Dec. 5, 2006
East Tennessee State at Vanderbilt
Memorial Gymnasium
December 5, 2006
Vanderbilt Head Coach Kevin Stallings
“That was the Shan Foster we all know and love. I had an inkling in warmups that he was in for a great shooting game tonight. I thought he played excellent defense as well. I thought Shan was outstanding tonight.”
On Vanderbilt’s Offensive Play:
“Our team was much better. We were more assertive. We had 25 assists and only nine turnovers, so we played well. ETSU had been playing zone and were effective against some teams. We happened to make enough shots. It was nice to see us playing better on both ends of the floor, particularly defensively.”
On Vanderbilt’s Play Against the 1-3-1 Zone Defense:
“ETSU is committed to playing the 1-3-1 and they have to be willing to play it despite our success against it. This game isn’t the focal point of their season. Our success against the 1-3-1 was due to the fact that we have pretty good shooters.”
On Vanderbilt’s Shooting:
“We just made good shots. We’ve seen both ends of the shooting spectrum in the past week. Our shots were almost as good a week ago [against Furman] as they were tonight. I thought our team took a step forward defensively as well.”
Vanderbilt Forward Shan Foster
“It’s hard to play zone against a team with a lot of great shooters like we have. We are together right now as a team. We know we have trust in each other. We know our shots are going to fall.”
On His Rebounding Tonight:
“Coach [Stallings] challenged me this week in practice. I had one rebound last game and that was unacceptable to me. I tried to go out there and answer the challenge. Fortunately, I was able to get 10 of them.”
On Moving Forward:
“We are more determined now. We have great players and are more together. We’ll strive to get better every day and that will definitely show.”
Vanderbilt Forward Derrick Byars
On the Confidence Gained From the Toledo Game:
“We converted down the stretched (against Toledo) and showed the makings of a good team with good chemistry and trust. We brought that today and we need to build off it.”
On Vanderbilt’s Defensive Play:
“We wanted to control the penetration from their guards, who are going to make waves in their conference. Once we did that, we went for the defensive boards.
ETSU Head Coach Murray Bartow
“It was just one of those nights. Vanderbilt came out and got off to a great start. I thought the first 5-6 minutes were pivotal in the game. We started in a 1-3-1 zone without much success, then went to a 2-3 zone. It wasn’t any more effective, so we were forced to play man. The last thing we wanted to go man-to-man. It just wasn’t effective.”
“Vanderbilt is very, very good offensively. They have struggled on the other end. Tonight, they got rolling and shot it very well.”
“It will be good to get back home. It’s been a very tough stretch, no doubt. It’s tough to lose by this much to any team, but it only counts as one loss.”
