March 10, 2008
Audio: Listen to the entire teleconference at SECsports.com
Vanderbilt basketball head coach Kevin Stallings and Auburn head coach Jeff Lebo discussed Thursday’s matchup in the first round of the SEC Tournament with the national media during Monday’s SEC Teleconference. Find out what each coach had to say about the upcoming game.
Vanderbilt Head Coach Kevin Stallings:
Opening statement:
“This is obviously the exciting time of year. We’re looking forward to tournament play. We feel like the regular season went well. It didn’t go quite as well as we had hoped for, but we thought it went well nonetheless. We had a tough game against Auburn the first time. As everybody knows, they present matchup problems because of their size and quickness. That will be the focus of our attention for the next few days until we can play them. We’re really excited about the SEC Tournament and hopefully some tournament play beyond that.”
Keegan Bell and Andre Walker played significant minutes in place of Jermaine Beal and Alex Gordon in the second half of the game at Alabama. Do you anticipate that trend to continue into the tournament?
“I wouldn’t anticipate that. We’re 25-6 with Jermaine and Red (Alex Gordon) playing quite a few minutes. I don’t think there will be any chance that they won’t continue to play a lot of minutes.”
Who would be your choice for SEC Player of the Year and Coach of the Year?
“I would vote for Shan Foster for Player of the Year, but I couldn’t vote for him (because of SEC regulations). For Coach of the Year, I’d probably either pick Bruce (Pearl) or Billy (Gillispie). I’m sure who I would pick for the Player of the Year.”
Why do you think Shan Foster is an obvious choice?
“I think he has had a great year. I think everybody in the league knows what he can do and for that matter what he can’t do. For a guy to be able to do what he can do with what he can’t do is amazing.”
Will playing all remaining games on the road hurt Vanderbilt?
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see. It hasn’t seemed to hurt us in the past couple of NCAA tournament’s we’ve been in. For the year, we were 4-6 in away games, 2-0 on neutral courts. We were 6-6 outside of our building. In two of our league losses, one was an overtime loss; one was a double-overtime loss. I don’t know that we’ve been that bad outside of our own gym. I think that gets distorted because we were undefeated inside of it. We had three games we didn’t play very well at Tennessee, Florida, and at Mississippi, but the other games we played fine. I’m not really concerned about that. We’re 25-6. We’ve got a pretty good team.”
Is 19 home games a high number?
“I think we had four nonconference games outside of our building. That’s not a lot, but we knew we were going to have a lot of freshmen on our team this year and probably chose to play a few more games at home.”
Auburn Head Coach Jeff Lebo:
Opening statement:
“We’ve struggled shooting the basketball. We have to be able to make shots to score. I thought in our second half against Arkansas, we showed some life. Maybe we’ll get some momentum going into play against Vanderbilt.”
What do you feel Auburn can take from the first matchup against Vanderbilt?
“I think we can take out of it that we played with them at their place which is very difficult to do. We had a six point game with about two minutes to go, so we felt pretty good. Frank Tolbert was terrific that game. He scored 32 points that game. I think we go in with a little bit of confidence. We had a chance against them at their place. At least we don’t have to play them at their place.”
Who would be your choice for SEC Coach of the Year?
“I’ve already made my vote, so I would like to keep that confidential, but it’s hard to pick. The ones that come to mind were (Bruce) Pearl, Rick Stansbury, Kevin Stallings, and (Billy) Gillispie. I think Billy’s done a terrific job. Everybody’s been through a lot. It’s hard to just pick one guy.”
What are your criteria for choosing Coach of the Year?
“Everybody’s criteria may be different. Some guys decide on which team overachieved. Some guys choose based on ability to win with all the pressure on them. Some guys look at it as who is the hardest team to prepare for. It’s hard to tell what different guys choose as their own criteria.”
Who would be your choice for SEC Player of the Year?
“To pick one player is very difficult. I don’t know who everyone else chose, but Jamont Gordon and Shan Foster are two guys that come to mind. Even (Ramel) Bradley or (Joe) Crawford with all they have been through this year (could be considered candidates). When you have coaches pick it, you may have someone that gives you problems but not give as many other teams problems.”
