Vol Hoops Media Monday

On how long he celebrated on Saturday before turning his focus to the SEC Tournament:
"I don't know really, I had some friends that were here that I go to spend some time with starting at about 9:30, because I got drenched after the game so I was wet. The best part for me was really watching our guys, and I didn't get to see much of it, but I've seen some pictures which were really good. And then obviously, walking into the locker room, they were pretty quiet, but now I know why because they threw all that water all over me. But hearing them celebrate, that's the best part, it really is. Then you try to get some rest and get going because right now you know every thing that you've worked for is in front of you and you hope you can keep going."

On if the defense has been the best its been all season in the last four games:
"Well it has been good — even in the first half against Georgia. I said it the other night, I thought Georgia played terrific, they came in and made shots, and I thought we were guarding them pretty well. We knew we were going to get into deep possessions with them, but they raised up and made some shots, six threes in the first half. But in the second half, we just felt like if we can sustain our defense, it's going to kick in for us at some point in time. We know we're going to play against some teams that are going to make shots, and you just hope they don't continue to make them throughout the whole game. You go back through the whole game, there were some key defensive plays made coming down the stretch that helped us, and Kyle getting his hand on the ball to steal it was maybe that play of the game. Everybody talks about Admiral's shot, which was big, but Lamonte's three was huge after Yante Maten hit his, the charge that we picked up when they had an advantage in the open court was a huge play, and then Kyle's steal. So our defense is what we can hang our hat on, and we've tried to do that all year and we just believe that if we can stay with it, it'll help us win."

On if he believes the team realizes that there is more to play for than just a regular-season title:
"I said that to them after the game. I am proud of them, because they put the work in. But I told them, if you like this, it can be better. There's more to be done, and we've talked about that. I'm not probably as good at enjoying winning as much as looking back on games. I've gotten a lot of texts from people telling me to enjoy this, and I've never been really good at that to be honest with you, because my mind is always on to the next thing. I wish I were better at it to be honest with you. But I do believe they can move on, I have confidence that they will. It's something that we'll obviously talk about and hope that they realize that what we're going after now, everyone has a fresh start. We played the regular season, now we're going into a conference tournament where there's a lot at stake. There's another championship there that can be won, and there's a way you can improve your seeding. And that doesn't just apply to us, it applies to every team in the league. So like I told them Saturday night this is good, but it can be better."

On Admiral Schofield's recent stretch of strong performances:
"Well I've always talked about his work ethic. He really is one of those guys that you're not over exaggerating when you say he's going to put his time in. He does put his time in as well as any player I've ever been around. I think maturity, I think he's starting to mature and starting to learn how to control his emotion in a positive way. And when he does that, not only does it help him, it helps our team. He had gone through times where it worked against him and it worked against our team. I think that's a maturity aspect of him where he's improving, and now he's going to have to be able to handle success. But he's a junior now. He and Kyle and Lamonte have been with us for three years and so this is part of the growing process of young people that they go through. The fact is, he from a work standpoint, he's reaping the benefits of hard work."

On why he thinks every team realistically has a shot to win the SEC Tournament:
"History has proven that a team like Georgia a few years ago that won five straight games can win it. You hope you've built a culture where guys believe they are good enough to win, even though tough things happen. After going through this year, I think if I were coaching any team I could tell them that we have a chance if we're willing to do what we need to do. When I was at Providence and we won a Big East championship, we had a player named Rob Phelps. When he started making shots that we had been waiting on him to make for a long time, I saw that happen. A lot of teams in this league have players with that type of ability."

On what needs to be done to become a better transition team:
"Consistency, there's no doubt. Our point guards have to get (the ball) down the floor. The details, guys getting to their space on the floor. The guys up front have to get down the court so the point guard can push the tempo like we want to. Mark Fox said it the other night, when we get player movement, we are a hard team to guard. We've lacked that at times and that's where we turn the ball over and we allow to teams to score. It looks like we are giving up a lot of points on defense, but it's not. It's because of bad offense. It works, we just have to be mentally tough enough to do it."

On team trainer Chad Newman helping cut down the nets on Saturday:
"He's as big of a part of this program as I am, I can tell you that. He and Garrett Medenwald work very hard with our guys. Everything that happens in this program, everybody really carries their water. And Chad is as good of a trainer as I've ever been around. The guys on the team will tell you that. That's one thing in our program that I am proud of, that our players understand that everybody is important, regardless of what title, what role they might be in, they know that we expect them to treat everyone they meet with respect. But inside the program, we know they respect what he does, what Garrett does, what Mary-Carter Kniffen does, what Kyle Condon and Riley Davis do. You go down the line, they appreciate that, and I guarantee you, I had nothing to do with anybody cutting down the nets, so if all that happened, that was the players doing that. And if anybody deserved to cut a piece of that net down, I would say he does as much as anybody."

On what makes this team a good passing team:
"Well we're a team that believes in player movement, ball movement, and we haven't asked guys a lot of different times to go make a play. As a coach, to be honest with you, you don't want to coach every possession, you don't. And you do realize as a coach, like Lamonte raising up hitting that three was a big play. We came down the last possession, and the coaches had told me that we needed to put the ball into Admiral's hands, and when he made that shot, we left it up to him. We don't do that a lot, because that wasn't a set play. So we're not asking our guys a lot to do it, but sometimes you do it, and what we do is really based on five guys working together, moving together and getting the ball to where it needs to be. We like to pass it, catch it, and score it, as opposed to dribbling and raising up to shoot it."

On any specific messages after the game that stood out:
"I just looked on my cell phone and I had 197 text messages, and at one point it was over 200. I thank God for so many wonderful people that I've been able to come in contact with that He's brought our lives together. And you do appreciate the fact that people are watching and they care. I know we have a lot of people outside of this program that care a lot about this group of guys and are praying for them. And we want bigger things, we want to win basketball games, but we want bigger things for our guys and I think everyone in our program realizes that and knows that. Saturday I will tell you, the arena was as electric and as alive as any arena I can ever remember being in. First of all it was an amazing basketball game, both teams played really hard from start to finish. With 12 minutes to go in the game, you almost felt like there were only two minutes to go in the game. That's how intense the game was on the floor. I just thought it was a great college basketball game and we had to fight hard to earn the win and that's the way it should be."

On the team's itinerary and routine leading up to the tournaments:
"We gave them two days off, which we would always do with a conference tournament, then we will get back at it. Truth is, there will be some guys today that will be in the gym on their own. They've done that all year on their day off. That's on them. It's what they do and how they go about it. We'll get back in there tomorrow and probably won't have a good practice. That's kind of been the rhythm of this team. I'll have to scream and yell a lot tomorrow, but that's just part of it. Then we'll get ready to leave and go up (to St. Louis) on Wednesday. We will try to assimilate the travel schedule to what you would see in the NCAA tournament so they can get acclimated that way for the following week. From a basketball standpoint, we've done a lot of things this year. We've ran some plays that we haven't ran in a month. There's some things that we're evaluating and we'll go back to some things that we still need to fix on defense. We'll probably spend a little more time on our zone defense and things like that, that we haven't put as much time in. The biggest thing this time of year is to be fresh mentally and physically and have fresh legs. We have to stay sharp so there's a fine line you're working with, and you hope the players realize that. Tomorrow I would love for them to come in and know to not make this longer or harder than it needs to be, and let's just get our work done. Past history doesn't tell me that's going to happen, but I'm really hoping it does."

On the issue of Grant Williams' fouls:
"If you go back to his game, he had five fouls and he shouldn't have had two of them that were just lazy fouls. On the other hand, he draws about 6.8 fouls a game. Of the five fouls he had, he shouldn't have had two of them. You could call in fatigue or whatever, but he can't have those fouls. The one at the end of the game where he fell down on that player, I think the referee had to make that call by rule. If you take somebody's legs out, whether it's accidental or not, it's just a call you have to make. It's just like the trip call. Sometimes you wonder why, but it's just a foul that has to be called. He had two fouls the other night where he shouldn't have put himself in that position."

On if players get a reputation after getting so many fouls:
"If I were a referee, knowing my personality, I would probably have a pretty short fuse with guys if I thought guys were trying to show me up and complain. I tell Grant Williams all the time that I wouldn't want a guy talking to me all the time. I'm going to go into a game and be fair. It's a hard job, and it's bang bang. We were at Mississippi State and Kyle Alexander had gotten an offensive foul called on him early, which I think sometimes 6'11 guys when they jump over a 6'1 guy, they don't really foul them. I think that's a foul that's called a lot. Then three or four plays later, Admiral Schofield got pushed big time. I jumped up real quick, and I got a great comment from the official that said, 'Hey, we're not perfect,' and when back and watched the tape, all three of them were blocked out. If any of those guys had made that call, it would have been a total guess. You realize when you're watching tape that they know where they're supposed to be. In that situation, all three officials were where they were supposed the be, but there was absolutely no way they could have seen the play. I was just in a better position to see it, and I did see it. I thought it was a great response that he said we're not perfect, but we're trying, and I believe that's the case with most officials."

On whether success in the conference tournament carries over into the NCAA Tournament:
"The tournament was in Dallas one year when I was at Texas. We were playing Texas Tech and we'd beaten them twice in the regular season, and beat us in the tournament. I was upset because you want to win, but when coach Bobby Knight shook my hand, he grabbed me and said, 'Now, this will be good for you, go win a national championship,' and that was the year we went to the Final Four. I don't know if that had anything to do with it, because I know this, we would've loved to had won a tournament. But that's what he said to me, and I'll never forget coach saying that to me. He said 'get back, get going,' and that year we did get to the Final Four. I don't know if you can analyze it one way or the other. I don't know of any team that doesn't want to win a conference tournament. I don't know any team that doesn't want to go out and win every game. I do know this from experience - playing on Sunday, having to stay in the arena and watching the Selection Sunday on the TV in the arena with nobody around you other than the team and a few people that traveled with you, you find out where you're seeded, you gotta get on the plane, get back home that night, it's late Sunday night and then you gotta turn around and travel on Tuesday and have to play on Thursday — I think it's tough. I will say that. I can tell you when we won the Big East regular season championship my last year at Providence — Providence College, they had had so much success in New York with the old NIT back in the day, and everybody in the east knows what it's like to go and win a championship in the Garden — and when we got on the bus and got back into Providence, the state and everyone was just so excited about the guys, which they should be. But then we had that quick turnaround and we didn't play well. We got beat in the first round. So, there's all kinds of things that go through your mind with it. But the fact of the matter is all you can do is control the situation, how it happens, and hope that your team can be focused and give it everything they have, and not let the outside noise and everything that comes in this time of year take away from what they have to do to be focused."

On All-Conference teams being released this week:
"I've always believed that those awards should go to the teams that have had success. There will be a couple of players that we know that are game planned for every night, and those are guys that will get the awards, and the conference does a good job with that. But I can tell you this, any kind of individual award is a byproduct of a staff and of a program. That's why I've never been really big on individual awards, because I think that this is a team sport, but when players do get recognized, most of the time it's because they've worked hard. You are happy for them, but I'd always be disappointed if they didn't allude to the fact that their success has to do with people like Chad Newman, Garrett Medenwald, the people that help us all. Any individual award really is a staff award and a team award, and that's the way it should be."

On if Tennessee is a tough team to prepare for on a short turnaround:
"You'd have to ask other coaches that. From a defensive standpoint, that's why I talked about the zone a little bit. I think it's a little more difficult if you have to prepare for a team (that plays zone defense). We've played zones, so I'm sure that people talk about it, but they would probably say 'they don't really want to do this, if we do this, we're probably in good shape,' but that's not necessarily true. Sometimes you like to throw a little curve at somebody and see how they handle it, and if they do you get out of it. We did that Saturday with Georgia and they handled it, and we got out of it. They did the same to us, and we handled their zone and they didn't stay in it. There's tendencies that you have right now, and you're gonna try to be good to those tendencies and I don't think you're gonna try to recreate yourself this time of year. You're gonna try to do what you do and do it better, and do it the best you can do it, and hope you're making some shots."

University of Tennessee Athletics

Players Mentioned

Kyle Alexander

Admiral Schofield

Grant Williams

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