University of Tennessee Athletics
UT-Belmont Post-Game Quotes
November 17, 2010 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 17, 2010
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Tennessee-Belmont Post-Game Quotes
Tennessee Head Coach Bruce Pearl
"Belmont is a good basketball team. I thought we did a pretty good job of being in control of the game most of the way. Our second-half defense kept us in it. We were tentative to close it out. Melvin Goins was hurt in the game Friday night against Chattanooga and did not practice Sunday. He felt a lot better Monday and went today. He re-aggravated it. He got hit in the side and it bent him over double. So he was out. So you have your senior point guard on the sidelines and your freshman point guard in Trae Golden having to kind of close the show.
"I thought when Belmont started to press, we should have attacked. We should have attacked more and kept on looking to score. Instead, we just got real sloppy. We had 27 turnovers. For those who have been at practice, I've talked about how one of our challenges is if we can handle ball pressure. We're going to see a different level of ball pressure, a different level of physicality (Wednesday) night against Missouri State. That will be one of the most physical teams we play against.
"I thought we saw something. I thought Scotty Hopson stepped up and was ready to play. He showed he's the toughest cover-up on the floor. He did a better job defensively and did a better job staying out of foul trouble. We used every foul we had at the five: Brian (Williams) had five, John (Fields) had five, and Kenny (Hall) - I don't know how many he had. He had three. We couldn't give the post much help because their guards are so dangerous. Doubling down or too much backside help and you let that team beat you from 3. The fact that Belmont shot 27 percent from 3 and only made seven, this is a team that makes more than that and shoots a much higher percentage. Overall, we learned a great deal.
"I thought Cameron Tatum made two plays late in the game that were crucial. One, he took a charge with about 2:20 left. Then he got a big rebound with a three-point lead and stepped up and made two free throws. I thought those were game-winning plays."
On the team making clutch plays ..."We're still young and still growing. We're still trying to iron our pieces out. But we'll get there. As the games go on and we get in more situations like that, the cream will rise to the top, whoever it is. We just need to step up, take those charges, take those shots, get some stops and hit some free throws. In practice, Coach always talks about giving it your best. Those are the type of plays we drill and practice on. So it just paid off. " On if Belmont's rally was due to UT losing focus or Belmont being strong ..."I think it might have been a combination of both. They stepped up and hit some big shots. They're a great shooting team that is better from 3 than they are from 2. With a great shooting team like that, if we take somewhat of a lapse, they're going capitalize. That's what they did."
On good free throw shooting ..."That's what we've been drilling over the past two weeks. That's what hurt us in the Indianapolis (exhibition) game. Everybody has been taking the opportunity to get into the gym and shooting free throws before and after practice. It paid dividends tonight."
Belmont Head Coach Rick Byrd
"First of all, I second-guessed myself calling that timeout between the free throws. I don't know what I'd do again because our guys needed to know what to do defensively on a make or a miss. I wanted to be clear about that, so I made the decision, though I thought about it for a while. As it turns out, if I knew he was going to miss it, I wouldn't have called it and then we could have called it on the make.
"I called it, he missed it, then we got a foul on the rebound. All of a sudden, we're down three."
On Tennessee's late free throws: "To their credit, they are not a particularly good free-throw shooting team, but they made their free throws and put the game away."
