Vanderbilt men's basketball coach Kevin Stallings addressed some members of the local media Thursday before practice, addressing how the team intends to build off its performance against South Carolina and the current status of sophomore center A.J. Ogilvy.
Question: What do you see from this team that you can build on?
Kevin Stallings: As a coach, I continue to be extremely impressed with how hard they work in practice, how good their attitudes are, how they all continue to be good teammates to each other. As long as we keep getting those things, at some point, we'll get them to where we're an effective basketball team and a team that can have success in this league.
Q: Is there such a thing as a wall for freshmen?
KS: People have talked about it for an awfully long time, and I guess there probably is. If you hit it, you better not stick to it. You need to get off of it. I don't think even with our troubles that we've hit any kind of wall. There hasn't been any lethargicness to them. They continue to practice very hard and get great effort. They played very, very hard last night. We didn't always play well. We turned the ball over too much, and we weren't able to establish any kind of low post game. But they played extremely hard, we attacked the basket, we got to the foul line, we rebounded the ball really hard. We did a long of things well. They showed great resiliency in getting down double digits on multiple occasions and coming back. Again, that doesn't comfort the loss. It's a good sign to me that we've got nobody that's giving in and accepting what's going on right now.
Q: Is resilience becoming an attribute of this team?
KS: They're not going to give in. That's why it's so important that they continue to practice hard, because as long as they're willing to come out here and work to get better in practice, you know they're not going to give in in games. They're going to give in in here before they're going to give in out there. You see absolutely no signs of anybody backing up, anybody's attitude lessening, anybody's desire going down. These guys have really been A-plus in all those regards.
Q: Is George Drake's offense becoming expected in games?
KS: If George can continue to become a player that is efficient, like last night when he has 18 points on 10 shots and has no turnovers. Now that's exceptional. I'll take that from any player I've ever had. If George is a guy that doesn't turn the ball over much, shoots a good percentage from the field, makes his free throws; he's played hard defensively for us all season long, then he's going to be a tremendous asset as we go down the stretch of this season.
Q: Would you say (Auburn coach Jeff) Lebo is coaching Carolina-type basketball?
KS: Lebo is coaching the way he has to coach at Auburn to be successful, and I think he's doinig a great job of coaching his team this year.
Q: Was A.J. Ogilvy's performance against South Carolina encouraging (only scored 3 points, but he grabbed 11 boards)?
KS: I was really encouraged by A.J. getting 11 rebounds. I think he was extremely disappointed in the 3 points, but I told him that I'll take 11 rebounds every night I can get it. I was really proud of him given how he's felt to be able to come out and be productive like that. I think the heel's fine. I think it's close to 100 percent. I don't think the heel's a problem.
