Nov. 13, 2011
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 
Vanderbilt vs Cleveland State
November 13, 2011
Memorial Gymnasium
Vanderbilt Head Coach Kevin Stallings
Opening Comments:
“If you’re a fan of great college basketball, you would have liked that game because [ Cleveland State] played well. They fought, played physically, and played hard. They had purpose on offensive and active hands on defense.” “[Cleveland State] got what they deserved – a good win. They outplayed us from start to finish. The team that deserved to win won today.”
On Vanderbilt’s Sluggish Offense:
“We got to the goal, but they pressured our point guards. They got us out of our ability to get into our offense. Our point guard play was less than stellar. I shouldn’t leave it at that, though. Steve [Tchiengang] fought for us, and that’s what we see with him every day in practice. We just didn’t play well. We didn’t guard well with toughness. We got what we deserved.”
On Cleveland State’s 34 Points in the Paint:
“It’s a reflection of us not playing with enough intensity on defense.”
On Vanderbilt’s 21 Turnovers:
“We tried to cross the ball over in front of them and they kept taking it. We kept doing it. We kept dribbling the ball in front of them and they kept taking it.”
On Brad Tinsley’s Hand Injury:
“Brad’s hand has been an issue. I didn’t ask him how the hand was feeling [today].”
On How Vanderbilt Will Rebound on Tuesday Against Bucknell:
“I would expect us to play harder and with more execution. Our kids didn’t take it seriously when I told them [Cleveland State] was as good of a team as they are. They had 27 wins last year. [But] maybe we were completely ready to play and got beat by a team that’s just better than we are.”
Vanderbilt Player Quotes
Forward Lance Goulbourne
On Losing the Game:
“[ Cleveland State] outworked us and outfought us. We didn’t play as hard as we needed to [in order] to win. They are a very experienced team, a better team… We didn’t come out with enough energy to win… I am embarrassed with our performance… It’s not Vanderbilt basketball. I look forward to fixing it.”
On 13 Turnovers in the First Half:
“Cleveland State put more pressure on the ball. It made it harder to get our offense set up… They forced us to do things we weren’t comfortable with, which sped up the game and led to turnovers.”
On Emotions after Dunking During Vanderbilt’s Second Half Comeback:
“At that point, I felt we were going to win the game, to be honest. We were down 13 points at the half and came out fired up and ready to go with intensity… We started to make a run. [Cleveland State is] a senior team and came down at their own pace and stopped our momentum.”
Forward Steve Tchiengang On Vanderbilt’s Offensive Struggles:
“[Cleveland State was] making it hard to get the ball and set up an offense. We struggled to get open and it messed up our whole offense. We failed to prepare enough.”
Cleveland State Coaches Quotes:
Coach Gary Waters:
The seniors are the ones that came through in what we needed to accomplish. Their leadership, and some of you may not know this, I was struggling when I came into this season, I had four seasons, but I had a captain that had been there for two years and led everything, and that was Norris Cole, and all of a sudden he disappeared. Then I had to make another step and what I did was I created what we call a senior council and put these seniors together and they make decisions for me and they showed it out there on the floor and that’s how you have success in my estimation. I knew we had two things we had to do coming in here, we had to pressure them and to create turnovers because of their execution. They do such a great job executing, but the other big thing I was really pushing was we had to rebound the basketball. We had to maintain. Vanderbilt’s a great team. They’re going to be very good when this season ends. They’re ranked No. 7. We had a good game today, that’s all I can say.
On his defensive philosophy:
It’s more the kids, the kids make a commitment and you follow through with it. But what we do is we pressure the ball, but it’s very important, I watch a lot of teams and they apply pressure but it’s what happens after the pressure. It’s the support system is the key that makes our defense strong. We do a great job of stepping up and helping the next guy and that’s what our defense is built on.
On scheduling such a challenging game early in season:
When I think about this one, one of the things I felt is that we want to play someone tough early. This is a really tough one, but we wanted to play someone tough early because I wanted to see what we could do and who we are. See, we had been playing three years with one guy who was pretty good and that was Norris Cole and he’s a first round draft pick and now all of a sudden he’s gone. You can have first round draft picks, but when he’s your point guard leading everything, that’s a whole different world. So I wanted to see starting out early how fast we could adjust and make certain things happen.
On D’Aundray Brown:
There’s one person we’re not giving credit for here. I thought he guarded your best player and shut him down, and that’s D’Aundray Brown. D’Aundray Brown was defensive player of the year two years ago with our league. And all of a sudden had an injury last year and didn’t play with our team. I feel if we had him last year, we won 27 games, I thought we’d been really good last year, but he didn’t play. Now he’s hungry, he’s excited about coming back. But he is a defensive star.
Cleveland State Player Quotes:
Jeremy Montgomery:
On start to the season with a win:
To be honest, preseason we got the schedule, the team got together and we said this is the game we want to start our success on, and we came out today with intensity and energy and we came in as a team. We came out and played hard and got the victory.
On withstanding Vanderbilt’s attempts to come back:
Coach Waters was telling us it’s not the lead, it’s when they come back with their run and how we withstand the lead. That’s what we did, we just kept fighting and stuck with our identity which is defense, and came out successful today as you can see.
On creating turnovers:
Pressure. Gary Waters, we call it the water pressure, and that’s how we came out today. Those guys were having some struggles out there and it really helped us out there.
