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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2012John JenkinsKevin StallingsBrad TinsleyNEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA Vanderbilt – 63 CLAUDE FELTON: We're joined by head coach Kevin Stallings and student‑athletes Brad Tinsley and John Jenkins. We'll take an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student‑athletes. COACH STALLINGS: I thought the difference for us tonight was our defense. You look at the numbers and six of 25 from three and only got to the foul line 11 times. Those are not usually winning numbers for us. We did only have eight turnovers, which is terrific. But our defense was the difference. It was really solid throughout. Got better as the game went along. I thought that Jeffery Taylor was as good defensively as I ever remember seeing him. And obviously for us to hold Gerald and Kentavious just down to three and two points, we couldn't have even hoped for that. So we felt very good about our defensive play. And again, I thought that was the difference. I thought everybody on our team was energized and energized to play defensively, even though it wasn't our best night offensively. CLAUDE FELTON: All right. We'll take your questions for either of the student‑athletes. Q. If you could talk about that energy level that you guys came out of both halves with, especially the second half and what you guys talked about at halftime. BRAD TINSLEY: We knew that we had to come out with a lot of energy. We have had a lot of games in the past where energy has really boosted our confidence in our play. So I think it started with the starters and the older guys, and I think that our whole team kind of feeds off of how we show that energy. And I thought we did that tonight. Q. If you could expand a little bit on what you guys did defensively as specific as you can with the two guards, and whether or not you felt like they and George's entire team got gassed in the second half a little bit. JOHN JENKINS: Well, Robinson and Pope are great players and they had great games last night. What we wanted to do was come out there and be aggressive and match their intensity. They played hard and we wanted to to come out there and really match their intensity. And we wore them down a little bit with our defense and our offense wasn't clicking. But I think we moved around a lot more and had the energy in the second half to hit some shots, but not a lot. Q. You haven't had timed to think about Ole Miss, but bracket looked like it might be Tennessee. Just your initial reaction to Ole Miss, the way you guys played in Oxford earlier this year. BRAD TINSLEY: I thought we played very well down there. Still, they're a different team now. The post season, a lot of teams are fired up. We know it's going to be a tough one. It's going to take 40 minutes of solid defense to stop what they have and try to just execute really well on offense. JOHN JENKINS: Last time we just shot really well and we defended really well, and we were very poised on the road. And I think they're going to come out here tomorrow for sure with physicality like they always do and we got to match their intensity and also rebound. CLAUDE FELTON: All right. We'll excuse the student‑athletes and we'll take questions for coach. Q. If you could talk about Georgia went into the zone there in the first half and the team had some trouble shooting the jump shots. What do you think snapped them out of that? COACH STALLINGS: Well, I don't think that they really were only going zone maybe other than one or two possessions. But they were only playing zone on out‑of‑bounds place. So they were going zone when we had out‑of‑bounds plays. So then I don't think that they ‑‑ we have played them three games, and the only time they have defended us with zone has been on out‑of‑bounds plays. So I don't think that their plan was to sit back in a zone and take chances on Jenkins and Taylor and Tinsley and shooting balls and things like that. First half, we were abysmal offensively and it was really not good offense. But in the second half, we got more movement, Fes started creating problems inside and we just were a lot more crisp in the second half with our cutting and our screening and our passing, I thought. Q. With the foul trouble they got in in the first half, what was the mindset for your team with the way they have kind of pieced together that lead with going deep on their bench? COACH STALLINGS: They were in a little bit of foul trouble, but so were we. Festus and Steve both had two. And that game, in a lot of ways, mirrored the game in Athens that we played a couple of weeks ago. Neither team was real sharp in the first half. The difference was we didn't turn the ball over a lot. We missed some pretty good shots in the first half, I thought. But I didn't like our offense. I didn't think our offense was very good. But early, we missed some good shots and late we ran poor offense. In the second half again, we picked up the defense a little bit. We were able to get the ball inside more. And we were just going to stay with our game plan for 40 minutes. We weren't going to deviate unless we were just absolutely forced to. Again, in the second half, we shot over 50 percent, and we did a better job of getting the ball to the basket and things like that. So the foul problems were created because we threw the ball inside and we tried to drive it inside and we weren't settling for as many jump shots. But you don't see us with 20‑point victories very often when we go 6 of 25 from three and only shoot 11 foul shots. Generally we're a good 3‑point shooting team and we get to the foul line a lot, and that's usually why we're a good offensive team. Tonight obviously it was much different than that. Q. You guys scouted Ole Miss in that first game. How are they different from the first time you played them? Also how late do you let your guys sleep tomorrow morning? COACH STALLINGS: What time is the game tomorrow? And I ask that seriously, is it 2:30? 2:30. I don't know. Hopefully we can just get them to sleep, but I thought maybe I would let them go out and hang out on Bourbon Street for a while and just see what they thought. No, Ole Miss, they're playing a couple different guys that didn't play the last time we played them. But they're still very much the same team. They do what they do. They're physical, they rebound, they drive the ball, they're not a team that tries to beat you from three. I was very impressed with their overtime victory tonight. Seemingly they had the game in hand and then Tennessee hits an incredible three to get the game into overtime. And I tell you, a lot of teams would fold up their tent after something like that, after they got kicked in the gut like that. So you really have to be impressed with their fortitude and their ability to survive again an incredible shot and still win that game in overtime. So in terms of the things that they're doing, they probably are doing a little bit different things. Again, they played a lot of zone tonight against Tennessee. They played a lot of zone against Tennessee the first time they played. I don't know if we'll see that much zone or not. We'll hopefully be ready for whatever it is that they do. And I would like to play as well as we played tonight defensively and play a little better on offense and shoot the ball a little better if we could. CLAUDE FELTON: All right. Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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