Dec. 29, 2016
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LSU vs. Vanderbilt
December 29, 2016
Vanderbilt Head Coach Quotes
HEAD COACH Bryce Drew
Opening Statement …
“Our guys have been practicing well and we’ve played significantly better the past two weeks. I’m really happy for our guys to see a lot of their hard work the last couple weeks come out in this game today. I thought we had a lot of players step up over the course of this game. I thought Payton Willis and Matthew Fisher-Davis were tremendous in the first half and Riley (LaChance) those last seven or eight minutes was sensational in how he closed out the game. LSU had some tough news today, but I thought they responded well and shot the ball extremely well. We were definitely in a position to win this game at the end.”
On only making one field goal the last six minutes of the first half compared to high scoring the rest of the game …
“LSU picked up their pressure there a little bit. They made some shots and picked up their intensity. We had some decent looks and missed a dunk, we had some other looks that we had made earlier in the game that we missed. But basketball is a game of momentum and there were a lot of momentum shifts. That was definitely their shift during that segment where they took momentum and we had a hard time stopping them.”
On Nolan Cressler’s buzzer-beating layup going into halftime …
“We went into the locker room and we definitely told the guys that was a big basket. I thought Nolan made a great move scoring over the top of (Duop) Reath and it definitely gave us the boost we needed.”
On the difference in preparing for LSU’s offense without Craig Victor …
“Victor had been playing sensationally, you know, five straight games with nine or more rebounds. We definitely prepared a lot for him coming into this game. Earlier in the season, (Aaron) Epps did a tremendous job when he missed some games but I know Epps has been injured, too. When you’re injured, you don’t get practice time and you don’t get those reps. It was tough timing for all of that and the transition of their team. Epps is going to be good, he’s going to have good games for them like he did at the beginning of the year once he gets healthy and gets back into a rhythm.”
On adjusting to LSU’s press …
“We hadn’t seen that from them and so that was something new. We have a lot of press breaks and our guys jumped into the formations that we were supposed to. Luke (Kornet) is such a big target and does a great job passing. He was key in the press being available when we needed help.”
