Nov. 25, 2006
Elon at Vanderbilt
Memorial Gymnasium
November 25, 2006
Vanderbilt Head Coach Kevin Stallings
“Losing Alan Metcalfe this week required some adjustments. I was proud of our guys. I thought we were very active and good at both ends. I thought we played really well given the fact that we had to face some adversity this week.”
“Dan (Cage) deserved a start. He’s played very well since the beginning of practice. He’s a good player and he is playing like a good player.”
“We got off to a good start. The ball was moving quickly. There are good results if the ball is moving and hitting a lot of hands. It was good to see that. I was particularly pleased with how we played defensively in the first half. It was a tone-setter.”
Vanderbilt Player Quotes
Senior guard Dan Cage
“I became a starter under unfortunate circumstances. I am here to come in whenever my team needs me. We would love to have Alan Metcalfe in the lineup. Whether I start or come in off the bench, I just try to do what I can to help the team win, and that’s what I did tonight.”
On hitting shots early….
“That was just our set offense. With our smaller lineup, we have to use our speed and quickness, and move the ball around. We have lots of good shooters on our team and that makes us extremely hard to guard.”
“Individually and as a team, there were times tonight when the bucket looked huge. We felt like you could have just kicked the ball in. That’s the important thing about hitting your first couple of shots. And we work really hard to not let our opponents’ good shooters do that. It’s a dangerous thing, when a shooter gets confidence. It’s great if it happens for your team, but horrible if it’s your opponent.”
“We like to think that the other team is at more of a disadvantage.
(Strength Coach) Mark Davis has worked with us on getting low so we can push bigger guys off the block. Elon had a good inside guy (Chris Chalko) that I think got a little frustrated being he was being guarded by smaller players.”
Senior guard Shan Foster
“It has definitely been an emphasis of ours to play at a high pace. It’s a lot more fun to play that way. The key is just to get up and down the court every time. There are some teams that don’t work to get back defensively, so you are able to get a few easy baskets.”
“I’m pretty sure we’ll have some tough matchups. But we’ve worked very hard in the offseason and I think we can handle playing against bigger players. Dan Cage is one of the strongest guards I know. There are always some teams that create bad matchups for you, but we’ll be fine.”
“We had a bit of a defensive let-down in the second half. We need to keep the same intensity we had in the first half for a full 40 minutes, and then we can be a great team.”