Dec. 29, 2012
Recap | Box Score | Notes | AP Photos 
| Howell’s Photos
Vanderbilt Head Coach Kevin Stallings
Opening Comments:
“We didn’t play as well in the second half defensively as we did in the first half. It’s a problem we had early in the year and I thought we had it rectified for the last six or seven games. Our second half defense wasn’t good enough to win. I thought we did a good job of defending the three in the first half and then [Butler] went 6-of-8 from three in the second half. [Butler] is obviously a better team than we are. They are a good team and executed well.”
On Butler’s second half play:
“They ran different actions than in the first half. If [Rotnei] Clarke makes a couple, he thinks he’s going to make them all and he’s tough to defend. When you drive him inside the three-point line, you stand a much better chance.”
On Vanderbilt’s Kedren Johnson:
“He injured his shoulder on the (Dec.) 26th. We were 50-50 that we’d have him tonight. He tried as hard as he could. He didn’t practice on Thursday and a minimal amount on Friday. The fact that he was out there was to his credit. (Butler) also did a good job of covering him up.”
On Vanderbilt’s 8-of-19 foul shooting:
“That bugs me a lot. That’s just courage. This is the third or fourth game in a row, if you take away the MTSU game, that we’ve shot as good of a percentage from three as we have from the foul line.”
On what Vanderbilt players could step up on a night like tonight:
“Other than Kedren [Johnson], no one has proven that they’ll be that guy for us. It doesn’t take a genius to look at the stat sheet and see what some of our deficiencies are… We have to keep working to try to help them. They’re coachable.”
On Vanderbilt’s offensive struggles:
“That’s just who we are as a team so far. We have had trouble putting it in the goal at times.”
Vanderbilt guard Kedren Johnson
On playing with an injured shoulder:
“It’s called sublux dislocation to where it popped out for a second and went right back in. It’s been pretty sore all week. If I don’t move it for a period of time it tightens up on me, but my shoulder didn’t really bother me too much tonight.”
On what Butler did defensively to bother him:
“They did a good job of doubling my ball screens and making me give up the ball pretty early.”
Vanderbilt guard Kyle Fuller
On how it affects the team when Kedren Johnson has an off shooting night:
“It definitely affects us a lot, but I don’t feel like that was our flaw. I felt like our flaw was on defense. We gave up way too many points.”
On what he can do when the team starts getting down:
“I have to be a leader and try to make plays, but we didn’t really do our job tonight. I felt like in practice we were going hard and making our free throws. We came out in the second half really slow and dug ourselves into a hole.”
Butler Head Coach Brad Stevens
On the difference in the second half:
“The difference (in the second half) was that we got the ball moving. We were not patient in the first half.”
On how important it was stopping Kedren Johnson:
“Huge, we wanted to make it as tough as possible. He is a good player. I thought we were more active in the gaps. I think we can improve, but we played pretty well.”
