Coach Philip Pearson Press Conference Transcript
2/17/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 17, 2009
Interim head coach Philip Pearson
Opening statement ...
"I think that we have a very challenging game ahead down in Gainesville. They are very good once again. I think that Florida is the model program in this league for the past five or six years. Coach Donovan is a great coach, and they have had great players. We're expecting a tough game down there. They are coming off a couple of very tough losses in the past week at Kentucky and then on the road against Georgia over the weekend. We'll have our hands full. It's an exciting place to play, a good environment to play in. I believe our guys will be excited to play once we get down there."
On what Florida does offensively and defensively that makes them tough to deal with ...
"I think first and foremost they are very skilled offensively. One through five and then off the bench, they are very skilled players. They have size with Calathes as their main ball-handler. He has size and smarts and skills. I think he's very, very good, one of the best players in the league. They shoot the ball extremely well, the best three-point shooting team in the league, and then I think Tyus is very effective around the basket. He's awfully athletic; he runs the floor very well, so that gives us a lot of different things to think about from a defensive standpoint for us. Defensively, they're going to press you some, they're going to zone you some. They have a full bag of different things they can do from a defensive standpoint, so we'll have to be ready to go against a lot of different things. Certainly, South Carolina was a little bit different style for us with the pressing and the trapping, and we expect to see that same sort of thing from Florida."
On what makes Florida a difficult place to play ...
"There are two or three different things. One, obviously they've had some excellent basketball teams the last three or four times I've been down there, so that's been difficult. I do like from their standpoint where their students are. They have that whole sideline full of students right there, and the fans there are on top of you literally. You sit on the bench and when stand up you are literally on the sideline, so it's a tight environment, close-knit in there, but it's also a very fun environment to play in. We had a pretty good game with them there a couple of years ago, and we're looking forward to getting down there again on Wednesday."
On time spent focusing on late-game situations ...
"Last week on Wednesday we broke down into six or eight different scrimmages, and we actually had one 10-minute scrimmage where we start at 0-0. We then had two three-minute scrimmages and up where I put the Red team, our first team, down by four points or so forcing them to work on getting a few stops and coming back. Then we did a couple more one-minute segments where to score was tied with us on defense. We have to get a stop, and then we'll have the rest of the clock to execute our offense and score the ball. We did two or three 15-second segments from the foul line where we were the defensive team on the foul shot, so we are probably going to be down by one or two depending on the free throws made. I think those are real live things that happen in a basketball game, and it's like I told our team after our game with South Carolina: I don't think that will be the last time we're involved in that type of game where it's a one or two possession game in which one or two plays is going to determine the outcome. Hopefully the more you work on those situations, the more you put your team in those sorts of situations, the better off they'll be the next outing."
On the toughest thing for the team during those drills ...
"We've talked about this before, but I think that once we're fatigued it becomes more difficult. Again, that is game-like, it's real. It's 1:41 against South Carolina and you've got a tie score, those sorts of situations. I want our guys to be able to play through mental and physical fatigue to get better, whether it's getting a defensive stop, a rebound or executing our offense at the end of the game. I think those are the situations that we can work on that and get better at."
On whether the team had practiced those situations in the past ...
"We've done it off and on. It was well-chronicled back when Alonzo Gee and Richard Hendrix were freshman when we had Vanderbilt coming here, and by luck of the draw the day before we worked on late-game situations. We had the overtime game, and we had found out that (Jean) Felix could throw the homerun pass; we got into overtime when Hendrix caught the pass and shoveled it to Gee. Those are the things that you want to spend time on each and every year, because I know when you talk to other coaches, which I've done a lot of, those are the things you hear over and over that you just can't spend enough time on special situations. That's something we spent some time on last week and something we'll continue to do."
On the mental make-up of the team after a tough loss ...
"To be very honest, and I think I may have said this once before, but I was happy in that sort of a game, especially a game that was a home game that you lose like that at the end so tough, that we had Sunday off. We typically don't practice on Sundays unless we're going to play a Tuesday night game or something of that nature, so we had Sunday off to sort of regroup both mentally and physically. Of course we practiced yesterday, but I think our guys will be okay. We're going to keep working and pushing, and again, once we get ourselves in that position again hopefully we'll be on the other side of the ledger."
On whether Hillman and Green will be back in the starting lineup ...
"I think they are coming along pretty well. We haven't made a final decision on how that will go, but they both practiced well and if they're not 100 percent, they are pretty close to it."
On the Mississippi State game on Saturday ...
"They are playing awfully well. As you get ready for all of these teams, and it seems like they are coming quicker and quicker, but they're playing a different style. That's one thing I've been very impressed with Mississippi State. They've been able to adapt to their talent and their ability. It seems like last year they had a big point guard and Rhodes down in the post, and their offense was geared to that. Now all of a sudden, they've got the one big post player with three or four shooters sprinkled around him making them awfully difficult to guard. Looking at the SEC numbers today, they average 10 three point shots per game, which is leading the league. Florida is second behind them. Without question it will be a very difficult game for us, and hopefully we can have a good trip down to Florida and come back and get ready for Mississippi State."
