University of Tennessee Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Georgia 76, Vols 75
February 11, 2017 | Men's Basketball
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Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes
(Opening statement)
"(Georgia guard) J.J. Frazier was terrific. He just took the game over. Even though before that, the end of the first half, we didn’t finish that half very well. You can talk about what he did, and like I said, it was terrific, but we had too many breakdowns where we didn’t make him use the screen or he came off of it. He did a good job snaking it, whether he went by the guy guarding him or whether he went by our point guard. Our post players just had too many breakdowns. They had some other guys other than him that made some big plays for them. Grant (Williams) needed more help on the offensive end. He didn’t get very much help there. He’s beating himself up pretty good about missing a free throw at the end, but that’s not why we lost the game. We lost the game because Georgia shot almost 52 percent. You’re not going to win many games when teams play that efficient. Tough loss, but this time of year you have to get on to the next one, win or lose."
(On guarding J.J. Frazier)
"We tried to do a lot of things. We tried to trap him. We tried to go with Shembari (Phillips) on him to get length on him, but he kept getting in there. He went by our post players a couple times. I know he went by Lew (Evans) twice where he snaked around him. You have to give them credit. I thought they showed great poise. It started turning at the end of the first half when we had a lead. Even though we came out and we built a lead up. Real quickly when (Yante) Maten left the game, [Frazier] just went to work. We bogged down a little bit on the offensive end. We had some looks that we need to make that we didn’t, but the fact is (giving up) 51.8 percent won’t win a lot of games."
(On how Georgia's approach changed with forward Yante Maten out of the game)
"They just gave the ball to J.J. Frazier. They just gave it to him. Let him dribble it. The hardest thing to defend is a guy who can dribble and snake it and get here and get there. He’s a tough player to defend. You look at it, he had 29 points, but he had 6 assists. That’s a lot. He accounted for a lot of their points. He was 2-for-7 from the three. We went for steals twice from out-of-bounds situations and gave up positions. He scored both of those times. Then he took a long three and there was nobody even around him. I have no idea how he can be that wide open, where got his own rebound back. That right there is seven points. That’s not even counting the breakdowns on the ball screen. But again you have to give him credit. That was the difference. The played through him and we didn’t have an answer for it."
(On the performance by guard Robert Hubbs III)
"Their defense was basically a box-and-one the way they were running it. Robert took a couple of shots he should not have taken. I thought he should have passed a couple to get Jordan Bowden or somebody else a chance to shoot it from the perimeter. When you think about it, the ball went inside. Grant (Williams) was 10-of-16, Admiral (Schofield) was 3-for-7, Robert was 3-for-13. Jordan (Bowden) did a good job. I think some of those shots he probably should have had a chance to miss a few of them."
(On his offensive thought process)
"I don’t think they were trying to rely too much on Grant (Williams) as much as Robert (Hubbs) needs to move a little bit quicker. Again, I think he has had back-to-back games where he’s been 3-for-13 or something like that. We can talk about our offense, we scored 75 points. Georgia shot 52 percent and went through two key plays. Grant called for a traveling violation and then we had a shot clock violation where he got the ball too late. When you have a guy that’s working like he is, he should be getting the ball. I don’t think Georgia had an answer for him. It still goes back to our defense not being good enough to win."
(On missed call at the end of the game)
"It was goaltending. You can’t hit it when the ball is in the cylinder. I can only attest to what I was told and then shown that the ball was definitely being touched. It’s a big play. Clock should have been stopped at 7.6 seconds or something like that. But again, that’s what we were told. What we saw was a hand on the ball and the ball was at the cylinder. Whether it is or not, it’s coming down. It’s a tough one. You have to look back and see that there was a chance. No one’s had tougher luck than Georgia this year so I can’t sit here and complain about that. A 51.8 percent field goal percentage from the defense. I think says it all."
(On the assist-turnover ratio)
"It’s not like they were putting a ton of pressure on us. I don’t think we should have had any turnovers, but the fact is we still didn’t get the ball moving as quickly as we wanted to through transition. Yeah, five turnovers kept us as close as we were because they turned it over 11 times. But 51.8 percent, you’re not going to win."
Tennessee forward Grant Williams
(On tying his season-high with 30 points in a loss)
"It’s bittersweet. Points really didn’t matter that much to me. I really wanted to win. Not getting it really hurt, but we’ve got to worry about Kentucky next game, move on, and keep it going."
(On what turned the game around for Georgia)
"As far as on film goes, I think J.J. (Frazier) just took over. There’s nothing I could say about it, because I didn’t do a good job of containing him. I really take a lot of this on me because I missed some free throws, then J.J. (Frazier) comes downhill and gets to the basket easily or kicks out to his teammates. He really did attack us and he never really stopped."
(On losing double-digit second half leads in the Vols’ last three losses)
"A lot of the times we just aren’t executing. We either turn the ball over or we’re not cutting hard on offense. We just get complacent. I don’t know if that was it tonight. I can’t really tell that much because it was just the flow of the game. We’ll see on the film just how we did, because J.J. (Frazier) did a good job and they had a couple of better leads take over and knock down some big shots."
Tennessee forward Kyle Alexander
(On the tough loss)
"It’s definitely a tough one because we definitely needed (this win). Also, on a personal point, Robert (Hubbs III) may have not beaten them since he’s been here. We really just wanted this one, all-around, and we couldn’t pull it out."
(On trying to contain Georgia guard J.J. Frazier)
"It’s an effort thing. He’s a heck of a player. He’s making some great plays down the stretch, but we’ve got to play more solid on defense and communicate better on ball-screens, all that stuff. We’ve got to make more effort if we want to pull wins out like this."
(On what the Vols have to do to start finishing games)
"(We have) a lot of maturing and a lot of learning (to do), and a lot more effort. Just more game-winning plays and we’ve got to be smarter down the stretch."
Georgia head coach Mark Fox
(Opening statement)
"That was just a terrific SEC basketball game. I thought both teams player super hard, and we thought that Tennessee, outside of Florida, was probably playing better than anyone in the league. We have great respect for their team and they are hard to beat. We felt very fortunate to win. Our kids certainly showed lots of heart in the second half and I was proud of them."
(On guard J.J. Frazier’s performance)
"Well J.J. (Frazier) loves playing for Georgia. Yante (Maten) had a tough night. He didn’t get many breaks there, so J.J. had to be the senior and really step up and lead our team. He made a couple of plays and got everyone else believing. Then [he] certainly led the charge and everyone followed. That is what seniors should do."
(On what went into the lineup change to start the game)
"I really felt like we won the beginning of the chess match and made the first move and made it really a jump ball. That lineup got us off to a solid start. We didn’t go back to it, but it gave us a good start to the game and that was important to us."
(On his confidence in playing Tyree Crump)
"I believe in Tyree. He didn’t play early and he just had not seen part of the defenses that we ask him to play. He hasn’t seen a lot of the defenses that he plays against. He has a lot to learn. He has had a great teacher every day [in] J.J. (Frazier). I think he has gotten better and better. I have a lot of faith in the kid and he played very well and was a huge part of the win."
(On a win over a top-50 opponent)
"Well it’s a win. We had a very difficult stretch. We really had a very difficult stretch, you know, at Kentucky, at South Carolina, Florida at home, and it got the better of us. Today we get a top-50 win, which is so hard to get. Our tournament team two years ago didn’t have any. They’re so hard to get. They’re hard to get on the road. It was good for our players to find victory, because last week we didn’t."
(On the ranking of the SEC as a conference)
"I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t even looked at it. We’ve just been trying to get our team playing better. I wish I could give you an answer, but I do think they’ll be– this league is better than it’s been in some time. So we ought to go and get four, five, six teams in the tournament field easily, because the league is better compared to previous years. I haven’t done a breakdown of Kentucky."
(On the play of guard J.J. Frazier)
"It just put us in a situation where J.J. had to go do it by himself – lead the charge by himself. We had a lot of guys chip in. We had Tyree (Crump) at three, you know we would’ve done the same thing with Yante (Maten) in the game. We would’ve liked to have had Yante in the game. But he wasn’t there, so you just had to tough up."
(On the experience of lessons learned during road games)
"We’ve learned through our experiences this year and that has helped us grow. We’ve had some very difficult finishes. Some were out of our control. Some, certainly, that we had a big part in. But we continue to grow and mature through those situations and that was probably something that helped us today."
