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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2013Keion BellFrank HaithAlex OriakhiNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE MISSOURI – 62 THE MODERATOR: We're ready to begin with Missouri. We'll ask Coach Haith for the some opening comments on the team. We'll take your questions for the two student athletes, excuse them and then finish up with coach. Coach, if you'll begin. COACH HAITH: Thank you, Claude. I thought our guys played really hard. We were dialed in, we did a great job on Turner, and I thought we had a great team effort. Obviously Keion had the job of guarding him most of the night, but Jabari, EJ, all our guys did an outstanding job on them. THE MODERATOR: Take your questions for either student athlete. Q. For Keion, what did you want to do to take away Turner's game and were you pretty aware of his injury, too, and did that factor into things at all? KEION BELL: No, I wasn't aware of any injuries that he had but, you know, I know that he's a tremendous scorer, so I was just trying to make sure that every shot that he -- every look that he got at the basket wasn't typical. I tried to limit him to easy buckets. That's all he needs. I tried to give him a hard time to make sure any look he got in the basket was a difficult shot. THE MODERATOR: Questions for either student athletes. Raise your hand. Q. Alex, discuss why you were so dominant tonight? ALEX ORIAKHI: Lot of the credit goes to my teammates. They gave me the ball where I was in position where all I had to do was dunk it. They made the game easy for me, and just tried to do my part on the defensive end as far as rebounding and trying to block shots. Q. Either one of you guys, coaches talked a lot about this team needing to play defense every night that way. Is this as well as you play defense and how much is that a key to you making a run in this tournament? KEION BELL: Yeah. I believe that we played really well defensively about as well as we played all year. Those things are key to make a run in any type of tournament, defensive rebounding. That's where you win games is defensive rebounding. So if that's the core of your team is, and that's what we believe that's the core of our team, you should make a pretty good run during tournaments and things like that. THE MODERATOR: Other questions for student athletes down front? Q. For either of you guys, what do you think was the difference tonight from that middle season loss you suffered at Texas A&M earlier this year? ALEX ORIAKHI: I think it's just learning from our mistakes. That was definitely key and defense. I think defense, our defense this time was a lot better than how we played them last time and defenses -- we know we can be a great defensive team, you know, just a matter of buying into it and doing it every night. So, now the challenge for us to do it again. We've got to do it against Ole Miss. Q. Either of you guys, what's the key tomorrow to beating Ole Miss? KEION BELL: I just -- the same key for tonight. If we play well defensively and we rebound and limit them to tough shots and play solid on the offensive end, that will be the key to victory. They have guys that rebound the ball very well. Some guys that average double figure rebounds. As long as we can rebound and defend and play solid on offense, I believe that we have a pretty good chance of coming out victorious. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for either student athletes? All right. We'll excuse you, you could return to the locker room. Thank you. We'll continue on with questions for Coach Haith. If you'll raise your hand, we'll get a full microphone to you. Q. Coach, how did you go about trying to game plan against a guy like Elston Turner? People say he's the kind of a guy who can win the game by himself. What was the kind of game plan to go after a guy like him? COACH HAITH: We wanted six eyes on him at all times. Keion did an outstanding job. There were several possessions. Jabari got switched on him. We rotated guys on him. Guy like that, great scorer like that, we just wanted to make sure, you know, our attention was on him at all times and although -- we guarded him well up there. We did a nice job on him up there, and every shot he took we wanted to make sure it was a contested shot. We didn't want to take ourselves out of play. Q. Frank, did you have the sense that Alex was sort of particularly on fire tonight just emotionally and wanted to sort of send a signal to everybody else? COACH HAITH: I think he was dialed in. That's a term we use. I thought he was really dialed in ready to play. The last half of the year Alex has been way more vocal in a positive way in terms of helping his teammates and he's been there. He's been to the place none of us have been. We've asked him to do that. He's really taken heed to that and doing a great job with it. Q. Frank, you mentioned Jabari's defense on Turner. Can you talk about the stretch kind of late in the first half, I think either the first half, he had four assists, two rebounds and playing a lot of defense on Elston, his play in the last eight to ten minutes. COACH HAITH: He gave us a chance to get some distance. Playing A&M it's going to be a low possession game the way they playing offensively. I thought our patience was really good on the defensive end. You have to be patient. Jabari played a couple buckets and great passes in transition that allowed us to get a little bit of separation. A 10-point lead at that point in time, we shot 50 percent, they were shooting in the low 30s, seemed like it should have been more. That's the way the game is doing to be when you play an A&M team. Q. Frank, what impressed you about your team's interior defense tonight? I think they started off like 6 of 38 on a 2-point field goals. COACH HAITH: We did a great job. In College Station, Turner and Roberson really hurt us. Between both them they scored 26 points, and we really made an assertive effort in doing our work early and making those guys score over us. I thought up there we took ourselves out of position and allowed easy buckets. Q. It may not have shown up on the stat sheet. Talk about what Phil Pressey did for you tonight. COACH HAITH: Phil was great. He controlled the game. He only took one shot, but you look he had five assists but he held the ball and got us in offense, and I thought he did a great job on defense, too. Harris had a great run there at the start of the game and scored a couple buckets late, but I thought he did a good job on the ball, too. Q. Coach, in your one loss to Ole Miss this year, you didn't have Laurence. How key is he tomorrow night to beat Ole Miss? COACH HAITH: Laurence is a big part of our team. We're as healthy as we've been all year. At our place Laurence did a great job on Holloway. He didn't score much at our place. He did a tremendous job guarding who I think one -- always a tough matchup. Very physical. Their front line, much like A&M's is very aggressive, very gifted. Holloway is very talented. We're going to need all our bodies to be able to guard those guys in the post. Q. Just in general, your assessment of Ole Miss and what exactly you feel like you guys need to do in terms of guarding their primary scorers tomorrow night? COACH HAITH: Marshall Henderson is a tremendous player. We've got to do a really good job on him. He plays a lost energy. He's got a quick trigger. You know, we got to be dialed in again defensively. I think they're one of the better offensive teams in our league. Defensively we've got to do a great job on those guys, keep them off the glass. Their post players are very aggressive, too. It's going to take a team effort. Ole Miss is a really good basketball team, and for us to beat them, we've got to be at our best. THE MODERATOR: Time for one more question, anyone? All right. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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