Postgame Quotes: Vols 61, TTU 58

Dec. 19, 2014

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Tennessee Head Coach Donnie Tyndall

(Opening Statement)
"I will start like I normally do, I want to give the opponent credit. I have known Steve [Payne] a long time, he does an outstanding job. They have a heck of a team, we had some great games when I was at Morehead against Tech, seems we would win by a lot bigger margin than three at Morehead but that probably gives you an idea of where we are at right now. To their credit, they have a very physical team, basically we were even on the glass, they did a good job of making us play further from the rim offensively than we have for the most part the last few games. We didn't do a good job guarding the dribble. We didn't foul as much, 16 fouls, we put them on the line six times. We did not keep their guards out of the paint the entire game, in large part, that is why they shot 46 percent from the floor."

(On coming back from being down at halftime)
"I just think it is great halftime adjustments, don't you? I can't answer that. I feel like I am a decent motivator and we try to give the guys a fiery pep talk before every game yet we come out and we start a little bit slowly. But again, I am one of those guys, I always give the opponent credit, we played good teams, guys are ready to play against us. I think teams that we have played are prepared just like we prepare for them, so give credit where credit is due. I certainly would like to start better than we have. I just don't have an answer for that."

(On if the team is tired after this stretch of games)
"I think so. Again, when I say that, I am always cautious because I don't want Tennessee Tech or their staff or their players to ever say, `Well, Donnie is saying we didn't play well.' That is not it. They deserve the credit, but three games in six days, I asked my staff, Thursday I was really going to pop them in practice, really grind them like we normally do, and they said no, let's go light. We only went 20 minutes of individual work, no contact and then walked through tech stuff. I really think with a young, inexperienced team, when you do that, it sets the tone the wrong way. I went back and forth with that and decided to save their legs and we didn't have a physical practice at all yesterday. Maybe that was why we struggled a little bit. I am always trying to think and see what I could have done better and maybe we should have practiced a little bit."

(On having fresh legs)
"I think so and obviously the depth of our team has been hurt a little bit with the loss of Jabari [McGhee]. Jabari is going to be out six to eight weeks by the way. He is a guy that, even though his numbers aren't gaudy, he gives us an energy and a physicality off the bench that we don't have. I do think our team has decent depth though and I do think on our home floor we hopefully can wear some people done. I don't know if we wore Tennessee Tech down at all tonight but we were fresh enough to make a couple plays late."

(On post players)
"We started the game, if you noticed, we made a set play for Willie [Carmichael] to try to go right to the post and try to get a bucket, and he scored that ball. I don't know if we scored six or eight points from the post the rest of the night. So we get a bucket the first possession, very seldom scored around the goal the rest of the night from the post. We drove it a little bit. But it is hard when you don't have a go-to guy to throw that ball down there in hopes that he draw a foul or gets an easy bucket or collapses the defense. Don't get me wrong, Willie and Tariq [Owens] are working extremely hard but their limited right now offensively and then the two other posts we have Armani [Moore] and Derek [Reese] are really more pick and pop face up post players. They are playing at 19/20 feet. It is going to be a grind some nights and if we don't shoot the ball well from the perimeter it is going to be challenging for us offensively."

(On halftime adjustments)
"We just needed to do a better job of getting the corners covered, we have two parts of our zone, and so we went to the second part of it for most of the second half. But really it was about guarding the dribble the first half. We didn't keep those guards out of the paint, they were drawing and kicking for threes, they were making us hop over and dropping it over to the big guys for layups or getting fouled. That was the biggest thing. We just did a little bit better job the second half guarding the dribble and it still wasn't good enough. But it was a little bit better."

(On Ian Chiles)
"I thought Ian, we need a lift at halftime so we went with Ian. He hasn't played in but one game as you know. He drove the ball early and had the nice little play off the glass. I thought he forced a shot there early in the shot clock from 22-feet. But he was just excited to get out there and play. As I told you last week he has had a pretty good week of practice so I think he will continue to get a chance and see how he does. It is just, whether we want to admit it or not, when you haven't played a guy a whole bunch it is hard to really trust them to play when it is a one or two possession game. But I thought he did a nice job in the minutes that he played."

(On Chiles' injuries)
"I think his shoulder bothered him early, and then his foot really bothered him for about a month. It seems like he's about 90 percent now. He's more lively in practice. He's doing a better job defending. I think with being healthy, he's gaining confidence. He's playing better and practicing better."

(On missing shots under the basket)
"With our post guys, it's a lack of strength. These games are so physical. Those big kids tonight for Tennessee Tech would both start on our team. There's no doubt it at the 4 and 5. They're bigger. They're stronger. They're just a little bit better than our young guys right now. They're getting banged up and end up being off balance, shooting some tough shots. With our guards, I think most of the time we do a good job of driving the ball in what we call straight lines, but here lately, we've settled for runners and some off balance shots we need to clean up. Again, give the defense credit for making us take those tough shots."

(On halftime message)
"I think the biggest thing is that I just challenged the guys that they needed to play with more energy. It just seemed like we were going through the motions a little bit. My teams don't usually do that. We certainly don't always play well and we don't always play good, but we usually play pretty hard. In the first half, we didn't do that. I thought the second half was better. We needed to get our minds right and learn from this game. Again, we play in three nights against a good Mercer team that won a game at the NCAA tournament last year."

(On if energy emphasis comes from coaches or team)
"I take the blame there. I think any time you have a leader like we do in Josh that will challenge guys, that certainly helps. Josh was trying to do that before the game. I heard him. That's on me. I've got to a better job. Again, I'll probably be up til 4 in the morning thinking about it. Maybe we should have practiced, even if it was for 40 minutes, yesterday, so these young guys don't have any type of complacency or inclination that this is going to be easy because we knew it wasn't going to be easy. Tennessee Tech had Alabama down 25-10 at one time and it was a tie game with about four-and-a-half to go. We knew it was going to be a tough game as coaches."

(On Jabari McGhee's condition)
"He had surgery, and the prognosis is six to eight weeks minimum."

Tennessee Junior Forward Devon Baulkman

(On falling behind early)
"It is very important that we continue to practice hard, push one another and just remain positive. We have to come in and work everyday."

(On difference in the team to begin the second half)
"I think everyone realized that we didn't want to lose. We got together and talked about it. We told each other it was time to knuckle down and get the job done."

Tennessee Senior Guard Josh Richardson

(On falling behind early)
"Tennessee Tech came out and hit us in the mouth early. It took us a while to respond, but we finally responded."

(On getting early leads)
"It is critical. Once we get into league play, we will be playing great teams every night. You can't have slow starts like that against them."

(On lack of energy from the team)
"It is Christmas break. A lot of people don't know about Tennessee Tech or teams like that, but they could come in here and beat anybody. They are just as good as any other school. We have to do a better job of coming out with a little bit of energy."

Tennessee Tech Head Coach Steve Payne

(Opening Statement)
"I told our guys coming in, Donnie's teams are conditioned to battle and they've always been that way. I've known the guy a long time. We gave them too many second-chance opportunities, gave up too many loose balls. I don't know if they outworked us, but they out-toughed us. The maturity level has to increase. We're talented. I look out there and I think we're capable of winning that game talent-wise. We have to be a little more committed to doing the things that we need to do to win the game. I thought we had plenty of opportunities and didn't do the things we needed to do to win the game."

(On facing former OVC foe Donnie Tyndall)
"We know everything every opponent is going to do. We watch every game everybody plays, we scout hard. I appreciate them playing us, I appreciate the opportunity. This is big for our program, it's great for our university. I don't know if we want to keep playing them because I know Donnie so well and it's tough for us to do that, but I do appreciate the opportunity.

"They're only going to get better, that dude can coach. Anybody that doesn't know that doesn't know basketball."

(On the challenge of playing Tennessee)
"I felt like we played well, but we could have played better. We've played four high-major games and I felt like we let one go. I'm tired of telling them what we need to do to win. The devil is in the details, so let's do it. Until we do that, we're not going to be as good as we can be. We'll have a nice team, but we're not going to have a championship team until we get there.

"We have some good athletes, but they have SEC athletes in every spot. The key with us is how spread out we became and how upright we became defensively. It's a tough situation. Toughness isn't our problem, concentration is our problem, handling adversity."

(On playing two SEC teams close in a week)
"I'm not encouraged at all, to be honest with you. I thought we were going to be pretty good, I expected to win the game. I think we can win the game, but they out-toughed us and made the plays with a string basketball IQ and we didn't."

University of Tennessee Athletics

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