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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2013Kyle FullerRod OdomKevin StallingsNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE VANDERBILT – 75 THE MODERATOR: We're ready to continue on with Vanderbilt. We'll ask Coach Stallings for his general thoughts on the game, and 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 Stallings. Coach, would you begin? COACH STALLINGS: Well, it was an interesting game, obviously. We made things a little bit harder on ourselves at the end than we needed to. We missed some foul shots. We had some turnovers and -- but, you know, earlier in the season we would have lost this game. We would have -- the foul shots, the turnovers would have freaked us out, we would have lost. And we maintained our composure and kept getting stops and we made enough free throws and made enough plays to win the game. I thought Kyle was huge for us in this game. He came in in the first half and got us going, gave us an energy that we didn't have. Made shots, got to the rim and made plays for people and that was really huge for us. Then he made the big 3 in the left corner there late. So, I thought his performance was real critical to our ability to win, but, of course, I was a little disappointed in we got real sped up at the end and we got scattered and, you know, tentative and all that, but you got give Arkansas credit for that because that's what they do to you. They get you sped up and they get you frantic and they're good at that. That's their style, that's their game, and I thought for the most part, for 35 minutes we were unaffected by it. As a matter of fact, I thought we were able take advantage in it some cases, but I thought the last few minutes it kind of got to us a little bit, but I'm real proud of my team for perservering and making the plays that we had to make in order to win. THE MODERATOR: Thanks. We'll take your questions just for the two student athletes. Q. How much do you guys want Kentucky? COACH STALLINGS: Do what? Q. Were you looking forward to playing them again? COACH STALLINGS: Go ahead, Rod. ROD ODOM: We were just trying to make it to the next day, and regardless of who we had to play, our biggest goal was to make it to Friday, and so we're happy to be playing on Friday. COACH STALLINGS: How much do you want Kentucky, come on, man? Q. Kyle, how important was it to make the extra pass to get open looks and was that something you guys struggled with in the first game against Arkansas in January? KYLE FULLER: To make the extra pass? That's something that coach has been telling to us, like make plays for each other and start making the extra pass, because if we make the extra pass, our teammates are going to make it for us. And I remember how one time I think I drove and threw to it Kevin and Kevin had an open shot but he drove and threw it to Dai-Jon and Dai-Jon threw it to Rod and Rod had a wide open shot. I felt like if we keep playing for each other, then things will really work out. Q. Both you guys had some of the better games of your career tonight. Talk a little bit about how you're feeling out there. ROD ODOM: You know, I just say I think we felt really comfortable out there, we tried to stay confident and aggressive, and because of the circumstance, our biggest goal was to keep moving forward and I think that help helped us out tonight. KYLE FULLER: We were more playing like a team and we all knew how big this game was and the whole thing about it was Coach said let's try to play so we can play for Friday. Let's play on Friday. We got to keep going on. We cannot stop. Like a big thing for me also was to see my little brother out in the stands, I haven't seen him in a long time. That kind of up lifted my spirits. COACH STALLINGS: Is he going to be here tomorrow? KYLE FULLER: Yes. COACH STALLINGS: Good. KYLE FULLER: I felt like that really helped me a lot also. Q. Rod and Kyle, what do you guys remember from the last game against Kentucky and what do you guys need to do differently to change the outcome? KYLE FULLER: What I feel like we need to do is stop throwing punches. Kentucky is really a team and talented team. I feel what they did better than us, they kept on throwing punches. They kept playing, they kept playing hard, and I felt like it was a four minute war, we got tight and stopped throwing punches. I felt like now we've gotten a little older to the point where we have to know that even the game is close, we cannot stop throwing punches and cannot stop throwing punches because they're going to throw it at us. ROD ODOM: I would say the same thing. We got to compete for 40 minutes. We had stretches in the game we didn't play too well and really hurt us at the end. So I think the biggest thing is just trying to go out there and compete for a full 40 minutes. THE MODERATOR: Two more questions. Q. Kyle, you told us on Monday that you believe this team could make a run. You're leading by example tonight? KYLE FULLER: Yeah, I'm trying to. I mean, I just -- I just felt like if we all play together, you know, I feel like Dai-Jon made some clutch shots, Rod made a clutch shot, I tried to make a clutch shot. I feel like if we're all in it for each other and doesn't matter who scores the points or who makes the extra pass, I feel like we're going to be a really good team. THE MODERATOR: Last question down front. Q. Kyle, with the foul trouble in the first half, you had to know you're going to play some pretty big stretches for awhile there. How hard is that against a team that pressures you the way they do? KYLE FULLER: It's hard, but, I mean, when you -- like you have a guard like Dai-Jon who is really calm with the ball and who is also a good leader as a point guard, it really like helps you out a lot. So basically I didn't have to handle the ball the whole time, and me and Kedren kept sharing with it each other. We didn't have to get so tired. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. We'll excuse the student athletes back to the locker room. COACH STALLINGS: The other answer to that question, Kyle didn't play in the SEC turn last year, so he could have played all 40 minutes and he would have been real happy, isn't that right? THE MODERATOR: Hands up. Questions for Coach Stallings. Q. Kevin, how much has this team grown here in the last couple of weeks? I think this is now maybe five of six at this point. You mentioned the foul shooting and things that would have freaked them out earlier. What other things are you seeing out of them right now? COACH STALLINGS: You know, you talk about the last couple of weeks. I tend to look at our growth more over the course of the last couple of months. I don't really think about it the in the terms of the last couple of weeks. We gotten better offensively. We've gotten to where we know how to execute. We know what we're looking for better and our defense became solid before our offense did this season, way before. I think our offense is starting to catch up a little bit and I think that's caused us to be a more difficult team to play and so again, I don't really think of it about the last couple of weeks. We won some games here recently but we've played better basketball for sometime now and I think we've made a tremendous amount of progress, for instance, since the start of the league season. Q. Talking about that progress, specifically at the end of games how has the team improved making -- COACH STALLINGS: As I said before, we would have lost this game earlier in the season. I think that we're more calm even though we didn't look like it at times in that last run. We shot ourselves in the foot. If we make the free throws we don't have an issue. If Rod makes his free throws -- basically and Rod is one of our better foul shooters. This was a complete reversal of the way he's been shooting them. He'll make them tomorrow and you look down, he had 20 points and 7 rebounds and he missed 8 foul shots. He played a heck of a game for us but I just think we have more composure, more confidence that we're going to win because we've won some, we've won some close ones. That's the only thing that gives you confidence to win close ones is to win close ones. Q. Kevin, midway through the second half you've got two guys in foul trouble and you've got an 8 man rotation already. How are you thinking of managing the game from that point forward with your bench short, especially while they're pressing? COACH STALLINGS: We went zone which that was we were trying to buy some time that way. We felt like they got too much against our zone.  My staff yelled at me two possessions before we got out of it. But I think that really bothered me more in the first half than it did in the second half. Dai-Jon and Kevin both got two and Dai-Jon picked up his two and Kedren hurt his shoulder. That was when we felt strapped. I didn't feel it as bad. Sheldon got 4. We could kind of survive that. But, again, I'd rather not have to deal with it but Arkansas put the ball on the deck and went at us and we fouled some. There's lots of fouls on both sides and so, you know, what the heck. That's the way it goes. Q. Coach, I'll ask you the same question I asked the student athletes, what do you remember from the last game against Kentucky and what needs to happen differently? COACH STALLINGS: I remember they did whatever they wanted to do to our defense. They drove us, they threw it inside, scored it seemed like at will. If that happens again we'll lose again. That's what I remember. Q. Kevin, I wonder how you would compare coaching this team with there was relatively little expectation versus last year where people thought you guys were a real contender were going to make a lot of noise? COACH STALLINGS: Well, I certainly enjoyed last year's team and enjoyed their contributions to our basketball program, which were many, and I'm certainly enjoying the successes that those guys are having now. I really enjoyed this basketball team because I don't know if we're any good now but I know we weren't any good at the beginning of the season and they were very coachable. They bought into our coaching staff. They bought into each other and they. They've never wavered from that even despite going through the many close losses that we had in the beginning of the conference season, they never wavered. They were resilient, came out everyday with a great attitude to work and I was very confident that we would play well tonight. We had three very good practices leading up to tonight's game and so they just have been a very resilient, driven group and so regardless of how many we've won or how many we've lost or anything like that, they've just been a real fun group to coach and I've enjoyed them a lot. Q. Kevin, you got great looks a good bit of the night. You alluded to the press. Was it ball movement -- COACH STALLINGS: We moved the ball well and we've gotten a lot better in press offense. At the beginning of the season we were pretty skittish in press offense. We've gotten much better. It's another one of the things that we've progressed in. I think we're very willing to make the extra pass and, again, we like being pressed at this point in the season because it does provide us opportunities at the end of it that are quality if we handle it right on some occasions and when we can jump up and make shots, then that really helps and we were able to score at the end of the press sometimes tonight or even in the half court when they double us we would get it out and find the open guy. We shared the basketball night and I was real pleased with the way we played offense probably until the last three, four minutes. THE MODERATOR: Time for one more question. Anyone? COACH STALLINGS: This guy had his hand up. You want to ask a question? Q. You talked about winning close ones, the two games against Kentucky were close ones. Do you feel the team is in better position to win it if it is another close one? COACH STALLINGS: I feel like our team is in better position to win close games than we were earlier in the season. Again, we've had a bunch of close games with Kentucky. They've won most of them. I don't want to sit here and profess that we're ready to win a close game even against Kentucky. I hope that we are. I anticipate that it will be a very competitive game but, again, our goal, whether our players articulated this well enough or not, our goal was to play on Friday. Now our goal is to play on Saturday. In order to do that we're going to have to beat a very, very good team and play a very, very good game. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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