Dec. 6, 2008
Vanderbilt 51 – Georgia Tech 63
December 6, 2008 – Alexander Memorial Coliseum
Attendance: 7,219
Kevin Stallings, Vanderbilt Head Coach
Opening Comment:
“The story of the game was obvious – it was lost on the backboards for us. They completely out-athleted us and outplayed us on the backboards. You feel like it’s something, as a coach, that you can control a little bit, but we did a very poor job on the backboards today, especially in the second half. We didn’t shoot the ball, didn’t get good shots, and they defended us well. The inside guys didn’t play very well, so we were struggling offensively – our guards didn’t play very well either for that matter. But you have to give them credit – they played harder, especially on the boards.”
What kind of game plan did you have on Gani Lawal?
“We were going to double-team him when he got it. We worked hard on it and executed it pretty well, forcing him into some turnovers. We didn’t want him to beat us from the block, and I thought that we did a good job of taking him out of his rhythm early, and he never really seemed to find one.”
Were you pleased with Ogilvy today?
“If that’s how he’s going to play, it’s going to be a tough year for us.”
How much of that was what Tech did?
“They came down and covered him, but he had seven turnovers. So [their covering him] doesn’t mean that he has to turn the ball over. Neither one of our returning guys that we depend on pretty heavily had a very good week, and we are 0-2 as a result. If those guys aren’t going to play well, we are really going to struggle because they are the only form of experience that we have.”
What happened after the eight minute mark of the second half? Comment on the energy level.
“Our energy was good. Defensively, if you think that they got 18 second-chance points and only scored 63, we defended hard but we just didn’t rebound. It wasn’t a lack of energy, it was just a lack of getting done what had to be done on the backboards. We played hard, it wasn’t a case of not playing hard.”
