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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2013Mike AndersonMarshawn PowellB.J. YoungNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE THE MODERATOR: We're ready to begin with Arkansas. We'll ask Coach for his general thoughts on the Arkansas team coming into the tournament. Then we'll take your questions just for the two student athletes and excuse them back to the locker room and then finish up with Coach Anderson. Coach, whenever you're ready. COACH ANDERSON: Certainly, we're excited to be in Nashville, the start of the SEC Tournament. This is what you work towards. We took a trip to Italy this past year. As our guys can attest going through practice and getting into the non-conference schedule, the conference schedule and now you get to that ultimate which is a one game season. Every game is a big game. It's always been a big game for our basketball team. Not one is bigger than the one as we get ready to play Vanderbilt, a team that is really starting to play better. In the last nine games, they have won six of those games. It's a team we played earlier in the year and played them a month later and just seemed like it was a tale of two games, but that just to tell you what Kevin is doing with his young basketball team. This is the rubber match and it's a big game, survive and advance this time of the year. We're excited to be here. THE MODERATOR:  we'll take questions for either of the student athletes. Q. Could both of y'all talk about the fact that Arkansas has lost four straight SEC Tournament games, hadn't won here since 2008. How frustrating is that? How much do you guys want to break through and get on a run here this week? BJ YOUNG: We really can't focus on those games we lost because we can't do nothing about it. We can only focus on the future and getting better and getting better every practice and trying to take our practice to the game. MARSHAWN POWELL: Like BJ said, I mean we can't really dwell on what happened in the past years because if we do, I feel like that can ultimately like hold us back in a sense. You know, trying to do some things that we can't control, you know, so just want to go into it and try to win it like we do every game. Q. You guys have right now the most turnovers currently in the Southeastern Conference. How are you going to combat in this tournament? BJ YOUNG: We don't focus on that. We focus on keeping the tempo at our pace and play how we like to play and get stops and transition into offense and trying to keep the tempo going how we like to keep the pace and not to focused on turnovers over or fouling. MARSHAWN POWELL: Similar to what BJ said, we can't really -- I mean, of course we want to control, take care of the ball a lot more than what we've been doing in previous games, but I mean like he said, we really can't dwell on that. The only thing we can do is just play how we play, which is keep it tempo up and fast break a lot. Q. What were the differences in the two games? Because you guys won so handily at home and they took care of business in their place pretty comfortably. What were the differences? THE MODERATOR: Question for both players? MARSHAWN POWELL: I feel like foul trouble. When we play at their house, I got into early foul trouble, Coty got into early foul trouble. Big time players for us, people we count on got in foul trouble at their house, which changed the game and they attacked us and we didn't attack back like we did at home, we jumped on them at first. BJ YOUNG: It was an energy thing. We didn't come out with as much energy as we wanted and wanted to on the road than we did at home. I think at home our defense was great. I think we held to something like 17, 19 points in the first half. Only 33 for the game. So I think it was a defensive effort as a team that we made at home, that we need to make on the road and try to take it here to Nashville. Q. This for both guys. You guys obviously struggled to win away from home. What gives you confidence you can come here and get on a roll? BJ YOUNG: This is a game we love to play and we like to have new challenges and exciting games come our way and this is a neutral site. Really no one is at home. It's a great opportunity for our ball club and team to come out here and show that we've improved from the first game through the season and ready to take it and keep moving on throughout the rest of the season. MARSHAWN POWELL: Yeah. Like BJ said, I mean we really can't -- I mean it's just, I don't know man, can't really dwell on it anymore. He said it right. Q. More on that question right there, you're not at Vandy's different type of set-up in their gym but you are in Nashville. Are you sort of, you know, looking at this sort of the same way you were on their home floor? THE MODERATOR: For who? Q. Both players. MARSHAWN POWELL: Not really. I don't really pay attention to it like that. I just go into every game just trying to win it and do the things that I can do to help the team to win it, to win the basketball game. Of course they're going to have a lot more fans probably than we are, but we just got to take it at every other game and come in and play and try to get a win. BJ YOUNG: Yes. We want to come out here and stick together as a team and know we all for one, and fans really don't play the game, the players do and we have to go out there and make plays and make things happen and get the job done ourselves and really can't put it on nobody else. We have to go out there as players and get the job done. Q. This is for both players. Obviously the foul trouble you mentioned, Marshawn, has been there in the first game, and it seems like with the brand of pressure y'all play, as physical as y'all can be guarding on the ball, do you notice that officials tend to be a little bit quicker with the whistle with you guys on the road than at home? How do you feel like y'all can adjust to play defense? BJ YOUNG: We want to try to stick to playing the way we like to play and play as much pressure defense as we can without fouling and adjust to the officiating however they're calling games. We want to know how they're calling it and go out there and play as much defense as we can without fouling and really can't focus on the area of the game because that's something we can't control too much. We really don't go in the game with a mindset of thinking about fouls too much. MARSHAWN POWELL: Yeah. Like BJ said, we can't go into the game thinking about that, but in a sense, I mean it's all about decision-making, while you're on the defense like coach said, I have a lot of cheap fouls, reaching in and not moving my feet and a lot of people -- lot of our teammates do the same thing, on ball defense. We just got to go in there and make better decisions while guarding the ball. Q. Marshawn, at the beginning of the season when we talked to you, you were really excited about the depth and the amount of bodies that were in the locker room. Take a little bit about how that has helped you guys throughout the year and different guys stepping up? MARSHAWN POWELL: I feel it's going to help us a lot going to show itself even more throughout this tournament here, throughout the SEC Tournament because we have a lot more, lot more depth than a lot of other teams do in our conference. I feel that it helps guys like me and BJ not to play so many minutes and be able to come in and help and do what we do and other guys the same thing. THE MODERATOR: Couple more. Q. Marshawn, for both players. I'd like to get two different answers if possible. Who is the best player that you played against in the SEC this year? THE MODERATOR: BJ. BJ YOUNG: Marshawn Powell in practice (laughter). Another team? Play a lot of good players. I wouldn't put a finger on the best player. Whoever -- I guess whoever got the SEC Player of the Year award. I don't really know. I think Marshawn Powell is my top player I played against all year. THE MODERATOR: Marshawn? MARSHAWN POWELL: I didn't expect that. I mean, of course BJ is one of our top, one of the top players in this conference. I enjoy playing against him and playing with him. The best player I played against kind of hard, man. I played against a lot of good players. It's really, really hard to be honest. I have to say Elston Turner or something, the first game. I'll say him. Q. Marshawn, you talked about the depth you developed. Obviously to make that work this week, you got to play more than one game. Just talk about how that depth can help you in wanting to make sure that you're able to utilize it. MARSHAWN POWELL: I mean, like you say, we got to play more than one game in order for it to show itself ultimately, but we just got to focus on this main one game and we get through this game and then we'll see how it goes from there. BJ YOUNG: We want to take the first game, getting our foot in the door and get our confidence going and the momentum started and get the first game out of the way and then get into our bench and the next game and try to use as many players as possible and keep the energy as high as possible as we can and fouling as fast as we like. That's really what we like to do. THE MODERATOR: One more question for either of the student athletes? Anybody? All right. Thank you fellas. You can return to the locker room. We'll continue on with Coach Anderson. If you have a question, raise your hand. Q. Coach Anderson, you guys have lost three of five coming into this one. What's your plan to reverse that momentum coming into the SEC Tournament? COACH ANDERSON: It's a new season. You don't even look at records at this time of the year, it's 0-0. You hear this terminology all the time, survive and advance. I've been in enough tournaments to understand that. This is the time you year you want to play your better basketball. Hitting and misses, halves we played well, some games we played well, this will be a time for some things to really start falling in place. We get some other guys that are playing better. The guys were talking about. Coty Clarke, I think he's finding his niche with our basketball team. I think Michael Qualls has shown that he has an impact when he's on that floor. Guy like Kikko Haydar, starting to step up for our basketball team. But I think ultimately these two young men here that you just saw, I think they got to set the tone. Marshawn staying away from just silly fouls and being on the floor so he can give us a presence inside. Of course, BJ has got to get that swag, play with that swagger that we know he's capable of playing with. The way you do that, we got to get the tempo up to our likings; that is, our defense has got to be pretty good. We got to be good on defense. When you talk about reversing the trend, one game season, focus on that game and you take it one at a time. But our defense and our energy got to be at a high level. Q. Mike, this pre-dates you, but four straight first round exits for this program here in the tournament. How frustrating is that and how much do you want to kind reverse that trend? COACH ANDERSON: I'm used to success. I love this time of the year. When you talk about what's taken place in the past, nothing you can do about that. Last year I was disappointed in exiting out the tournament as fast as we did. Hopefully we get a better grasp of it this year and come out and perform. That's the key. You got to come out and perform. We're playing against a team that we played earlier in the year. It's a rubber match. They get a chance to sleep in their own beds and be at home, but again it's a tournament setting and so the sense of urgency should be at the highest level. This is what you work to get towards. There's one automatic qualifier to the NCAA. This is the great opportunity for our guys, and so that's the mindset we got, just coming in and really, hopefully imposing our will on the Vanderbilt team that's playing good basketball right now. Q. Talk about the depth you guys have developed this year and obviously you won't be able the utilize that if you don't get past the first round. If you are able to get on a run, tell how the depth can help you. COACH ANDERSON: You just answered the question. You got to get past the first round. That's the bottom line. You can't look beyond. I mean, it's a big game. Vanderbilt is a big game. I'm more worried about our practice today, that's what I'm worried about, trying to go there and get better and then of course the game tomorrow at Vanderbilt, that's the game. That is the championships game for us. At the same time, I think when you talk about our team, our teams have always -- the teams I've been associated with always played some of their best basketball right around this time of. Maybe we're built to play basketball this time of year. We utilize a got of guys during the early part of the season. They're more tested and ready. The only way they're going to have a chance to do that, you got to be able to survive and advance. The energy level becomes important. You'll see a got of guys, we in particular we cut our practices down. We need that energy, we need legs. When you get to tournament play. You can't utilize that until you get past the first game and hopefully you can get in a rhythm and our teams are typically they're hard to scout, they really are. It plays to our favor because of the style of play and we won't change. We won't back up. We won't back up. We'll adjust, but we won't back up. Q. Coach, wanted to get your thoughts on playing Vandy in Nashville, not exactly at Vandy but especially having the issues on the road. Just kind of talk about what you guys have to do to kind of get over that. COACH ANDERSON: I think we got to go play basketball. It's a neutral site. Records are the same. They're fighting for what we're fighting for. Like I say, the only difference they get to sleep in their own beds. We're playing at a venue where you're going to have multiple teams, multiple fans here. Going to put five guys at a time. We put out five. Hopefully it's a game where we can get to get to their depth and make them use their depth. To me, that's what it's all about. They obviously have an opportunity to host the tournament and I think that's probably good for the SEC and in their eyes probably good for them as well. But the games are played on the floor. So, we'll see at 6:30 tomorrow. Q. Coach, you were part of that 2000 tournament team on the staff. What message are you giving to the guys to kind of relate to that? COACH ANDERSON: Goes back to what I just said. I just think our team, you know, is tailor-made for this type of setting, and the key is you talk about four games in four days. We got the depth to do it, but ultimately you got to win games. You got to win games and we've seen it done before. Coach Cleveland who is on our staff, he's a guy that can tell these guys firsthand about that experience, what took place. You get on a run and you get on a roll, lot of great things can take place during this time of the year, and if you look at the Southeast Conference, lot of teams are beat up on each other. Florida won the league. Kentucky is there. I guess Ole Miss was right there when you talk about the records. Everybody beat everybody. So that makes this tournament I think even a more exciting venue. The key is going to be the team that's playing well at this time, and right now if you look on paper, I guess Tennessee is trending, playing well. You know, Florida has played well. Obviously like most teams, they had their problems on the road as well. So, with that being said, in a new neutral setting it will be interesting to see how it all shakes out, but I like our chances just as good as anybody else. Q. What was your kind of diagnosis as the difference between the first Vanderbilt game and the second Vanderbilt game for you guys? COACH ANDERSON: I thought the energy level defensively -- I thought our defense -- we didn't shoot the ball great at our place. I thought our defense was so intense. We kept Vanderbilt from doing what they wanted to do. We attacked the glass. We knew where the shooters were. Just real disruptive. I thought coming into their place between getting in foul trouble, putting them on the free throw line. We put them on the free throw line quite a bit. They killed us on the offensive glass. You don't have some of your better players, Powell didn't play a whole lot, BJ didn't have a very good game. So it was one of those games, it kind of surprised me but, at the same time, you know, some guys look at records as opposed to understanding that teams have improved. Vanderbilt improved. Kevin has done a great job with his young team. They improved from that time we played them. That's the mark of a good coach. Your team improves. I think our guys from a defensive standpoint we didn't have the intensity you got to have, rebound the basketball, we didn't do a good job and put them on the free throw line and we didn't make free throws and we didn't shoot the ball well. You don't put it in the hole, that's what happens. Q. Mike, I think Kikko has taken 14 charges this year to lead the team. Does that seem like a pretty good number to you what's the key to him doing that? COACH ANDERSON: I think he's a little guy. He ain't going to block many shots. He knows that. When you talk about a guy that sacrifices his body, that's why see him out on the floor. He's doing lot of different little things. I've had teams -- when I think about the national championships team that we had at Arkansas, we had probably about four, five guys that would do that. You got Clint McDaniel, you got Cory Beck will take charge. It gets contagious, so -- especially when your style is to push people out of the rhythm, you get people going in there out of control. So, he's got the instincts to be there when people are coming in there. He's one of the guys that is leading us even I think that's one other guy, Mardracus is right there with us. Q. Coach, you mentioned your style is tailor-made for this setting. What about the setting on a floor where there may not be a lot of fans in the stands and the times may be off? What about the setting know allows you guys to play to maybe have some success here? COACH ANDERSON: Repeat that again. Q. What do you think about the setting here on a neutral sight allows you guys to be tailor-made for going on a run here? COACH ANDERSON: I think from the standpoint it's no one's home floor, nobody's home court, and I just think the way we play, our kids, especially being aggressive, being in attack mode. Vanderbilt is a team that wants to slow it down, no question about it. I want us to what we do, I want to take it up another level. It starts with our defense. Our defense has got to be really, really on point. Then not only that, let's get to our, bench because I think fatigue will be a factor in a tournament setting. Why I say that? Because you come into this setting, it's the nervous energy. You're going to get tired at some point in time. Lot of teams they play six, seven guys. We tend to play a few more. With TV timeouts that helps. Other teams get a rest.  I still think there is a factor in that and I want our guys to come out with a lot of confidence distance and be in attack mode defensively as well as offensively. Q. You're guys were talking earlier about adjusting to how a game is called game and adjusting to that throughout the game and throughout that process. How good of a job do you think your team has done in doing that this year and how important will that be tomorrow? COACH ANDERSON: I think it's going to be very important. I thought that was critical in the game here. There was some bump fouls that took place that probably shouldn't have. As Marshawn alluded to, there were some times where he couldn't move his feet as opposed to moving his hands. That's the adjustment and earning curve of this basketball team as we continue to move on throughout the season. So, I think the adjustment is something our guys got to go. That's where guys on the floor got to do that. That's where the leadership and hopefully these guys have been through some wars now that they can go out and say hey, they're calling it this way, let's play a little smarter, let's move our feet, talk a little bit more, communicate on defense more. I'm looking for our guys to be on point with one another. Trusting one another. If I get beat because -- when you play pressure defense, you're going to get attacked. I got to know the next guy is going to be able to help me and maybe I can rotate where his guy is at. We've done a better job at home than we have on the road. Even as the season has progressed we've gotten better at it. You said a couple of times that your teams tend to play best at this time of year. Why do you think that is and what makes you think this team can kind of cap that? The teams I've been associated with, it takes time for you to formulate a team. You start out, you think about this team we started out this past year, eight guys that never donned a Razorback uniform. Not only that talking about Marshawn Powell, he played two games for me. He was out for the rest of the year. So now you're talking about bringing in some new guys, some of the holdover guys that were young guys, you know, Mickelson, Madden, BJ Young, those guys, even Rickey Scott, Mardracus Wade. They're like freshmen. You're putting all this together with a team. We played one of the more tougher schedules that we played I know at Arkansas in quite awhile. We took some bumps along the way in hoping will it get us ready for SEC play. That tends sometimes -- it can bring you together or take you apart. I think if you look at our record and how we progressed throughout the conference season, taking care of home, that's one of the characteristics or parts of building a championship program. You got to take care of home. You got to take care of home. You can go out and steal some games on the road. We only stole one. Provided we could have spent half, we would have been right there in the hunt. The progress -- that's why I say you can see this team changing before your eyes and this would be a great testament, great moment for them to come over here and play some good basketball. Q. Mike, when you guys are 1-11 away from home, what's the key do instilling confidence that you guys can do well away from home this week? COACH ANDERSON: What is the what now? Q. What's the key to instilling confidence in your team that you can do well away from home this week when you're one and 11 away from home? COACH ANDERSON: Our guys never lacked confidence. It's the way the game is going. You go back and analyze all the different games. Even at the Vanderbilt game, it's a five-point game with 11 minutes to go. You just got to find a way to finish. How do you finish it? You got to make plays. What are plays? Stopping people.  Not letting them get to the free throw line. Getting the loose ball. I don't think this team ever lacked confidence. Sometimes we may lack execution but not confidence. But I said again, when you get to this setting right here, I think even as a coach, I know my antennas go up and the juices really get to flowing and hopefully that's going to be to be the mind set of our guys. THE MODERATOR: Time for one more. Anybody? Great. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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