Nov. 16, 2008
Vanderbilt 74 – Morehead State 48
November 16, 2008 – Memorial Gymnasium
Attendance: 12,562
Kevin Stallings, Vanderbilt Head Coach
Opening statement:
“I liked our team’s effort. I thought we played really hard. To turn them over 21 times and hold them to 34% shooting, I’m pleased with that. I thought we didn’t take care of the ball in the first half. Our team’s mentality is to come out and try to win the game in the first five minutes, but it’s a 40 minute game. We need to slow down mentally.”
On the play of Vanderbilt’s bench:
“We had a number of guys play decently. I thought Andre Walker did a good job for us off the bench. I thought Brad Tinsley played well offensively.”
On slowing down play:
“When A.J. Ogilvy and Jermaine Beal combine for seven turnovers, we’re going to have a lot of turnovers. We have a lot of guys looking at them to figure out how to play college basketball. We need to slow down. I thought we were patient in the second half. We got better shots, hit a better percentage, and got to the free throw line. Everything happens if you take care of the ball and slow down the pace.”
On the team’s bench play:
“We had five guys in double figures. Jeffery Taylor misses two dunks and three free throws and he’s a good free throw shooter. We were a few normal things away from being a lot better offensively. It’s imperative that we get good play from our bench. For us to win decisively and for A.J. [Ogilvy] only to have 12 points, that’s a great sign.”
Vanderbilt Players
A.J. Ogilvy, center
On the defensive challenge that Morehead State presented:
“They had a lot of size. They tried to play physical with us and they got into foul trouble. We adjusted early on and then played pretty well.”
On another slow start:
“It’s not something that we need to worry about. The exhibition game was a first. This game was another first that we had to conquer.”
On the offensive contribution of the freshmen:
“Everyone has the ability to score. We have a great freshman class. It just depends on who is hot each night.”
On other players stepping up offensively:
“It was encouraging. We will have to work on plays in practice for these guys.”
On the defensive performance:
“We really got out on defense tonight and created some turnovers. We took pride in how we played defense, especially in the second half.”
Jeffery Taylor, guard/forward
On missing two consecutive dunks in the second half:
“I have no explanation. I have never missed two dunks back-to-back before. But, when a bad play happens, you have to let it go and continue to play hard.”
On the offensive contribution of the freshmen:
“As A.J. said, everyone can score. It just depends on who gets hot each night.”
Donnie Tyndall, Morehead State Head Coach
On what changed after the first ten minutes:
“I think that Vanderbilt is so big and so physical compared to our team. We have some nice athletes for our level but eventually their size and strength wore us down. I think we did a decent job earlier of getting the ball to post. We were able to get to the foul line a little bit, and had a couple of inside out passes where we knocked down jump shots. But eventually they kept us catching the ball at fourteen to sixteen feet rather than eight to ten feet like we were early in the game. That’s a tribute to their defense, and their size and strength. As the game went along you could tell that we weren’t quite as aggressive off the dribble; we looked a little bit tired and fatigued. They have a very good team and they’re very well coached.”
On getting what he wanted out of the game:
“Certainly we would have liked to have made it a little more competitive, and the goal of any game is to win the game, but I think we showed some progress from Friday night in some areas. The ball went to the post, which is the strength of our team. A big emphasis of what we do is throw the ball to the post and hopefully guys like Leon Buchanan or Kenneth Faried can score the basketball or draw double teams and give the perimeter players better position. We had a lot of post touches tonight. We didn’t convert the ball around the rim like we would have hoped, but we were able to execute some of our set plays more efficiently, which was progress from Friday night. Defensively we played a good deal of zone tonight and we made progress with our slides and rotations in our zones. We’ll be able to watch and learn from our performance.”
On the size of their players:
“We talked in the pregame about getting guys to face up off the post and drive Ogilvy and Ezeli to the rim, and we did that earlier with some effectiveness. But as the game went on we were trying to drive it from farther away. We got sloppy and turned it over some in those situations. Their size wore us down. Our front line is a strength of our team, but we don’t have a very deep front line. It could have been a tied game at the half but instead we were down.”
