Vanderbilt-Davidson quotes

Jan. 2, 2011

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Vanderbilt vs Davidson Player Quotes
January 2, 2011
Memorial Gymnasium

Vanderbilt Head Coach Kevin Stallings

Opening Remarks:
“I was very surprised at that. We caught [Davidson] on an off day. We’ve seen a lot of them… They’re a much better team than they showed today. We guarded hard in the first half and we did a good job of moving the ball and taking care of it.”

On the Early Lead:
“Nobody has gotten away from them all season long. I was the most surprised person in the gym when the first half ended. Davidson is a much better team than they played like today.”

On John Jenkins’ Concussion:
“He left his feet [in practice] on a shot fake and a guy just jumped into him. [It was probably a] shoulder hit.”

On Jenkins’ Timeline to Return:
“My best guess is John will be okay [for South Carolina on Saturday], but Andre [Walker] may be a while. I hope we don’t have to go to South Carolina two men down. If we do, we’ll just play as well as we can. Injuries are part of the game. Sickness is part of the game. I was very concerned about this game because we were shy two guys. That’s a big percentage, but we’ve been able to overcome it so far.”

On Vanderbilt’s Injuries:
“We would like to be at full strength and that’s part of it. The guys want to be out there. It’ll be good to get everyone back.”

Davidson Head Coach Bob McKillop

Opening Statements:
“Vanderbilt is quite a team. They are talented athletes. They are disciplined and understand the offensive and defensive court. Hats off to Vanderbilt. Their play without [John] Jenkins and [Andre] Walker was very impressive. I don’t think we responded to the adversity we faced well… We’ve played a challenging schedule and I thought we should be better able to respond to them than we did today. It was very uncharacteristic [of our team].”

On Vanderbilt Guard Brad Tinsley:
“He is quite efficient. For a team with the kind of athletic talent [Vanderbilt has], he’s the perfect point guard for them. He’s highly efficient.”

On Davidson Guard Chris Czerapowicz’s Performance:
“Chris was out the first semester. He had hip surgery in October. I believe he played with Jeffery [Taylor] back in Sweden. He played very well tonight.”

On Davidson Forward Jake Cohen:
“Jake has been absolutely sensational the last seven games. He struggled tonight. He missed a couple of shots early. This is a game of rhythm and we didn’t have it tonight.”

Vanderbilt forward Jeffery Taylor

On playing without John Jenkins and Andre Walker…
“When anybody goes down, we have to come together as a team. I didn’t really go out there trying to do anything out of the ordinary. I was just trying to be myself, and that’s just to play aggressive and take what the defense gives me. I was fortunate enough to make a lot of my shots. “

On getting out to a good start in the first half…
“We just played really well on defense, it led to a lot of fast break opportunities for us and we converted on most of them with either layups or free throws. The key to the game was our defense and not letting them get easy baskets, and making them take contested shots and rebounding.”

On having players step into different roles…
“We have a lot of versatile players. Players that can do a lot of things on the court. It creates a lot of match up problems and a lot of trouble for people. We take advantage of that and when guys go down, we have to use all of those parts a little differently than we usually do, but it works well for us.”

On scoring 1,000 career points…
“It’s an accomplishment. It’s nothing that I’ll think about too much after this, but it’s something to think about tonight, but after that its just business as usual.”

Vanderbilt guard Brad Tinsley

On the frustration of having players injured…
“It’s pretty frustrating knowing we haven’t had a full team in a while. But we know that whenever a guy goes down, especially two of our key guys, everyone has to step up even more and I thought everyone did that today.”

On Davidson head coach Bob McKillop saying he played “like a perfect point guard” tonight…
“I wouldn’t say I’m the perfect point guard, but this team is great in the open field, great at knocking down shots, so it’s easy for the point guard just to run the break and have someone like Jeff (Taylor) or Lance (Goulbourne) on the perimeter to just go up there and dunk it. When guys hit shots on the perimeter, you just have to give them the ball and know when to give it to them. If they knock down shots it makes it easier.”

On getting into conference play…
“We are definitely ready. I thought we had a very good pre-season, we played well. Had some tough games and now I think a lot of us are ready for things to step up even more. Things get more intense and more focused. We just need to have a good week of practice this week and then go down to Columbia and hopefully get things done.”