University of Tennessee Athletics
Tennessee vs. Georgia Postgame Quotes
March 02, 2002 | Men's Basketball
March 2, 2002
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Tennessee Head Coach Buzz Peterson
"It feels good. It's been some time since we had a victory. Most importantly, though, I was happy to see the three seniors go out on a winning note. They've been through a lot this year. What a fight Jenis Grindstaff put up.
"I believe we play Arkansas in the SEC Tournament, and I hope this gives us some momentum. We'd like to win it all down there, but what we want right now is to beat Arkansas Thursday. I'm sorry about the situation at Arkansas, but I know Mike Anderson will have them fired up. We need a good week of practice. Even when we were down 10 points, I liked what I was seeing as far as our intensity was concerned. The momentum we were showing at the end of the first half got us going for the rest of the game.
"Holding Ezra Williams to 1-of-10 was big. That Jarvis Hayes is a big-time college player, even with Vincent Yarbrough putting a hand in his face. Vincent was doing his best to keep Jarvis from scoring.
"In the second half, I told our guys to spread the floor and drive it. We got some points off that. Brandon Crump had some nice plays, and some big rebounds. Chris Daniels is one of my favorite players in the SEC. He and the rest of the Georgia Bulldogs crash the boards. I was very pleased that we were able to out-rebound them by six. When we were 18 points behind, what I was trying to do was to lead the cheers. I knew that we needed some stops, and that we didn't need to be looking at the scoreboard too often.
Georgia Head Coach Jim Harrick
"It is really hard to overcome horrific shooting. We didn't shoot well, and that's been our great fort?. We had two overtime games in one week, and that was too much to overcome. We had no legs, or no zip. We had enough shots. Tennessee played really well in the second half.
"It's disappointing. We would have liked to have won the division outright. We won four league games on the road, and in a league this tough, that's pretty good.
"You really can't ask too much of them. I thought our effort was good. On the last shot, I thought he pulled his arm down. I was four steps away. The officials let it be physical. We never got to the one-and-one. I thought Jarvis Hayes played very well. I've been trying to distribute the shots, and we don't really need him to take that many, but when he had to, he did. This league is difficult.
"I thought (Jenis) Grindstaff made some big shots, some I didn't expect him to make. We called the last play of regulation to Jarvis, but we wanted to run some clock, and make sure we had the last shot. We were up 15 points, and just didn't shoot well in the second half.
"Tennessee will be competitive in the SEC Tournament. Anytime you have Vincent Yarbrough and Marcus Haislip, you're going to be competitive. Our guys knew about the Kentucky vs. Florida score, I didn't talk about it with them, but they knew."
