Jan. 31, 2009
Vanderbilt 82 – Auburn 75
January 31, 2009 – Auburn, Ala.
Attendance: 6,896
Kevin Stallings, Vanderbilt Head Coach
On overall performance…
“I was very proud of our team. I told them after the game that if you stay together and stay positive, then you’re going to come out of the low points and the slums. They haven’t taken a day off and they’ve had the right attitude. We knew this day would come, but we didn’t know when. We knew that we would come out with a better performance because of how hard we played today.”
On starting the game in a zone defense…
“I thought that they were going to shoot threes no matter what defense you play. In my opinion, it’s more difficult for us to defend them when you’re in man defense and their penetration starts to create openings for them to shoot or to drive the ball. They are so fast that they can get you on the run and kick it out and really hurt you. When we were in the zone, they penetrated and they hurt us, but we felt like it was the better way to play for most of the day.”
On changes made at halftime…
“We talked about finishing the half strong, especially the last 3:29, and they made a run with some threes. They’re going to make some shots, but if we make our free-throw consistently, then we shouldn’t be sweating at the end. Some guys, who are average free-throw shooters, missed some, but the others who shoot well also missed their shots. However, after they missed their free-throws, they came back and made some big plays to keep us in the game.”
On Jermaine Beal’s seven three-point shots…
“He was great and he deserved that.”
Vanderbilt Players
Jermaine Beal, guard
Thoughts on team’s performance…
“I feel like our team came out, played hard and played together. We came out with a win today.”
Thoughts on his performance (7-of- 8 from three)…
“It was just one of those games where I made a couple of shots and I just kept shooting it. It felt good, so it went down and I just kept shooting it.”
What improvements need to be made…
“Every game we want to get better anyway, so hopefully, next game we can improve on making our free throws.”
Jeff Lebo, Auburn Head Coach
Opening Statement…
“Vanderbilt was very sharp offensively this game. They made shots; they came in struggling to shoot the ball. [A.J.] Ogilvy had been unhealthy and sick, so he was obviously better and that was a big factor in the game. Jermaine Beal was tremendous; he was coming into the game 6-26 in SEC play and just made seven-of-eight today and three crucial ones. It was second half when we made the run, but offensively I thought they were very good today.”
On DeWayne Reed’s absence in the game…
“DeWayne Reed was late. That was our leading scorer, so we played Quantez Robertson at the plate the whole game; 37 minutes for Robertson. It messes up your rotations when you don’t play, because you are used to having them out there. It is a heck of a lesson to learn for our team, no doubt about that. Rasheem Barrett, offensively, was unbelievable today. I didn’t know if he was going to be able to play second half, because his groin has been acting up again– so we gutted it out.”
On any further disciplinary action for Reed…
“No, not unless he is late again.”
Auburn Players
Rasheem Barrett, guard
On this being your best offensive game…
“I believe this is one of my better offensive games. I think I had one my freshman year, if I can think back that far, it was similar to today’s performance.”
On getting so many touches…
“It was definitely not the game plan to get so many touches today. I just came out and was feeling it and seemed like every time I shot, it went in. It was a pretty good day.”
On not winning after having a great individual performance…
“It is very disappointing that we couldn’t finish with the win. Vanderbilt has knocked us out of the SEC tournament twice. They kept us last year at their house; it was almost like a personal game for me, myself and the other seniors. We tried to come out and play with high intensity, but Vanderbilt played a really good game. I can’t take anything away from their performance.”
On DeWayne Reed’s absence…
“I didn’t know that he wasn’t going to play until right before we ran out of the tunnel. I haven’t talked to him about it yet, but he is like my younger brother and I am going to talk to him about it and get onto him about it. There are certain things that you can’t do when you are part of a team; you may look at yourself saying `Oh well,’ but when your on a team he has to realize that everything that you do, good or bad, reflects the whole team and it hurts the whole team.”
On respecting Coach Lebo’s decision to bench DeWayne Reed in a big game…
“He is our coach and we have follow him and not go against what he says.”
On Vanderbilt’s Jermaine Beal’s performance…
“He played a real great game. He knows how to move the ball and he wanted it as bad as we did. We had a couple of conversations on the court going back and forth when we were making shots. He just played a great game.”