March 5, 2009
Audio: Listen to the entire teleconference at SECsports.com
Vanderbilt basketball head coach Kevin Stallings and Arkansas head coach John Pelphrey fielded questions about their matchup Sunday 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
Opening comments:
We’re feeling a little better about ourselves right now. We had a very good win last night at LSU, a game in which our team played extremely well in and had to play extremely well in. I’m very, very proud of our players to be able go in there and win on senior night. Hopefully, we’re accomplishing an objective that we’ve had all season long and that was to be playing our best basketball of the season as we got to the end of the season.
Arkansas has been a very difficult team for us to play against. They, like us, have had a lot of turnover, but nevertheless, we know they’re a very talented team and like us very young. So, we look forward to the game, and we’ll see what happens.
Are the results from the past two games indicative of the growing pains earlier in the season finally paying off?
I would say probably. I think we’re starting to find our way offensively a little bit. I’m cautious about saying that, because you just have to go back three and four games ago and we had tremendous droughts at the beginning of each game. We’re playing with more freedom and more aggression. Obviously, when A.J. Ogilvy plays the way he’s played in the last two games it becomes a whole different situation for us. I really think he’s feeling much better health-wise, and he’s just been outstanding the last two games.
I think some of those growing pains are paying off, and some of our freshmen are starting to play much better.
Do you feel like the team should be in the discussion for postseason play with your recent success?
I’m not going to campaign. The (NCAA Tournament selection) committee has a hard job. I would say at this juncture we’re still very much on the outside looking in. We’ll see what happens. We’ll do the best we can on Sunday, and then turn our focus to the conference tournament. We’ll do the best we can with that, and then if we get invited to play some more basketball someplace then we’ll go from there.
What impact does not having any scholarship seniors have on a team, and is that a trend that coaches are going to have to live with?
I don’t think it’s a trend that anyone has to live with. I think it’s a circumstance you get into particularly at our place, because if you have a year like we did early on when I got here to where there weren’t any seniors, we’re obviously not going to go our and recruit junior college players to come in. So, you can get out of balance with your classes if, I don’t want to say careful because you can still be careful and get out of balance with them. That’s what’s happened with us. We just have a very large freshmen class.
I think the impact it has… you look at LSU. They’ve been the best team in the league. I don’t think it’s any secret. They have five seniors and a fourth-year junior in your top seven guys. Experience really, really matters. We were good a year ago. We started three seniors, and that’s very impactful. It’s not totally on seniors, but if you have them, and they’re good seniors and they’re having good years, it makes all the difference in the world.
Do you see teams struggling with their bench system?
I think we certainly have a home court advantage. I don’t know how it’s going to impact their (Arkansas’) team. It might be an advantage for them. Who knows? I think at the end of the day your players have to make plays and have to play good basketball. They have a terrific point guard, and generally teams that have great point guards don’t worry about where their benches are. They generally function pretty well.
What do you remember from your second year of coaching at Vanderbilt?
Very much like John Pelphrey (Arkansas head coach) has faced, we had not a large senior group but a very good senior group the first year I was here. We had three seniors who were all very, very good players and good kids. We lost those guys, and that’s when we had to go out and recruit a big group of freshmen. So, we went from being a pretty experienced team to being a very young team. I just think that in this league youth is tough. It’s tough to have a young basketball team.
I think anybody would have said that Arkansas was going to take a little bit of a step back this year, but then they tricked us all by beating Oklahoma and Texas. I think everybody was looking around and saying how did that happen. But, when you get into the grind of conference play it’s very difficult for freshmen. I don’t care how talented the freshmen are. Arkansas, like us, has some very talented freshmen, but it’s still very difficult to maintain any consistency with a group that’s that young. I think that’s what’s happened. They’ve gone from a team that had, I think, six seniors to a team that doesn’t have any. That’s not hard to do the math on that one. That’s going to be a very difficult situation.
Besides getting healthy, is there anything else Ogilvy or the team is doing to spur his improved play?
I think we’ve probably spread our offense out a little bit more. When I say that I think we’re putting him outside more than we were earlier in the year. Last night, he was terrific off the dribble taking people to the basket.
Three or four weeks ago, he and I sat in my office and watched tape of him from last year on different ways that he was scoring. I think he had settled in to thinking that he needed to score all inside for us. We started moving him around a little bit more, and I think he’s experiencing the fruits of that right now.
He’s just been on a two-game tear. Like I said, I think his health has been the biggest thing. Confidence is certainly a big thing, but maybe we’re moving him around a little bit making him a little harder to find and maybe that’s helping him too.
Can you elaborate on how Ogilvy playing well brings the team into a whole new situation?
He makes other guys better. He was so dominant in the game last night, when he started forcing double teams other guys started having wide open shots because of it. It’s so important to have a guy on your team who can command the attention of more than one defender. Different guys do it different ways. If you have a penetrating Nick Calathes/Devan Downey/Courtney Fortson, those guys because of their ball skills require the attention of more than one guy. For us, that guy needs to be a post guy who can draw the attention of more than one guy, because then it just makes offense for everybody easier. At this juncture in the season, everybody knows your plays. Everybody knows what kind of set you run and things like that. There are no secrets at this juncture.
John Pelphrey, Arkansas head coach
General statement:
I think when you talk about Vanderbilt they have a great coach. Coach Stallings has done a tremendous, tremendous job. I think Vanderbilt is as physical and athletic as any team in our league. Obviously, Ogilvy is playing some of his best basketball of his career right now, and certainly a huge, huge challenge for our front court. I’ve been incredibly impressed with Jermaine Beal. I think he’s really developed into one of the premier point guards in our league. He can score. He can defend. He certainly gets everybody involved as well. I just think from a defensive side of it Vanderbilt is athletic, physical and they have a shot blocking presence.