University of Tennessee Athletics
Mississippi State-Tennessee Postgame Quotes
March 15, 2009 | Men's Basketball
March 15, 2009
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Tennessee Quotes
CLAUDE FELTON: We'll begin with Tennessee. Get opening comments from Coach Pearl.
COACH PEARL: I' like to congratulate Mississippi State on winning the SEC Tournament championship, and receiving the automatic berth into th NCAA Tournament. They're worthy of the Championship, and I congratulate Rick Stansbury who does an absolutely outstanding job.
He had his team well prepared. Obviously, we shot a low, probably a season low, probably a low in my career as far as field goal percentage is concerned when we have been playing so very, very well offensively.
Varnardo was a factor on the inside, and our inability to get out and run in transition.
Mississippi State was very patient, and spread us out controlled tempo, which has a way of forcing tremendous impatience on the opponent. Often times, through our cutters, we dictate tempo, we control tempo, and the other team gets impatient, and that's just exactly what happened to us tonight. And I couldn't get I just couldn't get that turned around.
As a result, we rushed, we took a lot of bad shots, and as a result struggled terrifically offensively.
Q. On the inbounds play, it looked like you were calling a timeout before the 5 second call. Can you take us through that play and what happened?
Tyler Smith: It was a play call to get the ball to a cutter, to J.P., and I thought I had called timeout in time. But the referee made the decisions out there, and that's what happened.
Q. You and Tyler were 18 of 31 from the field, today you were 7 of 31 from the field. Is it something in your game or something they did defensively?
Wayne Chism: Like Coach said, we were impatient, and they rushed us to take a lot of shots, and we did. We still battled back though, but we just was impatient.
Q. A lot of people know about Varnardo. But were you surprised by some of the defense inside from Phil Turner?
Tyler Smith: He played great "D". We just go back to rushing the shots. I wasn't taking my time. But I mean, I give him credit. He knew the moves, and I just got to make adjustments and that's what happened tonight.
Q. Coach said Varnardo affected you inside, did he affect you personally? I know you've played against him quite a bit. Just talk about your match up in the paint against him today?
Wayne Chism: The match ups in the paint, it was very good. I mean, me and Varnardo have been going at it since we were little. We finally played each other on the big stage, and we both played our best. He came out with a good championship. He played hard to win it. I tried to match it, but he was a lie down inside. And he alternated a bunch of shots. That's what he's good at, and he did a great job at it.
Q. After a tough first half, you hit that one at the buzzer, and going into the second half. Did you feel that it was going to be your half? Did it give you a lot of confidence?
Tyler Smith: It gave me confidence. But at the same time I was down in the first half, and my teammates picked me up and we were still in it. Though, again, through the second half, they still picked me up, because I still didn't do so great. My teammates who I was really counting on, and they were counting on me down the stretch.
CLAUDE FELTON: We'll excuse the student athletes. Thank you. Continue with questions for Coach Pearl.
COACH PEARL:
Q. Your team had played so well in this tournament. I know you've been up and down all season, but I think people kind of thought you were going to continue that today. Maybe you did as well. Why do you think it didn't happen that way?
COACH PEARL: Well, just, I think we've talked about it here, and I agree. I think coming in we thought we'd continue to be playing well. We were impatient. We forced a lot of things. You want it so bad. You know, you want it so bad that you revert back to trying to do too much. Tyler tried to do too much, J.P. tried to do too much. Wayne tried to do too much. Those are our three best players. You just force the action a little bit. When you force the action, you force it right into the teeth of Mississippi State's defense.
Again, offensively, I couldn't get our guys to run continuity and be patient, just so anxious.
Now, defensively we did a really good job. I mean, defensively they shot 36%. We out rebounded them, and turned them over 17 times. So we did a lot of good things defensively. And I think it's really important that it's been one of the toughest things about this season has been how disappointed I continue to hear how people are disappointed.
Well, we disappointed them again. At the same time, I'm proud of my basketball team for getting for how many times we've picked ourselves up off the deck and played beautiful basketball.
Here in Tampa, up until today, people were talking about Tennessee basketball and the way on our kids played. And how fun it was to watch. It wasn't fun today. The opponent did a terrific job.
We're disappointed we didn't win this championship. But it's been frustrating to continue to have to defend this team.
Q. You had one of the most talented teams in the country this side of UCONN. You showed in this tournament what this team is capable of. Which team do you think will show up in the NCAA Tournament?
COACH PEARL: I told our guys that first of all, you know, we obviously didn't help our seed. So the road to the Final Four will be much more difficult, much more challenging. If we can come together again, and I think John talked about we've been consistently inconsistent. And if we can get it going again, because we've been playing great basketball here in March. We'll forget about the disappointment of not winning this tournament. But if we're not able to pick us up again, this missed opportunity will hurt for a long time.
Q. On the Tyler inbounds play, I guess it seemed controversial. It appeared you were also calling for a timeout. Did you feel like you'd called for it before the 5 second call?
COACH PEARL: Just on a lighter moment, Claude and I are the only two up here. So if this question's for me. Unless you want to take it, Claude.
CLAUDE FELTON: I wasn't on the bench. You go ahead.
COACH PEARL: Okay. Yeah, the officiating was good. They had a tough job. As long as you leave the game thinking that you had a shot, we had plenty of shots. He got to 5. Blew his whistle, and we had a violation.
Q. The last shot, was that called for Cam Tatum? What was the play called there?
COACH PEARL: It was called to, I can't begin to tell you the number of play calls that were called and then how we got different options.
I felt like Mississippi State was going to foul. I wanted to try to run a play, sort of a bait and hook play, where we get them to bite on Cam coming up for the ball, see if we can get to Wayne in the middle of the floor, and send Cameron long and get a three ball. But they didn't bite too much on Cameron, and they played sort of a zone, and we couldn't get the ball to Wayne.
So we got the ball to Cameron. Wayne did the right thing and took off down the floor. There was a lot of time left. They didn't get to Cam in time to foul him because he probably pulled a little too soon. But it was to get him a look. There's some things that we run every day in practice. And given out unsettling given how unsettling our offense was, again, I just wanted to do something we do all the time.
Interestingly enough, on the last under basket of the bounce play, same thing. Try to get it to J.P., try to do something that we do all the time, and we didn't execute.
Q. Getting deep in a tournament like this, a conference tournament where you're playing every day, compare that to playing in the NCAA where there's a little more preparation time, maybe a little more recovery time? Compare the two?
COACH PEARL: I thought both teams recovered very well. I really don't think that fatigue was a factor, although it takes great conditioning to be patient. And so, I think perhaps our shooting so quickly and taking 22 more shots than Mississippi State was really a function of our fatigue and our unwillingness to work within our offense.
We didn't rest defensively, and we didn't rest on the boards. But we rested offensively in our inability to execute. There is a difference. When you're done last night at 5:30, 6:00 o'clock and you've got a 1:00 o'clock tip, there's not a lot of time. Conference tournament you're very familiar with your opponent. So the scout is not difficult for the coaches. But it is hard on the players to have to bounce back physically.
I thought both teams, both training staffs, did an outstanding job getting their kids back and ready to play a very hard fought game. It was sloppy, but it was very, very competitive and very, very hard fought.
We'll finish this up. But I'd like to say, I'd like to thank the SEC for a marvelous job of hosting this tournament. The City of Tampa did an amazing job. This is a wonderful place to have the tournament. We got a lot of very fond memories. Our Tennessee fans travel, and they were glad to stay for the weekend.
All the band, and the cheerleaders and all the student athletes that came with us, I can't tell you how much I appreciate their support.
Q. Win or lose, usually your people don't look at your teams as playing up tight. They usually play pretty loose. And particularly in this tournament, did you think maybe they were a little uptight today, you know?
COACH PEARL: I don't think that was it. I don't think we were uptight. I don't think we played uptight. We didn't play well, and I think, again, I could go back. I think I've tried if you go back and look at your notes, try to explain why we played the way we played.
Varnardo is a huge factor on the inside. It was difficult to get two point baskets. He blocked a ton of shots. He changed a ton of shots. We got a question about Phil Turner. He did a great job on Tyler Smith. I don't know what Coach Stansbury's press conference was like, but I guarantee you he gave Phil Turner a tremendous amount of credit for the job he did on Tyler.
So you take away some of their inside stuff and it was just really, really challenging. Mississippi State did a great job with that, and we were not we were impatient.
Mississippi State Quotes
CLAUDE FELTON: We'll continue with Mississippi State. Opening comments from Coach Stansbury.
COACH STANSBURY: Well, number one, I'd just like to thank Tampa. What a great place to host this SEC Tournament. The facility was great. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and the experience couldn't have been any better.
Give Bruce and Tennessee a lot of credit. I thought Bruce in the last two and a half weeks, basically the month of March, they were playing like the team everybody anticipated preseason, Top 10 team in the country. And it's very evident of the people they were beating and how they were beating them.
Again, they played hard today. They fought, and they had opportunities to win it. Today our kids wouldn't give up.
About that 6:00 minute mark, 6:50, we had that six point lead, and kind of lost that lead a little, and there was a time out. I can remember the look if those five starters eyes, and absolutely there was a look. We were going to find a way. We'd come too far to give up now. From that point on, I think we made most of the effort plays.
Now that last 22 seconds, I can promise you we didn't lose no TV viewers neither. Because we made it interesting. But I'm just proud for our kids. We backed in here the hard way. Our team has been playing well. We had some setbacks during the season, and never gave up. Kept believing. And because of that, the SEC championship.
CLAUDE FELTON: Questions for the student athletes.
Q. Has your opinion changed? Obviously, it's changed. But a few days ago you were not very high on the city of Tampa's location for the tournament. What changed that?
COACH STANSBURY: Well, wasn't for sure how many people would be able to travel number one. I can tell you this, Bulldog fans travel. Now do we have as many as maybe in Atlanta? I don't know that. But they were here in the last couple of days.
This facility is a great basketball facility. The size was great. And again, everything's close enough. You don't have the traffic jams that you've had some other places, so it's a tradeoff in some ways. The weather was absolutely beautiful.
Again, the experience of playing here and winning was special for us. So hey, right now, I love Tampa.
Q. You made some big plays down the stretch, can you talk about how you felt down the stretch, what your legs were like given how you were substituted with Kodi and played fewer minutes than some of the other starters?
PHIL TURNER: Well, I felt rested. Right then wasn't the time to be tired, so I definitely wasn't tired. We saw what we wanted, and everybody that played today went after the same goal. Wasn't any eyes out there. So just says I stepped up and made big plays. I don't think that's fair to the other team. Took a team effort to do everything that we did. And we just got it done all together.
Q. Could you talk a little about what you do against Tyler Smith defensively? Because you really did a great job on on him today, giving away so much height?
PHIL TURNER: Tyler Smith is a great player. Strong athletic, 6' 7", knows basketball. But I mean we just had favor today. I don't think it was anything special that I did to him besides just gave it my all. He hit me with some stuff early. I mean, he was just a good battle to play against a great player like him.
Q. Was there ever a time that you felt fatigued? Or did you just kind of get by on adrenaline today or what?
BARRY STEWART: When the game was over. Now I feel it. I told Coach last night my legs felt good. And he told me to do some get some fluid into my body and ice down and stuff. But after the game I felt fatigued.
Q. Looking back before the season, did y'all see anything in this team that gave you a clue they might be capable of this?
BARRY STEWART: Yeah. I know this team, we're young and we have ups and downs. We have been up really high winning at Rupp. We've been really low losing 5 out of 7, I guess. But all in all, every day in practice, the team worked hard. I think that's why we overcome on that.
JARVIS VARNARDO: I knew coming in, when we won at Rupp this team could be special. That was a big win for us. You know, coming off the loss against Ole Miss, I was wondering how we were going to respond today, and we responded well. So I knew this team was going to be special.
Q. Your reaction to being named the tournament MVP?
JARVIS VARNARDO: Just a blessing. I thank God for it. I never thought that I'd be sitting here SEC championship and MVP. I just thank God for it.
Q. Everybody on this team has a role. Jarvis as a defensive guy, Barry a shooter. What exactly is it about Phil that makes him so tough against the Tasmin Mitchells and Tyler Smiths of the world? What is his role?
BARRY STEWART: You need that guy that can do it all. Phil, he can shoot, as you saw. He can shoot from deep, he can defend. And he's that glue guy out there. He gives you a bunch of energy, and he's really intense. So he gives us everything.
JARVIS VARNARDO: Well, you got to be kind of crazy, you know, and Phil's just that. But, you know, he gives us a lot of energy. In practice, you know, he picks us up when we're down. He gives us a lot of energy. He's always saying something good, you know, trying to get us going. That's what we need from him.
Q. Fairly late in the game, Hopson makes the drive, and Jarvis goes way up. It was maybe the most spectacular play of the game. Did that kind of spark you guys after that play because it was an incredible play?
BARRY STEWART: Yeah, that was an amazing play. I mean, Scotty, we know he can jump, and he's got the leading shot blocker down behind us. So it was a big play. I think it was somewhat of a game changer.
Q. I can get you to talk about your match up with Wayne, and some of the history of it?
JARVIS VARNARDO: Wayne always got the best of me. There had been a few times I won against him, you know, but it's really special to come on this stage with the SEC Championship, playing against your home state, and then playing against the guy you battle all year in high school. You know, to get the win, that's tremendous.
CLAUDE FELTON: We'll excuse the student athletes and continue with questions for Coach Stansbury.
Q. Going back to what Phil Turner gives you. Everybody on this team gets more accolades all tournament. But just talk about he's like the forgotten guy who kind of holds it together?
COACH STANSBURY: Let me expand on a few things our guys talked about. You know, that's the reason Phil was inserted into the lineup back in middle December. We're a young team, new team and just were not playing with the energy and passion that you've got to play with. And Phil has that. There are some things Phil doesn't do, great decision making sometimes. But the one thing he does every day, he plays with tremendous effort. He's our emotional guy, and to expand on that question, somebody asked about that 6:00, 7:00 minute mark of that game during one of those timeouts. I mean, Phil Turner is the guy that emotionally gets into everybody. Jarvis and Stewart, they're the nicest people you ever want to be around. They're not going to say a whole lot. So Phil brings that part to this team. It's very important in practice, too, to have that kind of guy.
He just finds a way. He's 178 pounds, he guards most fours, guarded Chism today for a bunch. He just finds ways to use his energy and his quickness and his toughness to offset what he doesn't have. The best we can. You know, we don't win that war every night. But if we can win that war right there, he's a difficult match up and offensively whether he's making shots or not, you have to guard him.
Q. I was going to ask about Phil, too. He was kind of modest when he talked about the defense he played against Tyler. But I mean Tyler just didn't shoot well against him. As a coach, when you're sending a 6' 2" guy out there to guard somebody like that you must have a lot of confidence in him?
COACH STANSBURY: We kind of guard him with two guys. You may not notice a lot. We let the one guy that we didn't guard get some points and probably let him get back in that game. We didn't guard Prince. Stew was on him. He's our best defensive player from the ability to anticipate who is where. He sees next play happening very well. We didn't guard Prince, which, in turn, enabled us to get a lot of support in there on Tyler Smith.
You'll know, Prince got some drives and got some put backs. That's the way he beats you. Driving it some, limiting it some. If you can limit Tyler Smith to 12 points or 2 for 14, that's a huge stat. That's where they had the advantage at regarding Phil Turner. We kind of neutralized that a little bit.
Q. The last few seconds of the game that took forever and so many weird things happened. Did you have any worries about your guys composure?
COACH STANSBURY: Well, are you asking me he hey, I wish the clock would have run out and us winning the game. I wouldn't have enjoyed waiting for it, I can promise you that. Because in that stage of the Game, 1 play here or there is the difference in winning or losing. And there were about three in that situation.
You know, Chism hit the big shot to get them back in the game. We're up 4, and he hits a big shot to cut it to 1. At that point, anything can happen.
Our plans was late with that last. Get it to a second and we're in good shape. We made both free throws. A three. We were going to foul. Bruce knew we were going to foul. Phil kind of ran over there and jumped on Maze a little too long it was. We let Tatum get a shot off. We hadn't planned to do that to be honest with you.
But again, we found ways to make plays. Phil Turner stepped up and made the two big free throws, huge. But more importantly than that, and I didn't watch the tape, but I think it was Phil Turner on two end outs he got deflections on. And those were huge plays. Ten, 12 seconds to go.
Q. Did you sense that Phil had another gear late because he had played a few minutes less than the others?
COACH STANSBURY: Well, emotionally, like we said, and I know as a coach, and we all knew this, we weren't going to talk about being fatigued now. We talked about fatigue wasn't an option. But we understand too, now, fourth day, fourth game, the people we've had to play. In particularly Jarvis.
I thought the first half, Jarvis was spent. I think he played that way. But we knew this, we couldn't win the game without Jarvis, and we didn't absolutely have to have Jarvis scoring every time, but we had to have him rebound that basketball and defending that goal. And to his credit, he found a way to dig in when he didn't have anything left. And that was the key to that game.
Timeouts, there were not a lot of X's and O's spent that last ten minutes. Most of the time outs were spent understanding now it's not a 40 minute game, it's not a 20 minute game. It's a 10 minute game. Understanding the focus you have to play with, and the effort you've got to play with. Because that's what it came down to. One more effort play, here or there is the difference between winning and losing. And our kids as tired as we were, we found ways to make those plays in that last six minutes of the game.
Q. Bruce Pearl talked as if he felt his team was impatient on the offense. How much do you think your defense had to do with that?
COACH STANSBURY: I think this. I think we allowed some guys to shoot the ball from the perimeter. And sometimes when guys are open, they can tell the coach, I'm open. Well, sometimes when you're open, it's not a good shot. And I do think we backed off a few people.
In particularly late in the game, because late in the game is when everything starts to get a little tighter. We intentionally backed on off a couple of guys to keep it out of the paint. I do think they may have shot a couple. One of them got a rebound and got a putback. But for the most part, we did what we had to do. Keep them off the foul line. They're a very good shooting, free throw team. I thought we, again, won that free throw war.
I know the last three games we won it huge. I can't remember the first game. But when you back up and check the free throws we shot compared to our opponents in these four games, there's a big difference, and that's a huge stat. Tells me two things: Our teams getting the ball to the paint on the pass, and we're getting the ball to the paint on on the dribble. And it wasn't a pretty game on any team's account, but it was a gutsy game.
I'll repeat myself, against a very good Tennessee team that has a chance to get into the NCAA Tournament and play for a long time. They're that good. And, again, we don't have to be the best team now for a 16 game schedule. We just had to be the best team today for 40 minutes. That's what we found a way to do. For 40 minutes we found the way to be the best team out there. That's all that matters.
Q. You talked about Jarvis being fatigued, spent in the first half. Is that what he was when he fell down on the court and he came out? It was an injury or wasn't at all?
COACH STANSBURY: He got the air, the breath knocked out of him. It's very obvious he doesn't have a whole lot of room to hold a lot of air, so it didn't take a very big lick to knock him out there at the end. But he's played tremendously hard for these three games.
You know, his body is not like a lot of guys bodies. There's a little extra fat and energy stored up. There is nothing stored up in his body.
But to his credit, he found a way again in that second half. When you have to dig deep, and coaches talk about it all the time, you have to find ways. It's a cliche, but again, it's a perfect example of it. There was a guy that found a way to dig deep when there was nothing left in that tank to help us win this game.
Q. This is about to become a moot point. But what kind of seed do you think you deserve in the tournament?
COACH STANSBURY: You know how I'm going to answer it already. I'm not, you know I wouldn't think to comment on something I have zero control over. Only thing I know is we don't have to sit here and worry about being on a bubble. We busted that bubble. So that's all that matters.
We're happy to be a part of the 64 teams. Wherever they send us, you'll be with us, so it doesn't matter.
