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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2012Mark FoxGerald Robinson, Jr.Dustin WareNEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA Georgia – 71 CLAUDE FELTON: We're joined by Georgia head coach Mark Fox and student‑athletes Gerald Robinson and Dustin Ware. We'll start with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student‑athletes. COACH FOX: That's a terrific win for us. We beat a very good basketball team. So to do that, we had to play very well, which I thought we did a lot of really good things in the game. I thought that offensively we played really within our system and played together and felt like we had a lot of good possessions just because we understand each other. And then obviously our defense was key for us to keep them at bay. They made some threes there late and made a little run on us. But I was really pleased with our young kids because we beat a good team, a team we have a lot of respect for. CLAUDE FELTON: Let's take your questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Gerald, that last jumper you hit with about a minute left looked like you had admired it for a second. Talk about your game and making all those shots. GERALD ROBINSON, JR.: It was very good to see it go down. Missed a couple midrange, easy shots early in the game. And I felt like everybody was shooting the ball very well, other than me just shooting the ball, trying to get it to other people and trying to make plays for my teammates. Q. One of those occasion you had a fast break, had a pretty good look for a layup and you kicked it out to Dustin and made a big three. Talk about him getting a few to go down even with the way things were going lately. GERALD ROBINSON, JR.: I've been knowing since I been here he's a great shooter, and you got get him the ball where he want it, and I seen he was wide open, so I turned down a contested layup to get him a good shot. Q. What was your mindset coming out of halftime? You had a quiet first half, but you came out and started hitting shots. DUSTIN WARE: I wanted to be aggressive, teammates, coaches, they all kept a lot of confidence in me, really kept me going. And I just want to go out there and just be aggressive. And so I saw a few go down, felt good. Playing with a great player like Gerald makes it real easy, too. Q. Dee Bost and Arnett Moultrie, maybe their two best players, were both really quiet what did you guys do defensively that maybe had them struggle a little? GERALD ROBINSON, JR.: Our main objective was to go in there and play hard for 40 minutes. We knew they're a very talented basketball team all around. They have some good wings and some shooters, still knocked down a couple, got to get your hand up. But we were playing hard and fighting over screens and we played hard for 40 minutes. DUSTIN WARE: Two great players, really had a lot of great players throughout their whole roster. We knew it was going to be tough, had to play tough and tried to make life tough for them. And that's what we did, and we were able to come out with a win. Q. You got to turn around and play again tomorrow night. When is the last time you played two back to back like that and any fatigue concern? GERALD ROBINSON, JR.: It's exciting. It's fun. It's college basketball in March.  That's what you live for at this age. Once again, you got to go in and get some rest, and once it gets started, you put that aside, just want to go out there and get another victory. DUSTIN WARE: We have been doing this all our lives in AAU. It's tournament time, it's fun. Just got to be the best team that night. And we're just going to rested up and get ready for tomorrow. Q. You guys had a couple of wins over ranked teams this year. Is this one bigger given the tournament, and any loss, that ends the season? GERALD ROBINSON, JR.: It counts the same in the standings, but we are aware. We beat a good basketball team and it's just how it is in the SEC. You got to get up and play another team the next night. So it's a good win because we continue to play. We still live right now. CLAUDE FELTON: Okay, we'll excuse the student‑athletes and take questions for coach. Q. As big shots as those guys were the hitting Nemanja had some big moments late too, especially, I guess, that put‑back that made it five. And what did he bring for y'all? COACH FOX: Nemanja, we have got a young front line, as you know. Nemanja got the first double‑double of the season for our team. And I thought his effort on the glass was critical to the game. And Marcus, I think, we got nine total minutes from Marcus and Donte' in the first half because of foul trouble. So John Cannon and Nemanja, John Florveus, those guys were critical to the win tonight because they had to play certainly significant minutes in the first half. And then Nemanja obviously made some real key plays on the glass for us. Q. You talk about the foul trouble, both those guys are on the bench with the fouls and you're staring at a 6‑1 personal foul deficit on the board. What's going through your mind? Was it like a worst‑case scenario in terms of the way the game had started? COACH FOX: The one thing that we run, we had some balls‑‑ Dustin had two balls go halfway in and roll out, and I thought Kentavious had one that went out. We had a pass for a lob that we just overthrew it. It was the right play to make, we just overthrew it. We had Gerald underneath the basket wide open and mishandled it. It went out of bounds. So I felt like if we could calm down, that we could hang around and get to the second half and try and win the game. But, yeah, foul trouble, maybe it's because we're so experienced being in foul trouble because we have been there so much this year that I wasn't too stressed about it. Q. It was mentioned earlier you did a good job on Dee Bost and Arnett Moultrie tonight. What did you do defensively to hold them down? COACH FOX: We played a zone over in Starkville, and Rick's such a good coach, we knew he would have an answer for us, so we played a completely different one tonight. And just really to be honest with you, in the last day and a half, we just felt like they were going to figure us out. And so we spent a lot of time walking through it today, and we just felt like Moultrie is such a great player that we had to have somebody attached to him at all times. And that was, I thought, real key to kind of limit his touches. Once he gets the ball, he's just so dangerous. We just tried to keep somebody glued to him so we could limit his touches and force him to shoot contested 3‑point shots. Q. This is three of the last four y'all have won. Has something clicked or are the shots just going down lately or what is it? COACH FOX: We're finally comfortable. Nemanja is a better player now. He's more experienced and he's just comfortable. Marcus has been back, and even though he's not healthy, he's comfortable on the floor. And we have got a rotation that guys are used to. And I think we understand the roles that we're playing. Kentavious is a much better player now, he got how many tonight? 13 points, just quietly, efficiently scored. We have just improved as team and kind of grown up. And Dustin's had a tough year, but he shot it well tonight. I thought it showed. I thought he and Gerald both played like experienced players, like seniors should play. And we had a lot of guys make plays to win the game tonight. And I think they all felt good to see a teammate chip in. Q. Your thoughts on playing Vanderbilt 22 hours from now. I know Jenkins had a big game the last game and just the turnaround. COACH FOX: The turnaround doesn't concern me. These guys are young. They have had back‑to‑back hard practices. We rested them this week with the idea we were going to win and play several games. So the turnaround is ‑‑ I'm not as overly concerned about. Especially the guys that played major minutes. Gerald's got a body. He could play 40 minutes every night. He's got just that makeup. But Vandy is a great team. A terrific shooting team, can't play them the same way we have been playing them because it hasn't worked. We got to do something different. They're a great team with very experienced team. A terrific shooting team, a team that will be a little fresher than us, but we got to find a way to win it. But they're great team. CLAUDE FELTON: All right. Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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