Feb. 9, 2009
Audio: Listen to the entire teleconference at SECsports.com
Vanderbilt basketball head coach Kevin Stallings and Tennessee associate head coach Tony Jones fielded questions about their matchups this week with the national media during Monday’s SEC Teleconference. Find out what each coach had to say about the matchup.
Kevin Stallings, Vanderbilt head coach
Opening comments:
We’re coming off certainly our best week thus far in league play. Going back to last Saturday, we were able to win three games in an eight day span. We probably played our best basketball of the season during that time. We’re playing better. We’re getting better, which has been our goal all along. I feel good about our team right now, and feel good about the direction we’re heading. So, hopefully we can utilize this week to get healthy and also get better at some things in preparation for what will be a very difficult game next weekend.
Given your current winning streak, is this a good time for the team to have a break?
I suppose that I might rather be playing, but there’s nothing we can do about it. The schedule is what it is. We’ll just try to take advantage of it. We have to do our best to take advantage of this week and get better. Whatever changes we might be making or modifications that we might be making for the remainder of the season probably have to be made during this week, because this will be the last time we have any significant practice time before our season ends.
Is the inconsistency the team has experienced attributable to the youth of the team?
I think that you would anticipate some inconsistency. You don’t want it and you don’t want to really tolerate it, but I think there’s an expectation that things are going to be a little bit up and down. Obviously that’s been the case for us. We’ve had some really good moments and some not so good ones. I think another thing that would hopefully be expected is we’ve gotten a little better as the season’s gone along. That’s our main goal, is to become as good as we can become by season’s end.
How tough is it to win on the road in the SEC, and what are the factors that go into that?
I think it’s very difficult to win on the road. I think if you’re going to go in and win in particularly the tough environments of this league you’re going to have to be very sound defensively. You’re going to have to rebound the basketball very well. You’re going to have to take care of the basketball, because turnovers, especially on the road, tend to turn into points. Most of your road wins are going to be close games, so you’re going to have to make some free throws and do a good job at the foul line to get some road wins. Those would be three or four things that I would say are usually key, because a lot of times when you lose on the road you can point to those areas and say, “OK, we let down here or there.”
What has the team done better during the current winning streak?
We’re scoring a little bit better. We’re just playing better offensively, I think. We’ve shot the ball better, and we’ve shot it well from the perimeter. We have not shot it well from the foul line, ironically. I just think our offensive is functioning a little bit better than it was earlier in the season. Defensively, we’re beginning to have stretches again where we’re pretty solid defensively, not necessarily for an entire game, but we’re having stretches where we seem to be pretty effective defensively. Our rebounding has been solid, not spectacular, but it’s been solid. I just think we’re getting better in all three major areas than maybe we were at the beginning of the conference season or shortly after the conference season began.
How much do coaches use what has worked against a particular team in their own game plan?
I think that some coaches are more prone to that than others. Some coaches will see a set that works against a particular team’s defense, and if they have time they might add it. I think you have other guys who run what they run and spend a lot of time being good at what they do and don’t do that as much. So, I think it varies from coach to coach.
Tony Jones, Tennessee associate head coach
What is your approach when the team is going through a tough stretch?
It’s been a difficult year. We’ve gone through every approach – the positive approach, the get into them (approach), to having a mixture to sandwich everything together. The players are just going to have to go out there and perform.
We got outrebounded in our last game against Auburn, which was very disappointing. It just seemed like Auburn wanted it a little bit more than we did, but before that we played a great game at Arkansas and won at a tough arena. Obviously, Arkansas is struggling a little bit, but they did beat Oklahoma in Fayetteville (Ark.). They beat Texas in Fayetteville. So, that’s a good win to piggy back from the Florida win.
We thought we had turned the corner by winning two in a row, and then we let one slip by. So, we have to refocus, get ready for this home stand against Georgia and Vanderbilt, and hope that we can hold serve and stay in contention to defend our SEC championship.
Can you talk about the importance of having two home games this week?
Very important, even though we’ve played very well on the road, prior to the Auburn loss we were 3-0 on the road and now we’re 3-1. I believe we’re 2-2 at home. But, they are very important games to get our crowd involved. We’re third nationally in attendance behind Kentucky and North Carolina, averaging 20,000 fans a game. Our players are inspired by our crowd, and hopefully we can get our students cheerfully involved in this thing and we can get back on the winning trail.