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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2012Mark FoxGerald Robinson, Jr.Dustin WareNEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA Vanderbilt – 63 CLAUDE FELTON: We're joined by Georgia head coach Mark Fox and student‑athletes Gerald Robinson and Dustin Ware. We'll have coach start with an opening statement and then we'll take questions for the student‑athletes. COACH FOX: Really we had a poor start to the second half and then dug ourselves a hole and just couldn't get out of it. Credit to Vanderbilt, they're a good basketball team, an experienced basketball team, and they were a better one tonight. CLAUDE FELTON: Take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Coach spoke pretty strongly yesterday saying that he thought you wouldn't be tired despite that hard game the night before. You guys seemed tired in the second half. Was fatigue a factor at all? GERALD ROBINSON, JR.: Maybe a little bit, but that's part of basketball. You got to learn how to play through that. And just tonight we just weren't able to overcome that. We dug ourself a hole at the beginning of the game and was actually able to overcome that and be up a couple points at halftime. Dug ourself one in the second half and just couldn't overcome it and get over the hump. DUSTIN WARE: Fatigue was a little bit, but when you're in the tournament, everybody feels the same thing. You are just really out there just battling. Coach said we really put ourselves into two holes. We were able to fight out the first one. The second half, against a good team like that, it's going to be tough to recover. Q. You guys were able to get a lot of production from the bench in the first half. It seemed like the starters together maybe didn't really get going. How difficult did that make it for the team tonight to have so many guys kind of a little bit off? GERALD ROBINSON, JR.: In basketball, it's a team game, so it was good to get some production from our bench. And I'm actually very glad, they actually kept us in the game in the first half. We wasn't getting anything from our starters. We were in foul trouble, people were in and out of the game and on the bench, so it made it difficult. But it was actually that we were able to overcome that beginning. We should have been able to regroup in the second half. We just couldn't. Q. Any solace to ending up with a thousand points. You got to feel good to leave your Georgia career with that? DUSTIN WARE: Yeah, I guess it feels good. I definitely wish I could have left on a win. But it's definitely an accomplishment. Something I set out to do and I was glad I was able to accomplish it. CLAUDE FELTON: All right. We'll excuse the student‑athletes and take questions for coach. Q. I know that you don't like these things because it sound like excuses, but did you think your team looked tired in the second half? COACH FOX: We just didn't defend well enough. That would be unfair to Vanderbilt to say that. Our defense was pretty good in the first half. I think they made their first five or six shots to start the second half, and I really think that was the big key. Then we certainly didn't finish enough plays ourselves offensively. But our defense just failed us and I thought that was a big key. Q. When you're not getting anything from Gerald and Kentavious for whatever reason, is that just pretty much debilitating? COACH FOX: No. It makes it hard. We didn't get anything from them the in the first half, really, and we were ahead at the half. But we knew we do need those guys or this team needs those guys to score for us. And tonight they didn't. So it certainly made it hard. But I don't think any of us were able to really leave here and say we played well offensively. We just had 17 turnovers tonight, which that's almost twice what we have been getting, and just didn't play well enough. And Vandy, have to give them credit for playing a good second half for sure. Q. Following up on that, Vanderbilt particularly defensively against those two Caldwell‑Pope and Gerald, anything stand out particularly about that? COACH FOX: Well, Kentavious was in trouble in the first half and that's hard to score from the bench. I thought they did a nice job switching some screening action and really did a good job of keeping Gerald away from the rim and never had easy looks at the basket. Q. I know the end‑of‑the‑season questions are never easy, but you guys played fairly well down the stretch in the league, and you've got a young group coming back. Just talk about how you feel about this team moving forward, especially with the two freshmen getting significant playing time this year. COACH FOX: Started two freshmen and two sophomores tonight. I feel very good about the experience that those guys were able to get. I feel very good about the players we're bringing into our team. And this group had a challenge because we had so much inexperience and a couple guys leave early. I thought they accepted that with great class, and that experience will be very valuable for us moving forward. Q. The first half, can you talk about I guess you went like 12 guys total and some lineup pairings that you probably hadn't done too much. What was kind of juggling that around like? COACH FOX: Well, that was a challenge. We just had foul trouble and then Nemanja got a little fatigued there and Marcus was in foul trouble. And they have a big lineup, so we ended up actually playing, played some guys in some spots that they don't normally play. But that's as bad a foul trouble as we maybe have been in all year. We have had a couple games like that. But our bench was good in the first half, but we certainly had to go a little deeper into it than most coaches would ever plan on. Q. Kind of along the same lines, but Cannon comes off the bench there and played almost a perfect half in terms of rebounds and making all his free throws, one for one from the line. Brantley, though, seemed like was giving you some good defensive minutes. Talk about the positives those two guys brought. COACH FOX: Well, John Cannon has really practiced very well the last couple months. We kind of had a rotation established and he's going to be a really good player. I think he's probably, of anybody on our team, it took him the longest to really get comfortable in the system. But obviously tonight he played well. Sherrard rebounded the ball very well tonight and Sherrard has been thrust into some time at the small forward, and he's really a two guard. And that's one of the challenges with our team all year with Kentavious and Sherrard having to play so much at the three when they're really shooting guards. That makes you a little bit undersized. It makes every possession a real challenge for those guys. CLAUDE FELTON: All right. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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