Jan. 20, 2009
Audio: Listen to the entire teleconference at SECsports.com
Vanderbilt basketball head coach Kevin Stallings and Tennessee head coach Bruce Pearl fielded questions about their head-to-head matchup on Tuesday with the national media during Monday’s SEC Teleconference. Find out what each coach had to say about the matchup.
Kevin Stallings, Vanderbilt Head Coach
… get you disadvantaged on the defensive end in so many different ways. I know people have harped about them defensively, but I think they’re very capable of throwing a blanket on you defensively. So, I think they’re a very good team, perhaps the best team in our league.
How do you expect the fact that Tennessee has slid in the national rankings and VU is unranked will affect the atmosphere of the game?
I don’t think that it will affect anything about the game. I think that our place will be loud and hostile, as it always is when they come. I think that they have a very, very good team whether they’re ranked or not. People are going crazy. They lose to Gonzaga and Kentucky. I mean come on… people can say what they want to, but those are two of the best teams in the country right now.
Tennessee will be ranked when the season ends. Again, that matters a lot more than them right now. I don’t think they’re will be any noticeable differences in the game. Certainly there was an edge to last year’s game with them being ranked No. 1, but I don’t think that you’ll detect a lot of difference from last year.
Do you perceive a home-court advantage when you’re at Memorial Gym, particularly from a shooting standpoint?
I think there is certainly a home-court advantage. We have one of the more difficult places to play if you’re a road team – I don’t know that I think it necessarily from a shooting standpoint. I just think that we have a great crowd, and a place that can be very difficult because of its set up and the challenge of communicating when you’re not used to it. I think that that probably provides some advantage for us.
What do you think the impact of having Meeks, Patterson, Mitchell and Barber back in the league will have? What does it mean to teams to get better players back from injury who’ve missed a lot of time the year before?
I think it’s huge, and I think that a lot of times what happens with a veteran player is there able to sit over there and learn and probably get closer to the coaches and get closer to what the coaches are thinking. That helps their maturation as a player. But, I also think that it gives them some perspective when they see guys making mistakes and they see the game unfold and they see it from a different perspective than they’re accustomed to seeing it. I just think that it can help if they can handle it the right way. I think it can really help in the development of or in the process of their development as a player.
You said at the beginning that you wanted your guys to play smarter hopefully by tomorrow. How would you like to see them play smarter?
We took a number of bad shots in the Mississippi State game. We had a number of turnovers that just kind of made you raise your eyebrows like, “What was that?”. We had some defensive breakdowns in the second half that we don’t seem to have that often. And then, we had some fouls that put us in a jam because we had key guys fouling unnecessarily, because they were either undisciplined or out of control or whatever. Things like that, just little things that tend to drive coaches crazy.
What the secret to Vanderbilt being one of the better free-throw shooting teams?
I haven’t had to talk about it much because, knock on wood, we’ve been as you mentioned fairly solid. Generally, we have pretty good shooters. We’re fortunate that, for instance this year that two of the three guys who have shot the most free throws for us – Jermaine Beal and A.J. Ogilvy – are both very good foul shooters. I think that’s part of it.
We have our own little routine that we kind of adhere to on a daily basis, and we think that it works for us. We don’t talk about it much, but I’m not above saying something if guys start to miss. I’m not particularly tolerant of guys who don’t make free throws.
Now, I don’t have to say too much, and I don’t say things very often. But, for a guy to walk up to the line and miss two free throws, it’s like they’re turnovers. So, you need to be able to make them.
Bruce Pearl, Tennessee Head Coach
Opening comments about game with Vanderbilt:It’s always a huge matchup. They’re in-state rivals. It’s a very tough place to play. Vanderbilt doesn’t lose, pretty much, in the SEC at home. We’ve always gone up there and played competitively. It should be a terrific matchup. Vanderbilt plays some of the best defense in the country. Although they’re a young basketball team, they’re a more athletic team and a deep team. Coach Stallings has done a terrific job with them.
… a team that is a little bit younger. Does that make it more difficult to play in Memorial Gym?
Yeah, probably, having not gone through it before. I just think at this point our inexperience in the backcourt is done. We’re done with that now. Having gone through half a season, I think, and having been to the places that we’ve been to on the road, youth and inexperience shouldn’t be much of a factor. We’ve been there and done that at this point. I’m hoping that we’ll play accordingly.
Talk about how different this Vanderbilt team is than a year ago.
Well, last year they were one of the better 3-point shooting teams in the country. Since I’ve been here, they’ve always had a big man who could step out and shoot the ball, and obviously Shan Foster and Alex Gordon. Like Tennessee, they don’t nearly have the 3-point weaponry that they have in the past. That closes the lane down a little bit for Ogilvy.
But, they’re a more athletic team. They’re terrific in transition. Because they’re more athletic, they’re playing better defense. They’re more physical. I think they’re playing extremely well together as a team. Better defensively, maybe not with the firepower offensively.
How do you expect the fact that Tennessee has slid in the national rankings and VU is unranked will affect the atmosphere of the game?
I don’t think it’ll make any difference. It’s still a huge matchup for two teams that are trying to put themselves in position to finish high enough in the SEC that get an NCAA Tournament bids. Florida and Kentucky are both undefeated, and both live in our division. So, it’s a big game, but it’s always a big game.
It has as much meaning. Will it have as much pageantry off the floor? Maybe not, but I don’t know. I think every time we’ve been up there the gym has been packed. It’s been hot, and it’s been very, very intense.
How important is free-throw shooting to any successful team?
It’s huge. If you look at the margin of victory, it’s up two, four, six. You certainly can count those up at the foul line. How big did it play in the National Championship game a year ago? Free-throw shooting is crucial.
Auburn beats Florida at home if they shoot it from the foul line. Late in the game against South Carolina we missed some free throws to lose a very big lead and put ourselves in position where South Carolina has a chance to win that game. Free-throw shooting is crucial. The key is getting the right guys to the line at the right time. I do think that confidence, experience, routine, all of that stuff is so very, very important to be a good free-throw shooting team.
It’s interesting that some coaches are reluctant to talk about free-throw shooting like it’ll bring a jinx. What do you think it brings that?
I think because it’s such a mental procedure. In the gym, 20,000 people are either quiet or screaming. It’s just you, the ball and 15 feet away from a make or a miss, and with all that at stake. When you’re making a post move or shooting a 3-ball or you’re playing defense, you’re body is moving and you’re reacting and you’re not thinking at all that often about the outcome. On a free throw, you give some thought to the end result if it’s in or not. That’s where you need to trust you’re routine.
I think guys who are in the gym a little bit before practice and stay around a little bit after practice, the guys who have paid the price, the guys who feel like that ball deserves to go in are usually the ones who make those shots. I’m not saying that guys who miss free throws don’t get in the gym. I know Cameron Tatum and I talked about it. Cameron’s in the gym as much as anybody shooting free throws, and he missed two front-ends (free throws) against South Carolina late in the game. But, I think his missing those two are going to help him the next time he goes back to that line in a sense that whatever mistakes he made in his own mind in preparation for that free throw, he won’t make that same mistake again.
