Jan. 15, 2009
Audio: Listen to the entire teleconference at SECsports.com
Vanderbilt basketball head coach Kevin Stallings and Mississippi State head coach Rick Stansbury fielded questions about their head-to-head matchup on Saturday with the national media during Thursday’s SEC Teleconference. Find out what each coach had to say about the matchup.
Kevin Stallings, Vanderbilt Head Coach
… It still made a big difference for us in our game and in our team’s outlook. So, it was important to get him back. We know we have a very, very difficult task in front of us. Mississippi State may be playing as well as anyone in the league right now. I would imagine that Rick (Stansbury) is having an incredible amount of fun coaching that team. It reminds me of the team that I had two years ago with Dan Cage and Derrick Byars and Shan Foster, those guys, and with everybody who could shoot, except for we didn’t have the unbelievable presence in the middle that they have. In any event, they have a very, very good team. Starkville is always a very difficult place to play. And like I said, they seem to be playing as well as anybody in the league right now. We look forward to the challenge and hopefully we can go down and play a good solid game.
Did you watch the Kentucky game at Tennessee, and what did you think of Jodie Meeks performance?
I didn’t watch it live. I was at the wake of one of my player’s mothers, who passed away last week. So, we were in Chicago on Tuesday evening. But, I saw some of the replay, and obviously it was an incredible performance. He’s an incredible player. He really is. He’s an incredible player. I don’t think that I ever thought that he’d get 54 against anybody, but he’s as capable as anybody in our league, probably more so of throwing up 40 on some night. He’s a terrific player.
What do you mean by “incredible”?
The combination of speed and quickness and strength, durability, and then his skills, his shooting skills and ability to drive the ball. He plays every facet of offense just about as well as it can be played . I think he’ll be a terrific pro.
Can you talk about how you want to keep Jarvis Varnado from affecting your game?
Well, I’m hoping that Rick will just take him out of the game and sit him over there. Then he’ll have a harder time affecting us if he’s sitting over there by Rick. So, Rick could do us a favor that way, maybe.
But, there’s nothing you can do to keep him from affecting what happens around the basketball when he’s on defense. He’s probably the most prolific shot blocker in college basketball history. So, he is what he is. He’s going to block some shots, and he’s going to alter a lot of others. You just have to play through that and figure out other ways to score.
How do you get your players to understand that he’s going to block shots and to just keep shooting it?
I think that everybody has their own approach as to how you deal with a great shot blocker. We certainly have ours. But again, the bottom line is he’s still going to block some shots. We could execute what we want to do perfectly and he’s still going to bother shots. That’s the bottom line. He’s going to affect some shots, and that’s why he’s a great defensive player, and his offense has improved dramatically over last year. He’s one heck of a college player.
What’s the big challenge of trying to get the ball inside with MSU’s four-guard lineup?
I don’t think that the challenge is so much getting it inside. I think the challenge is scoring once you get it in there. I don’t think that they’re adamant about not letting it come in so much, because they know that when it does come in it’s still only going to be converted a relatively low percentage of the time. I think that their four-guard lineup presents challenges in a lot of ways. I’ve seen people try to post their whoever guards the other big guy for their opponent and things like that. But, they’re a very good team and a fun team to watch. They’re fast. They shoot it well. They share the ball. They’re a fun team to watch.
Rick Stansbury, Mississippi State Head Coach
Opening statement about Vanderbilt matchup:
I have a lot of respect for the job that Kevin does with his team year in and year out… He really has some young, good freshmen to go along with his big kid. So, it’ll be a big challenge in there for us Saturday night.
Talk about the effect that Jarvis has on your defense as a whole.
You have a guy back there who’ll protect the basket on five or six blocks, but he’s probably going to get another five or six or seven or eight altered shots. I don’t know what other teams talk about, but if they’re talking about it, which I’m sure they are, has some affect on mindsets. So, he’s a big key for us to be as good as we are defensively or press up on some perimeter people and make them put it on the floor and penetrate. He’s gotten better. He’s not a big kid. He probably only ways 203 pounds, but he has gotten a lot better at staying out of foul trouble. That was a huge issue his first year and a half or so. This year, for the most part he’s been able to stay out of foul trouble.
Does he change your defensive philosophy as a coach?
I’ve never had one like him. We had a pretty good one several years ago when I was an assistant… But, no question it allows you to press up on those perimeter people a little bit more and take the risks on taking away the 3-pointer, but if you get beat on the dribble that basket’s protected. Not a lot of people are going to shoot over Jarvis. So, it does allow you to do a little bit more than normal.
What are the challenges that Vanderbilt will present for you?
Naturally, it starts with the big guy on the inside, an all-league player last year. He’s probably the most versatile big guy in the league, and by that I mean a guy who can really score on the inside, when he steps out he can really shoot the jump shot, very, very skilled. There’s probably not another, well there’s not… there’s not another big guy in the league, and there’s not a lot around the country, who are more versatile than he is with his skill level. He’s got a great presence. He understands. He sees the next play happening. Offensively, he knows how to seal. He knows how to set up for that next pass. He’s a load for us in there in a lot of ways. He’s creates a lot of things for those perimeter people just because of the presence that he draws from your defense. He’s a great passer out of the post too.
What do you remember from last year’s matchup that can help you this year?
After the season’s over and you reflect a little bit, that may have been as tough of a loss as I’ve ever had in my 10 years as a coach. It was 10 years last year as a coach. I’ve been in some tough losses, but the reason it was so tough is we were playing on such a big stage, two really good teams, senior night at Vanderbilt, and we were both top-25 teams at that point, and we were playing basically to win that to go into our last game with a chance to win the overall SEC championship.
Our team really played well, but that performance is absolutely the best single-handed, one game performance I’ve ever been a part of that Shan Foster put on from the 16-minute mark on. Again, I remember it perfectly, he was 9-for-9 in that second half. Every shot he made it was a crucial shot, a big shot, a big play at certain times of the game. He just made shots to keep them in it. It was come from behind, keep them in it over and over and over, and the game ended just the way… we were up two, shot clock running out and basically again Foster jumps up from about 25-28 feet contested and guarded to win the game on senior night. A huge stage, a huge game and again the best single game performance I’ve ever witnessed. I remember it very well.
Does Brian Johnson have a roll on year team or has he missed too much time?
There’s no question that he has a roll, and he’s a guy I want to find time for because he’s a great kid. He’s a team player, a total team player. He’s a guy who encourages everyone else when things aren’t going well for him. I definitely want to try to find time somehow to get him back into this mix, because I know he can help us.
Now, yes he’s been out forever, 10 weeks. You miss 10 weeks of something it’s not easy to get yourself back into any kind of shape you have to be in. You have to be concerned about what it does to your team and the rhythm you have, the substitution patterns that you have and all of that, which we’ve been trying to define. We’ve defined it the last two to three weeks. But no question I want to get him back in the mix somehow, because like I said he’s a great kid. He’s our only senior. He’s probably our best leader, and he’s a guy who I think somewhere along the way he’s going to help our team.
How well do you think your guards are doing at keeping opponents out of the lane?
We’ve gotten better, I’ll put it that way, for sure. That starts with our point guard (Dee Bost). Early in the year, being a freshman, those opposing teams’ point guards got in that lane way too many times. When the point guard is getting into the lane, bad things are happening. That’s why we like our point guard to get into the lane. He’s gotten a lot better, 100 percent better than he was his first two to three weeks.
I think Ravern (Johnson) has gotten better. Barry Stewart, I think, has always been good. Playing small probably helps defend that dribble a little bit better than playing big. Then we give up some other things on the post ups and rebounds. We’ve gotten better. We’re not going to be great just because of our physicalness, or lack of physicalness I should say. We have basically one guy in our starting lineup who ways more than 180 pounds, that’s Jarvis at 203 pounds. Those other four guys are basically 180 pounds and under.
So, we’re not a very physical team, but we have to utilize our quickness the best we can and continue to develop some attitude about us defensively, some determination, some grit. That’s gotten better. It’s not where you want it to be, but it’s gotten better. That’ll be a work in progress until the end.