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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: ALBUQUERQUEMarch 15, 2012Festus EzeliKevin StallingsJordan TaylorBrad TinsleyALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO Vanderbilt – 79 THE MODERATOR: Coach, an opening statement, please. COACH STALLINGS: First of all, I'd like to congratulate Harvard and Tommy. What a great job he's done with that program and what a great job they've done with that team. We knew they were good going in, and we knew we had to play a good game in order to win, and that's exactly what happened. As far as the game itself, we were able to make a good spurt there at the end of the first half, and then we came out to start the second half and didn't defend very well. They were having some success offensively. Then we got our defense locked in and got the lead up to about 18. Then the kid got hot from three, and they got some momentum and we got a little tentative. It all of a sudden became a ballgame again. I thought we got a little tentative there in that stretch at the end. Almost like we were playing not to lose instead of playing to win. We want to play to win for 40 minutes. We don't ever want to play not to lose. Again, my most sincere congratulations to Harvard on their season, and I'm awfully proud of my team. I'm proud of the fact that we've had a good amount of negativity about our first round losses the last two years, so our guys have had to listen to a lot of that. I'm really proud of them for not only what they did last weekend, which was quite an accomplishment, but also what they were able to do today. I'm glad they got to experience this because this was the only success that they had not experienced since being in our program. I'm really grateful for them that they got to experience it today. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the Vanderbilt student‑athletes. Q. Jeffery and Festus, in the world of college basketball, you guys are old. Do you ever think about that? Are you aware of that, especially when your rivals at Kentucky are led by a bunch of 18‑year‑old kids. Here you guys are, and you're 21 years old? JEFFERY TAYLOR: I think that means something. Experience is invaluable in situations like that. We've been here twice before, so we knew what to expect coming into this game. So, yeah, definitely experience means a lot. FESTUS EZELI: Yeah, same thing as what he said. I think our experience has helped us through a lot. I think we think about it in terms of experience and not in terms of us being old. Experience has been very, very useful to us the whole year, and it's going to keep being useful to us. Q. For the seniors, can you put into perspective what this win means knowing what's happened in the past that you guys have finally made it? It's your last year, and you've finally made it through this round? JEFFERY TAYLOR: It's very meaningful for us. We've had a lot of obstacles and hurdles we've had to clear throughout our time here at Vanderbilt. This one definitely means something to us. We're looking forward to a great game against Wisconsin on Saturday. BRAD TINSLEY: It really means a lot for the seniors to be our last time in the NCAA Tournament. Just to kind of get that monkey off our back and win a close game in the first round. It just means a lot to us old guys, the coaching staff and the program. Q. It's not just me that created the perception, but Oliver from Harvard sort of said that it was in his head if they could push you late to see what would happen. Now the perception, obviously, will be gone. When they started making their run, what led you to be able to snuff it out as well as did you down the stretch there? JOHN JENKINS: The biggest cue for us is being poised. I think leadership is definitely a factor in that guys huddled up and decided we need to lock down and get rebounds down the stretch, and we did that when we had to. We hit big free throws. Q. Jeffery and John, when 00 got hot, what were you thinking? What were you trying to do to stop him? JOHN JENKINS: I hadn't seen somebody get that hot in a long time. He was making them from everywhere, no matter how deep they were and the shot clock going down, it was money. So it was very impressive. Q. Festus, talk about the importance of defensively kind of dominating inside today? And take me through that one possession where you got three offensive rebounds in the second half? And John, you made that shot, how important that series was right there? FESTUS EZELI: I see my job on this team as being a defensive force. That's pretty much what I do, a lot of times try to clean up the mess of some of my teammates. We do a good job of supporting each other and trying to clean up the mess by the rim of blocked shots and rebounds. I think I did an okay job of that tonight. The three offensive rebounds, I think that was the point where they were making a little bit of a run as well, so that's one of my jobs as well. I just wanted to go and get them and help my teammates out. Q. Talk about the emotional lift that gave for you guys when you had your three offensive rebounds. You come back, miss those threes and get the three‑point play. What did that do for you guys to get over that first of what seemed to be many humps during that late run? BRAD TINSLEY: I think that play really meant a lot. Any time you can have a high‑energy play like that and finish it, it really just boosts your energy and boosts your confidence. Festus did an unbelievable job of battling through physicality and getting those three rebounds and kicking out to John. John made an unbelievable shot. It was a pretty amazing play. Q. John, how deep do you think this team can go? Do you think this team is built to win right now? Would you be disappointed with anything less than a Final Four berth? JOHN JENKINS: We're just taking it one game at a time. Not focused on the future right now. This is a big win for us. We're going to have fun with this and get ready for Wisconsin. Q. Brad and Jeff, if you could weigh in. When they start making their push late, you got up by as much as 18. Did you feel that was going to be enough regardless what Harvard did? Did you, as Kevin mentioned, feel timid? JEFFERY TAYLOR: I think when we got that big lead we kind of relaxed a little bit. When they started making the run, we kind of got a little timid. We started standing on offense and defense.  Then we kind of righted the ship. Other years maybe this outcome wouldn't have happened, but we have the experience now. We have guys on the team that have a strong will to win, and we weren't going to let that happen again. So we righted the ship and now we're sitting here. BRAD TINSLEY: I think our maturity showed up a little bit there. Coach is right, we definitely were playing not to lose and playing to win. Can you never do that, especially in the NCAA Tournament. But I think our poise and maturity showed up at the end, and we were just able to get stops and hit our free throws. Q. Jeff, you got to play in front of your uncle for the first time. A guy that's been there and a mentor for you those two years at Hobbs. Talk about playing in front of him for the first time? JEFFERY TAYLOR: It was a strange feeling to be back at The Pit. I think it kind of affected me a little bit at the beginning of the game. Then I kind of relaxed and just started playing. It was a great feeling to get to play in front of my family, especially my uncle. He's done a lot for me in my life. It was just a special feeling, a special day for me. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Stallings. Q. I asked you yesterday about focus coming off the Kentucky game. When did you know it was there after the ball went up? Because you were really confident yesterday. COACH STALLINGS: I just knew that these guys were going to come to play. Actually, the way this whole game unfolded was probably the best‑case scenario for us. I'm not sure that you ever really get a chance to exorcise, not exercise, but you don't get a chance to rid those demons unless you get into a close game and have to perform and make the plays. If the game is at 18 and it goes on to be 25, which we never expected, but if it goes on to be 25, we win. But I'm not sure we get as much accomplished. We had to make plays. We had to make free throws. We had to get stops. We had to take care of the ball. We will to do a lot of things in this game that for us that's a good thing. For us to have to do those things at the end is good. There should be a measure of confidence that comes from that. But I didn't want to be in that tight of a situation with the way we had the game going in our favor. But since we won, I'm glad it unfolded that way. Q. Can you talk about what this win means for you personally, knowing what these seniors have been through in the past few years? COACH STALLINGS: I think the gratification, other than advancing in this game, is now they got to experience the one thing they hadn't experienced since they've been at Vanderbilt, and that is success at the NCAA Tournament. Don't take that to mean that we're satisfied because we're obviously not. But I'm very, very pleased for them because of the things that have happened in the past and the negativity that's gone with those losses. I'm proud of them. I'm very, very happy for them because, more than anything else, they deserve to have success in this tournament before they graduated because they've meant so much to our program. Q. The whole brainy school thing is a nice little angle. But something that is relevant is the graduation rate aspect that they're talking about to be a minimum that schools are going to have to have for the tournaments in 2014 or 2013. How does that help Vanderbilt? COACH STALLINGS: Well, it probably doesn't help Vanderbilt other than maybe it would preclude some teams from getting in. But our mission is not to be glad that somebody didn't get in because they didn't perform academically. Schools like ours and Harvard, we're going to perform, and that's never going to be an issue. I couldn't tell you what our APR is because I never have to worry about it. I've never once ever thought about our APR. That's different than a lot of guys that do what I do. I said this in here yesterday, so I apologize to those who have already heard this. The last guy that didn't graduate from Vanderbilt to play basketball was a senior, and finished his eligibility in the late 1970s. So we never worry about the academic stuff because our place is set up for guys to go to school, guys are going to graduate, and they're going to do what they're supposed to do and we're proud of that. Q. I wonder if you could talk about that sequence where you got all those offensive rebounds and John stuck that one? COACH STALLINGS: Well, Fest just turned into the biggest, baddest dude on the floor at that point, which he was a number of times today. But he really controlled the inside of the lane for us defensively. But that particular sequence, John takes the three, Fest gets the rebound. Throw it's back out to John, John's got a better look at three, misses it, Fest gets the rebound again. John takes another three, misses it, and Fest gets the rebound, and Johnny gets an and‑one. So the worst shot of the bunch that he took was the one he made. Thank goodness for Festus. He's a beautiful kid and has been a great kid in our program for five years. I'm really happy to see him play the way he played today. Q. You touched on it before, but can you talk a little bit more about maybe the last six minutes of the game when they held you without a field goal? Was there ever a time you thought here we go again or they were going to overtake you? COACH STALLINGS: I never thought they were going to overtake us, but I certainly thought it was getting a lot closer than I was hoping for. But not having a field goal is more of a function of we had a whole bunch of free throws, so we got fouled a lot. I'll take minimal field goals if we shoot twice as many free throws as our opponent, which we did. And you can look at our statistics and see that that's a prominent thing in how we play. We get to the foul line a lot. So I'm not concerned about the no field goals in the last six minutes. I was more concerned with the tentativeness and the clock watching and, just like I said before, that we weren't playing to win. We were playing not to lose. That may be a function of what's happened the last two years with these kids in the first round. But in any event, like I said, we're all the better for it now because we had to make plays. We had a big steal on the sideline. Dai‑Jon Parker came up with a big loose ball. That might have been the most important play of the game. Then we get free throws, and we did a good job at the foul line. So they don't ask you how you did it at this point. It's just whether you did it or not. I tell our guys all the time, it's not an art contest, it's a math contest. We could care less how it looks. We just want to know what the score is at the end, and obviously, we want to have more than they did. Q. Going on the question that I was asking the guys earlier in terms of being seniors, and you have four start four seniors and a junior. Kind of unusual these days in the college basketball landscape. They talked about experience. Some people tend to go for youth, talent, whatever you want to call it, over‑experience. What is your take on comparing the two? COACH STALLINGS: Depends on how good the youth and talent is. If it's better than the age and experience, I'd rather have the youth and the talent. But in our particular case, we've got some young, talented guys, but our older guys are better. So they've grown up in our program. They have built our program to a level that Vanderbilt's not accustomed to. So I thought our experience showed throughout the game. Not just in the last few minutes, but throughout the game. I thought us getting the separation at the end of the first half, getting more separation in the second half. I thought that was our experience and our relentlessness towards how we try to play. But this group of guys have been absolutely amazing on the floor, off the floor, in the classroom, in the community. They've been absolutely amazing representatives of our institution. No coach could ever be prouder of his guys than I am of these guys. Q. Coach, you talked about that turnover there where the kid was trying to build the ball off one of your players, it really led to eight straight free throws there. Talk about that. It seemed like it was a gift with a minute left. COACH STALLINGS: Yeah, it was a six‑point game, and they've got a chance to make it quite interesting if they can get the ball to Rivard for another three. So we got them kind of pinned on the sideline and played good defense. He tried to throw the ball off our guy and he missed. It seemed to me like the ball bounced two times before anybody made a move to get it. Fortunately Dai‑Jon Parker is one of the fastest kids on our team. He ran it down and made a good decision to bring the ball back out and get it to John and they had to foul. That was certainly a critical play because if something happens where they get a bucket, now you have a different feel to what's going on. Q. Talk about the defense on Rivard in the last three minutes? Because after he hit one three, they really clamped down and kept him quiet after that. COACH STALLINGS: I don't want to act like we did this great job. The kid got 20 points on 7 shots, and that's a pretty good return on your investment. He torched us in the second half like nobody's business. I'm not going to take any credit. At some point, if he had kept going, it would have been 10 for 11, instead of 6 out of 7. At some point, hopefully we did something. What we did was almost not enough, because that kid was spectacular today. Q. Lance had foul trouble today. I think he told me it was the first game he's ever fouled out in his life. I guess, how did you guys manage to still dictate inside without him? Did you have to change maybe your style of play based on how the game was being called? COACH STALLINGS: No, we ended up getting a lot of good minutes from Rod Odum is what happened. Rod gave us really good minutes, hit some shots, got some rebounds. So, honestly, going into the game, if you had asked me to pick one guy on my team that I thought was going to play really well it would have been Lance. Lance had a great week of practice. He was completely locked in, completely ready, I thought. So I'm disappointed for Lance, but at the same time, we were able to win a game in this tournament with him not playing nearly his best. I know he'll come back out on Saturday and play a lot better. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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