from these tournaments is it's a new season. Every team has the opportunity to compete and win. There's not many venues anywhere that's better than SEC tournament. Jerry you're late. You're late. You're interrupting the press conference. (Laughter.) Go ahead, I'm done. CLAUDE FELTON: We'll take questions just for the student‑athletes. Q. Do you feel like this team, with the last couple of games, that y'all have developed a little more of what you might call a killer instinct of putting teams away? DEE BOST: Yes, yeah, I feel like we're coming out playing harder and playing together. We had a five‑game losing streak, but I feel like we got it together now. Q. You're a part of that team in 2009. What is it with the teams, say, for last season, that they have been able to play very well come SEC tournament time? DEE BOST: We come in more focused and our mentality is different. Every game counts, and you can't look past nobody. You got to come out and play like it is your last game. Q. Going back to the last game with Georgia and they out‑rebounded you pretty good, and obviously you don't want that to happen again, so what's got to be different this time? ARNETT MOULTRIE: I got to do a better job of blocking those guys out and limiting their offensive rebounds. Q. What difference did it make for the team's psyche, do you think, the win at South Carolina? DEE BOST: That was ‑‑ we dug deep for that win. We needed that because the previous games we were coming up short in overtime or close games, but we needed a game like that to show that we can win a close game. Q. Were you happy to see Georgia on the pairing after the first game? Did you want another shot at them? DEE BOST: No matter who would we play, we got to treat them all the same. But I was happy because, you know, they beat us so we got to come in with the mentality, a different mentality. They got the edge on us, so we got to come out and play harder. Q. For both of you, could you talk about the honor with the SEC first team and what that means to you? DEE BOST: It's special, but it's a team game. Winning is more important. ARNETT MOULTRIE: Like he said, it's an honor just the fact that what conference we're in, but I look at it as a team. Without the coaching staff and the team, it wouldn't have been possible. Q. Just offensively, on paper you have an advantage in the post. Do you and Sid and Wendell, are you going to try to attack them in the post, try to set that tone in that way? ARNETT MOULTRIE: Yeah, that's the game plan. Coach Stansbury said today in practice earlier we want to dominate inside. That's what we need to do this game. Q. Arnett, always there's NBA talk with you, but how motivated are you going into a tournament like this knowing that maybe possibly it could be your last post season, your first post season? ARNETT MOULTRIE: NBA hasn't been on my mind this whole season. I'm just trying to win as many games as possible for Mississippi State. CLAUDE FELTON: All right. We'll excuse the student‑athletes and take questions for coach. Q. You might have had another practice, but how is Rodney Hood's knee holding up and what do you think he can give you? COACH STANSBURY: He's better than he was. He's made steady progress. Naturally we didn't have him at the Alabama game, didn't have him second half against Kentucky. Played him 15 minutes at South Carolina, wasn't himself, but we just needed his depth, and he helped us. I think we played him 21 minutes against Arkansas. I thought he was better against Arkansas than he was South Carolina. He's had another two or three days. I think he's getting closer than he was. He's not a hundred percent yet, but he's getting there. Q. Coming in this, Georgia's not one of the better 3‑point perimeter shooting teams and they're in the bottom of the league in most of those categories, but I'm assuming from your game you don't think that about them. Can you address that? COACH STANSBURY: You don't want to tell us and Florida and South Carolina that, because they're very capable shooters. You look at their stats, I know Robinson hasn't shot very well at all and what's he do against South Carolina? Had six threes against us in that game. He was a great shooter last year. He's one of the better 3‑point shooters in the SEC. He hasn't shot it as well, but we know what he's capable of doing. So we don't look at Georgia at all as a team that's not a very good shooting team. Because I think they're a really good shooting basketball team and that was the difference in our game. They jumped up and made threes and made some tough threes. Q. I wanted to ask you the same thing I asked the players about the win at South Carolina and what it did as maybe a restoring kind of thing. COACH STANSBURY: Any time we win at South Carolina, what it did, it allowed us to stop at Krispy Kreme, that's the first good thing. That's our tradition. So that was number one. Number two, we just needed a win. We needed a win somehow and some way. Don't matter who it was against, where it's at. We had a tough five‑game stretch, and as I said, not going to make no excuses about it, but we were without two and a half starters in two and a half of those games. Rodney and Sid, don't have Sid at Auburn, don't have Rodney at Alabama, don't have him second half at Kentucky. And four of those five games in that losing streak on the road, we had a stretch of scheduling four games on the road and one at home. And your one home game is Kentucky. And that's not a team to heal up against. We didn't play our best against Georgia. And take nothing away from Georgia, they played well, and they're like everybody else, if you're not at your best, they can beat you. So we were at the point we needed a win. South Carolina, as you well know, is capable of being a good team, too, and we had them on senior night and we found a way to make extra play down that stretch to win that game. Q. What I asked Dee there, last couple of games helped you develop a better feel for finishing off a game? COACH STANSBURY: I don't think it's a better feel, it just happened we won them. Couple of those other games, if we made a free throw, I don't know if that's a feel or not, make a free throw, you don't lose them. But is that considered a feel if you make a free throw? That's what ‑‑ well, we didn't make a free throw against LSU and didn't make one against Georgia. And I never thought our team had to learn how win close games, because they had done it before. We had been in a lot of close games all year long. Consistently. You win overtime game at Vanderbilt. So it wasn't something we had to learn to do. It's something when things don't go just your way, you got to fight through them. It's not that we're playing bad. And again, there's a lot of things that has tendencies to put you in those stretches. And again, we didn't close out some games we could have closed out. Again, where that schedule balancing is at sometimes makes it difficult, too. Q. I asked this of everyone of your colleagues on the teleconference Monday. They said that you guys have the talent to get to the championship game and that history's proven that you can do that. You've been in the semi‑finals at least seven of your last 13 seasons. What is it‑‑ COACH STANSBURY: Within what now? Q. You've been to the semi‑finals or further in seven seasons. I was wondering what is different about your team when you guys get into tournament play? COACH STANSBURY: It's nothing. No different. Every team's different. Every team you bring here is different. It's a fine line. A lot of those games, we have won some close games. I guess we have been in the finals four times? That's what you're saying? And seven times in semi‑finals? Is that right? Q. Yes. COACH STANSBURY: What you just said. Q. Yeah. COACH STANSBURY: So you said 11 out of the 14 ‑‑ Q. Seven out of the 13, you've been to the semi‑finals at least. COACH STANSBURY: And four of those were in the finals? Q. Two championships. COACH STANSBURY: Okay. There's nothing different we do. It's a four. It's four games. Four‑game tournament for us. It's been a three‑game tournament for us several times. I guess we have won it both ways. It's a challenge. I've always approached it as a new season. And this is a great venue. It's a four‑day‑‑ four‑day season for you and you don't have to be the best team now for 30 games or 31 games. You just got to find a way to be the best team for, in our case, four games. And before you can get to the second one, you got to get through the first one. That's always the most important one. Then after that, you worry about your second one. Q. You talked about winning close games, and I saw you beat Tennessee earlier in a close game at home. Since then, Jarnell Stokes has showed up. I know you haven't played him since then, but maybe in the‑‑ COACH STANSBURY: Let me ask you a question. Is Hall playing for you guys? Q. No, he's suspended for conduct detrimental to the team? COACH STANSBURY: So he hasn't been playing? Q. He's not going to be in the tournament here. COACH STANSBURY: Okay. Got you. Q. Last six games since Arkansas. If you could just comment on what you've seen from a far maybe during the scout on what Stokes brings to their team from when you saw them. COACH STANSBURY: Well, I mean to be honest with you, I haven't watched them a bunch. I don't know if I have seen him. I seen bits and pieces of a game here or there, I think it was his first game was at our place? Is that correct? He played at our place. Q. No, he didn't play there. COACH STANSBURY: Kenny Hall played, I mean. Kenny Hall was a load. But I really haven't paid whole lot of attention to Tennessee, to be honest with you. I know they have won. I know he had a huge game against, either at LSU or at home, against Vanderbilt, which one of those games? Q. Both. COACH STANSBURY: Both? Okay. He's a terrific player. He's big old wide body in there and he's a guy that can step out and score, and he's very powerful around that rim. So he's been a great addition for them coming in in January. And being as effective as he is, not many guys could do that. I think his challenge right there, coming straight out of high school coming into college. Just not making an adjustment to basketball, making an adjustment to college life, being away from home. I think he's handled that great. Q. Kind of an off‑beat question, when you've got this late game and I'm sure through the years you've had it occasionally, what do you do all day? How do you handle that? Do you have to make sure the guys don't get restless and get sort of sore legs? COACH STANSBURY: I don't know, first off, I don't know if I ever had it. That's number one. Is Greg in here? I don't know if I ever had a 9 o'clock game. No. I can't remember. You guys? Y'all know if I ever had it? Because you're talking about seven or eight or nine of those times. Q. Vanderbilt was a late game. COACH STANSBURY: Was it a 9 o'clock game last year? Q. Yeah. COACH STANSBURY: Was it? Okay. Good job. Well, whatever we did, I don't remember, so what can you do? It's not a whole lot you're going do. They're going stay in the hotel a couple hours longer. They're going to sleep a couple hours longer and watch TV a couple hours longer and they're going to be on those little phones a couple of hours longer. That's what they do. And there's nothing ‑‑ we're not going to take the phones away from them, because it's a late game or turn the TV's off or anything like that, or take their headsets away from them. Just try to keep it as normal as you can keep it for two extra hours. Q. I'm wondering what, with the four teams from the East, four eastern teams, the old eastern, getting the byes, if there is‑‑ do you see that as a good thing, a just thing? I know you would rather see the decisions go back to the divisions, but what do you think of the idea that as it stands as it will be four teams from the old East get the byes? COACH STANSBURY: I think it's good. I think that's what we came out of our meetings talking about doing. That wasn't ever in question. I don't think any of us ever questioned reseeding where you had decisions or not, and I think that's where it started out, just reseed the tournament. And that was‑‑ a lot of us was ‑‑ some of us was for that. But then very few of us was for divisions. And doing it. So I don't know how everybody else feels about it now. And I don't know how everybody feels about it now. I don't know how everybody else feels about bringing Missouri and Texas A&M to the league now. What's that going to do to us? Does it help us, is it smarter to go back, still seed for your tournament or is it better to go back to divisions from a scheduling standpoint? You know, player by twice and one side and once on the other, where you got some balance. Because it's going to be ‑‑ one of the things that was talked about having some balance in it, so you got a true winner. Well it's very obvious, there's still not a true winner the way it was from a standpoint of everybody playing each other twice. And when you start playing now 14 teams and some of them you play ‑‑ only a couple of them you play twice, others only once, it's going to become even much more imbalanced. But you know, I said this many a times, not going worry about things I have no control over. So I'll read about it and see how we're going to do that coming out of the SEC meetings, I guess. Q. I was going to be a little less specific and just did you like the way it went this year and where do you think? COACH STANSBURY: Well, there's no difference. We played everybody in the west twice and everybody in the East, there was no difference except for the seeding for the tournament. And that's the initial idea, the way we were going to do it. Had zero problems with that. But now, then it ended up now going back and doing away with divisions. Now you got to start a whole new scheduling thing. And again, I have no idea how that's going to be broke down. You guys have read a little bit about it. Everybody I guess is going to have one travel partner and you play them twice. Everybody else, every third year or something? Y'all heard that yet? Maybe not. Okay. I can tell, Jerry, you got a frown on your face, you hadn't heard that, so... (Laughter.) I guess it's up in the air how it's going to be done. Q. Arnett let it slip a little bit, I guess, your game plan, which isn't too surprising, but how important is it to be able to attack those guys in the post? COACH STANSBURY: Hey, Brad, that's no slip. It's no secret. That's every game. We try to throw it inside every game. And if the opponent would agree to us, then it becomes easy. But the opponent has a lot to do and say what goes on, and how you do things. Again, Georgia did a great job last time. They zoned us a bunch, and when you get zoned, we anticipate zoning again. There's only so many ways and different things you can do to get that ball inside. And you got to take advantage of some different things maybe that zone doesn't do for you. I just know the first time you know, we weren't near consistent enough around that hole as we need to be. Q. When you look back at your previous teams that have made those runs, does this team, do you think, has it in them talent‑wise and also that desire that's comparable to those past teams that have made the runs? COACH STANSBURY: I don't think there's any question that we have an opportunity. We have a chance. That's all you ask for. An opportunity and a chance. It's four games for us. Take them one at a time. None of them are easy. One of the most difficult ones is always that first with you. Getting that first one behind you. But do we have an opportunity and chance? We have a chance. I know in spite of lack of depth some, we have had lack of depth before. I remember even winning four games, those guys played a bunch of minimum. Jarvis and Barry Stewart and Dee Bost, those guys played a lot of minutes. We had a few guys off the bench, Brad Johnson off the bench. But you get to that point, you just got to be tough enough to block it out and find ways to keep pushing through it. And that's always a challenge. Can you do that? And again I hope we have an opportunity to see if we can. And see if we're tough enough to do that for four days. I hope you're asking more questions after three days, and I can give you a little better answer. CLAUDE FELTON: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|