Dec. 3, 2008
Vanderbilt 55 – Illinois-Chicago 74
December 3, 2008 – Memorial Gym
Attendance: 13,214
Kevin Stallings, Vanderbilt Head Coach
Opening Comments:
“We were severely outplayed, outfought, and out-hustled tonight. It was a very disappointing and embarrassing performance.”
On UIC’s Josh Mayo:
“He hasn’t done that against anyone else. He’s a good player. We had too many breakdowns. Maybe our players thought this would be an easy game despite my urgings and telling them it would be a difficult one. That’s what happens when you aren’t fully focused.”
On Whether There Was Any Carryover from Cancun:
“We haven’t played like that in any other game, but we’re not going to use it as an excuse. We play them as they come up on the schedule.”
On Whether Stallings Felt Like the Game was in Hand When the Score Was 18-18:
“I never felt like we were in control. We had too many bad offensive possessions. We had too many breakdowns defensively. It was only a matter of time until they pulled away from us. Despite my pleading, we where nowhere to be found tonight and that’s unfortunate.”
Vanderbilt Players
A.J. Ogilvy, center
On Vanderbilt’s performance:
“It was a combination of our lack of shooting and their great defense. We didn’t have the defensive effort required to keep their score to a minimum. We just didn’t play well enough to win. That’s what it comes down to.”
On preparation before the game:
“We might not have looked ahead enough. It’s a hard lesson to learn, and probably one that we should have learned earlier in the season: that you can’t look past any team. Especially a team like [UIC] that has great players that come in and do well.”
Jeffery Taylor, guard/forward
On Vanderbilt’s second half run:
“There were 7 or 8 minutes left and it was down to a 12-point lead, and I think we started to feel good about ourselves. Then they made a couple of 3s and they brought it back up to a 19-point lead, and the game got carried off from there.”
On UIC’s many 3-pointers:
“It was rough, but we had to keep on fighting and trying to score.”
Jimmy Collins, Illinois-Chicago Head Coach
Opening Statement:
“I think it’s pretty obvious this is a great win for our program and for our university. It’s also a great win for our conference. There has been a lot said about the conference not being a conference that was competitive and I think tonight showed that the conference is a very competitive conference. We understand we caught Vandy at a time where they just got back off the road and we know that probably the last thing they were thinking about was preparing for us. It was nice to catch them at this time. It’s good for us and not so good for them.”
On Josh Mayo:
“Mayo can shoot the ball. Last year, Mayo finished fourth in the country for 3-point shooting. Everybody talks about the guys who are shooting from the main conferences and they just overlook Josh Mayo. Everybody saw in this building that he’s a tremendous player as well as a tremendous shooter. Robo Kreps is also a really good shooter. We had an extremely good shooting night and I’m blessed to have those guys.”
On Scott VanderMeer:
“He had four blocks. That’s about his average. He did a lot of other things. He had 11 rebounds. He caused a lot of other shots to be missed. I’m grateful for the performance he and Rob Eppinger put forth tonight as well as Spencer Stewart, who maybe didn’t look like he was doing a great job, but ended up with seven assists.”
On the win:
“Our players and our coaching staff certainly know what we just did, coming into Nashville and beating an SEC team like Vanderbilt. I know Kevin very well and I know he does a great job coaching them. He has some really, really good athletes. Our guys can build off of that. Their confidence level should go up from this victory.”
