Feb. 20, 2016
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Vanderbilt-Georgia Quotes
Vanderbilt 80, Georgia 67
Vanderbilt Head Coach Kevin Stallings
Opening Comments:
“We had guys give us some really good effort. I’m really proud of our guys. The difference in the game versus Tuesday [at Mississippi State] was when the game got tight, we had guys step up and make plays. They played aggressively. We got big buckets from people other than Wade [Baldwin] and Damian [Jones]. Those guys gave us baskets too, but there were others today. Matt [Fisher-Davis] made a couple huge shots for us. Cam [Justice] made a couple huge shots for us. It was more of a team effort once Georgia cut the lead to four.”
“Damian [Jones] was fantastic on the boards. I thought that made a huge difference for us. Georgia is a great rebounding team. For us to out-rebound them was big.”
On Vanderbilt Center Damian Jones’ Emotions:
“If [he gives us] positive emotion, it’ll translate to good play. He played tough today. That’s a difference-maker for our team, when he plays with physicality and toughness.”
On Georgia’s Offense:
“They have four guys who are averaging double-figures. [Yante] Maten had 19, but when I look down and see he took 21 shots, I think we did a good job on him… We had guys step up and make plays. That’s what it came down to.”
On Vanderbilt’s Bench:
“We’re trying to find consistency off the bench. I thought today was a better match-up for Joe [Toye]. Then, Georgia went zone. Cam [Justice] is a better zone player, so that was the reason we went to him.”
“Our bench will have to contribute in order to earn minutes. I’m not just going to play someone because they have a uniform. If that means I have to play our starters more minutes to affect the outcome of the game, I’ll do that.”
On Vanderbilt’s Freshmen:
“They are certainly better now than they were a month ago in terms of understanding.”
On Only Committing Five Turnovers:
“Georgia and we play a similar style on defense. Neither of our defenses is looking to turn people over. We’re not trying to take it from them. We’re trying to defend shots.”
On Closing Out Games:
“We had a conversation centered on the fact that if you’re in games, it’s your responsibility to affect the outcome. At Mississippi State, down the stretch, we had two guys affecting the outcome and three guys spectating… Maybe that was a lesson learned. Everyone has to try to affect the outcome of the game.”
Junior Center Damian Jones
On his emotion during the game:
“It was something during the game that got me going. I was having fun.”
On making big plays:
“It feels good, and you get excited, and the team gets excited with you.”
On having a good rebounding game:
“I just came out with high energy on the boards offensively and defensively. You just let everything come to you and it falls into place.”
On responding to Derek Ogbeide after the first half:
“Coach talked about him, and we had it in our minds to play better defense.”
Sophomore Guard Matthew Fisher-Davis
On his lob to Luke Kornet:
“I didn’t really come off hard. I probably would have had the shot if I had come off harder, but I saw Luke cutting to the basket on the weak side and I threw it up, and he’s 7’1″, so he got to it.”
On slowing Georgia’s Momentum:
“It felt good to do something positive for the team.”
On the difference between the Mississippi State game and tonight:
“Tonight felt a little different. We put our foot down. We are tired of teams coming back on us, so nobody got rattled and we locked in on the defensive game.”
On Damian’s emotions tonight:
“I didn’t really notice his emotions, I was noticing his 16 rebounds more than anything else. He’s more emotional than you guys think at times.
Georgia head coach Mark Fox
On subbing early in the game:
“We wanted our team to be fresh, we thought it was very hot in the gym and we wanted to kind of keep our team as fresh as we could. I thought Derek had some fatigue so we took him out a couple times.”
On going away from feeding Derek in the second half:
“You know they obviously, they just guarded him better you know in the second half. There were several times we ran some things for him in the second half we just couldn’t get him the ball. You know, they knew he was scoring too so I thought that they did a better job guarding Derek in the second half.”
On concern with substitution pattern disrupting their flow:
“No. Plus I was looking for just a little better competitive spirit to start the game.”
On the run in the second half that closed the gap and the last step that was needed:
“Well, we took a bad shot that led to a three for them and that was a crippling play in the game. But, we didn’t finish at a rate offensively that we needed to finish with, and I wasn’t pleased with how we started the game from a competitive nature standpoint. But at the end of the day we just, they shot a better percentage than we did.
On Kornet’s length on defense:
“I think that they have a good defensive team. I think that they have a very well coached team. Certainly their length inside is an advantage for them defensively. They had great defensive numbers so we can criticize our offense all we want but we played against a great defensive team. They’re as high in the national rankings as we are, and tonight their defense was effective.”
On defensive issues they faced:
“Well they got to 80 because we fouled them late. But you know it’s a great shooting team, they have a terrific low post presence, probably offensively one of the most talented teams that we’ll play all year.”
On benching guards in the first half:
“Well they didn’t play terrific today. They, you know, we need those guys to play better and they combined for ten points, and we’ve been getting twenty-twenty five out of them for the last couple of years and we’ve got to get them to be a little bit more productive than they were today.”
Georgia guard JJ Frazier
On guarding Baldwin:
“He’s a good player, he has a good dynamic to his game. You can’t really guard anyone one-on-one, it takes a team defensive game, but he’s a good player.”
Georgia center Derek Ogbeide
On play in the 2nd half:
“It got a lot harder to score, I had to work a lot harder to create more positions, more opportunities for myself and most of the time I couldn’t come through with it and finish up.