Dec. 1, 2010
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 
Vanderbilt vs Western Kentucky
December 1, 2010
Memorial Gymnasium
Vanderbilt Head Coach Kevin Stallings
“The story was our defense in the first half. We shut them down at every turn and we weren’t that good offensively. Twenty-three turnovers is ridiculous. But, we were really good defensively – especially in the first half – and we made some shots. We got a lot of contributions from a lot of people. Our bench was productive.”
On Vanderbilt’s Last Two Games:
“I feel good that we won the two games. Both teams [we played] will be effective in their leagues. I still don’t care for how we played offensively. I didn’t like the lack of patience, the lack of screening, and the lack of things we practice.”
On Vanderbilt Center Festus Ezeli:
“I thought he was okay, which means he’s gotten a lot better. There were two or three balls he should have blocked and there were about five he should have rebounded… He’s a lot better than he played tonight.”
On Vanderbilt Forward Andre Walker:
“He’s steady. That’s why he plays. He does a lot of things right and we can count on him. A lot of times, I don’t want to take him out, but I need to.”
On Vanderbilt Forward Jeffery Taylor:
“His shot has improved so much… I thought he played good defense on [Western Kentucky Forward Sergio Kerusch] and was really active on the boards – he had six rebounds in the second half. Jeff was fine, but he beats himself up and needs to stop that.”
Vanderbilt Player Quotes
John Jenkins
On the offense…
“We put so much work into it in practice, about moving and setting screens and making great cuts. I think in the game we were kind of tentative and started thinking too much about our thing and needed to do a better job about just going out there and just doing what we do in practice.”
On Western Kentucky’s second half run…
“Any team that has any heart is going to do that and they had a lot of heart so we knew that was coming. We knew the press was coming. We knew all that was coming. We just had to execute offense. That’s what we did.”
Festus Ezeli
On his play…
“I only had 3 rebounds. I had 0 the second half. Coach made sure to let me know after the game. I need to do better. I definitely need to do better especially in that because that’s what I bring to the team is rebounds and defense. I’ll be better next game.”
On Vanderbilt’s size advantage…
“We knew coming in that our size was going to play some part in our defense and trying to take over the game so we just tried to use that to our advantage.”
Western Kentucky Player Quotes
#2 Juan Patillo
On the game overall:
“Looking back on it, I don’t think we can take too much positive from it. We prepared hard the last couple of days, and we really didn’t come out with any pride or sense of urgency. No energy. Our effort was terrible. We didn’t compete tonight.”
On the early turnovers:
“We turned the ball over a lot, which led to a couple of guys putting their heads down. We didn’t recover because we didn’t want it bad enough. They wanted it more than us. My hat’s off to those guys. They played hard and won the game.”
On the loss:
“It was disappointing, really disappointing. I’m disappointed in myself, the team. We didn’t want it bad enough. Guys were fighting. I don’t even know if we wanted to win tonight. Vanderbilt played hard. They played together. We didn’t play together.”
#1 Sergio Kerusch
On the early troubles:
“First few minutes, we got down, and we hung our heads. In a basketball game, when you make a few mistakes, you can’t afford to hang your head. I think that trickled over and had enough effect throughout the whole game. Guys got down because we had a few early turnovers, and it carried out through the whole thing.”
On the team’s overall play:
“The word was toughness, and they out toughed us. They were four strong on rebounds, diving for balls, pushing people out of the way. We had very little intensity and effort. We didn’t really dive for the balls, or give our bodies up.”
On the positive results early in the second half:
“It was a little change. Coming out, we were upping the momentum, and after a few more turnovers the heads went right back down. It’s a learning experience. In the game of basketball it is anybody’s night on any given day.”