Nov. 29, 2007
Vanderbilt Head Coach Kevin Stallings:
Opening statement:
“This certainly wasn’t our best performance. You have to give a lot of credit to South Alabama. They’re a very good team. They’re a very well coached team. They have perimeter guys that can shoot. We knew this coming in. I don’t know what happened. It was apparent to me yesterday that, as a coaching staff, we didn’t do enough to keep them on edge. We had a great practice Tuesday. Apparently our guys are comfortable playing in a close game.”
On the practice issues:
“It was something our staff did that didn’t keep our guys on edge. I warned them that South Alabama was a good team. The bottom line is it’s our job to get our guys ready. We didn’t do our job well enough tonight. Fortunately, we get to talk about this after a win.”
On the Georgia Tech game:
“It’s disheartening that we have a game in 36 hours and I look down at the score sheet and see 42 minutes, 35 minutes. It’s not what we wanted to do tonight. I don’t think our guys will use this as an excuse, though. They’ll be as ready as they can be on Saturday.”
On Alan Metcalfe’s play:
“Alan was good for us. I felt bad for him. It was probably the first pressure free throws he’s ever shot. His play was crucial to us with [Andrew Ogilvy] getting two fouls literally in the first minute. Alan’s played well and he’s doing what he can do. That’s all we need him to do.”
Vanderbilt Players:
Forward Shan Foster:
On getting on a second half roll:
“Going into the second half we weren’t playing well at all. As a senior I kind of put it upon myself to get things going. My teammates did a great job find me for open looks, and I was able to knock down some shots.”
On the steal at the end of the half:
“They were running that isolation play a lot. I knew that he kept going back to that crossover and I was lucky to make a play.”
On how the late minutes affected the outcome:
“They had guys that played 48 and 49 minutes. I played 44 minutes tonight. With the conditioning and hard work we put it in the off-season we feel very comfortable down the stretch.”
On getting ready for Georgia Tech:
“Me as well as Alan and the rest of my teammates are going to do a good job taking care of our bodies and we are going to be ready to play on Saturday at noon.”
On the Georgia Tech game last year as a turnaround:
“Last year around this time we were struggling. We started off 1-3, and at time that last year that was a big game we won. That game gave us a great amount of confidence that we could be a great team. “
Center Alan Metcalfe:
On the Wednesday practice leading up to the game:
“Like coach said we pride ourselves on preparing for games. Yesterday we were lethargic it was represented in the way we played tonight. Its good to talk about things we did badly after win. We need to look at what we did wrong and learn from our mistakes and come back and put it right.”
On senior leadership:
“Coach talks about senior leadership, and I have that mentality as a senior that whether I come off the bench or start I am still going to do the job for the team.”
South Alabama Head Coach Ronnie Arrow:
Opening statement:
“You saw a great game. Both teams played hard and gave a good effort. We had some tough possessions towards the end and were unable to come out with the win. Hopefully, we’ll learn from this game and execute better in the future.”
On getting A.J. Ogilvy in foul trouble early in the game:
“We wanted to get the ball inside early and even more throughout the game. He had a great game overall. We have to keep working hard, get something out of this game and take it into our conference season.”
On South Alabama’s final possession in double-overtime:
“We had to make some tough decisions throughout the game and the final possession was one of them. We had to stop certain things in the game like transition and their inside high/low execution. We didn’t stop the high/lows for a while.”
On stopping Shan Foster:
“We felt like we had moments where we were able to stop him when we started sending help over towards him. However, he’s a top SEC player and was able to score. I felt if we played hard and left it out on the floor, I’d be proud of my team and I am.”
On the gameplan heading into the game:
“We wanted to stop transition buckets and control Vanderbilt’s inside play.”
On Shan Foster’s final bucket:
“We just missed a mission of what we were supposed to do defensively. They have five seniors which is a big advantage over us. We’re still learning as a group.”
