Opening Statement…
“It’s great to get a win on the road in the league. We had to fight through some adversity. I think some of it was a little self-inflicted. Sharife (Cooper) played great in the second half. Didn’t have a turnover in the game. That was just fun to watch. Let him get downhill, he’s so hard to guard, so unselfish. I thought Jamal Johnson was terrific in the first half. Really picked us up. Devan Cambridge in the second half. Stretch gave us some great minutes off the bench, picked us up on the defensive end. It was a good win, but while we made a little progress with our defense, offensively way too many turnovers. We didn’t execute very well. We’ve got to play a lot better if we’re going to win again.”
On the biggest difference offensively in the second half…
“In the first half, Jamal Johnson was making 3s. But obviously in the second half, we shot the ball better from 3. We got better looks. We were 6 for 9 (from 3). They played a little bit of zone for a couple possessions and we hurt them with some shots. We got into the bonus and we made free throws. That was a real positive. I thought we did a pretty good job of guarding Vanderbilt. We did a great job with the prep. Our scouting report was to make them make tough 2s and not give them the 3 ball. Early on they did. I think they knew what our scouting report was going to be and they took advantage of it early. But then after that, we were able to settle down, and they missed a lot of shots that we thought they would miss. We didn’t let (Scotty) Pippen be a playmaker. He’s really good as a playmaker. He only had one assist tonight.”
On being able to grab rebounds when the shots weren’t falling…
“It is important. We had 29 defensive rebounds. They only had 8 offensive rebounds. They are not a big offensive rebounding team. They are a big shot, take-it-and-make-it team. I thought our guys did a good job getting on the offensive glass. Jaylin Williams rebounded the ball really well. Allen Flanigan with seven defensive rebounds. That was really key for us tonight. Allen played really good defense. All of our guards picked it up in a big way defensively, and we needed them to. They made progress tonight in that regard.”
On encouraging Jamal Johnson after he was in a slump the last few games…
“I think he has got to feel really good about his contribution. He’s got to feel really good about that. We don’t win without him. We don’t beat Vanderbilt without him, period. So, it says a lot about his mental toughness and his confidence and playing within himself. I think the other thing too is Jamal didn’t have a turnover. So he did what he did, went to his strengths, stayed away from his weaknesses, played really good defense and made shots and didn’t try to do too much. As a result, he was really productive, he doesn’t have a turnover, and he is plus-15 or so for the game. It just translates.”
On the luxury of having Sharife Cooper when the game is tight…
“It is point guards winning. It is why you have got to have a great quarterback. Put it in their hands and let them make plays. I thought there were a couple of decisions that Sharife made where he threw the ball to some guys, and look, I would rather have you keep it. I would rather have the ball in your hands, put guys in positions to not turn the ball over. And a couple times we had some breakdowns there.”