Nov. 24, 2010
Vanderbilt 92, Grambling State 59
Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010 Memorial Gym, Nashville, Tenn.
Vanderbilt Head Coach Kevin Stallings
Opening Statement:
“I liked our defensive intensity in the second half, and I was disappointed in our defensive intensity in the first half. It was a tale of two halves in that way. I thought we rebounded extremely well.
“Nevertheless, we did some good things and not so good things. I don’t want to blame (the bad) on being hung over from travel because we were really energized at practice yesterday. They slapped us pretty good at the start, and that’s the first time all season we’ve been slapped. But, we bounced back and did some better things in the second half, got some rebounds and stops, and got more into transition.
“I thought (forward) Steve (Tchiengang) came off the bench and gave us really good minutes on both ends. At times, (center) Fes (Ezeli) dominated (on the boards) and I thought (forward) Lance (Goulbourne) also did a good job.
“We were much better in the second half, guys off the bench were productive. We were also able to keep the minutes in check tonight. That’s important because we have a real tough stretch coming now. The next four are going to be really difficult games against very good teams.”
Vanderbilt advantage in rebounds:
“They had eight offensive rebounds in the first half, then only shoot 22 percent in the second half, so we only gave them three (offensive rebounds) in the second half. I think we asserted ourselves in the second half.”
Second half Commodore success:
“We just wanted to run better offense for goodness sakes. I don’t know what we did in the first half, but we just ran better offense. We got the ball from sides to side, and got some guys isolated. We didn’t do a good job of passing and catching the ball tonight.
Improved foul shooting of Festus Ezeli:
“He has just really worked on them (free throws). He would call or text Coach Richardson during the summer and said, `I made a 100 of 125 today.’ He really, really worked on them, wanted to improve, and he obviously has. It’s good to see because he’s going to get fouled a lot.
Lack of defensive intensity in first half:
“We were playing on our heels for some reason, and haven’t really done that defensively all year. Again, that’s the first bad stretch that we’ve had defensively. If we only have one bad stretch every five games, that’s not bad.”
