Opening Statement:
“Donate Life Night is tomorrow night against Vanderbilt. The goal is to encourage fans to register as organ and tissue donors. Our program has seen the impact of an organ donation Tom Satkowiak looks really good. Our team will be wearing a shooting shirt tomorrow night. There will be more than 100 donors, families and recipients in attendance. We are thankful for the transplant work being done at both Vanderbilt and here at UT Medical. We are very thankful and blessed for what it has done for Tom’s life and we all know what he means to us here and to our basketball program. This is going to be a great night to bring notoriety to it.”
On if Kentucky’s physical nature affected his team and if it concerns him going forward:
“They did exactly what we talked about and what we thought they would do. We knew they would be very physical with Grant. We expected that. He sees that a lot. The fact is, we didn’t respond back. To their credit, they did it from start to finish. We never got going, we never got any flow offensively. We didn’t play together either. The shots that we were taking, the things that we were not doing. It was a great atmosphere, everything was what you thought it would be. We just didn’t answer the call with what we should have done.
“I’m not taking anything away from Kentucky, because they forced those issues. We’ll learn from it. We have to learn from it. You ask if I’m concerned about it going forward. I’m only concerned about it if we don’t realize what we need to do to get better. If we don’t know it by now, we better after what happened the other night.”
On if anything stuck out to him after the loss and how the team responded:
“Nothing one bit stood out other than what we thought during the game. How did the team respond? When we walked in and asked the team, ‘Do you feel any different today than you did two days ago? A week ago?’ We won a lot of a games in a row, and I thought one of the most mature answers I’ve ever heard was when Jordan Bone said, ‘Yes coach, I do feel different, because I’m really excited about going to practice tomorrow.’ That’s what he said, ‘I’m excited about practice. We have to get better, you’ve been saying it.’ That was one of the most mature things I’ve heard from anybody in a long, long time. We felt like if they really, really wanted to learn from this they would be eager to watch the tape and see themselves doing things that they know they shouldn’t be doing. His response of saying he was excited about going forward and seeing how much better we could be as a basketball team.”
On if the team was embarrassed after the loss and if the veteran players took responsibility:
“They should have been. On the outside, there’s so much going on. Unless you are on the inside every day, you really don’t know what is going on with the vibe of the team. We have been talking about it, and I talk about it with you guys — rebounding. We talked about it, talked about it, talked about it. But yet, we’re winning games. If they didn’t take to it, they have to now. That’s what it gets down to. They would all tell you, in their own mind, some way some how, they were getting lulled into thinking we could just get by with what we were doing. I think that’s a human reaction. The fact that they are able to admit it, that’s where the maturity comes in. They were able to see that we were beaten soundly and thoroughly because we didn’t do the things that go into winning.
“We didn’t play hard enough. We weren’t physical enough. We didn’t execute. We didn’t do anything well. It was everybody thinking ‘I can do this by myself.’ They found out and they all admitted it, which is a good thing. One of the first ways of getting better is to admit you have a problem and that you are mature enough to go fix it, and they’ve said all of the right things. Now we’ll see if they are mature enough to go do it.”
On if there are similarities to the blowout loss to Alabama last season and then going on a hot streak and the blowout loss to Kentucky this season:
“You know what, I haven’t thought about it. I should have talked to you earlier. I could have used that with the team yesterday. The fact is, and you probably get tired of me saying it, but you have to live in the moment. If you start thinking ahead or if you are still living in what you did yesterday, I don’t think there’s any question that our guys are drifting with the focus that we needed. If it takes something like that to wake you up, then so be it. You hate for it to happen, but it happens in real life. If something comes along that’s unexpected, it really makes you assess some things. Yesterday in the film, they understood. I hope what you’re saying can happen. I hope we can get going back to the team that I know we can be.”
On how much easier it is to get players focused after a loss:
“Believe me, it’s easier. I felt like it had been building. We kept using the word ‘It’s going to bite us if you guys don’t understand at any point.’ And it did, really, really hard. We’ve talked about it for at least two weeks. About rebounding, playing defense, about playing hard, about practicing. The way we need to with the intensity that we need to. Like I said yesterday when we came in, we watched it. I said, ‘Hey, if this is who we are, we aren’t going to win any more games.’ Are we going to go back to work and have the intensity, the toughness and the mentality? We have to be the team that we set out at the beginning of the year to be.”
On the team’s defensive numbers being down from last year:
“Well, we are a better offensive team, and I think our guys think that we can just rely on that. Numbers have a lot to do with that. We had two players a year ago that, whether they played many minutes or not, they kept the other team on edge in James Daniel and Chris Darrington. We just haven’t played with the same sense of urgency on the defensive end the way we need too, just little things, as simple as where we pick the ball up, where we want to be guarding in the half court, how we want to play certain things, we just haven’t had the edge we had a year ago because last year we really struggled at times to score, we just shot the ball, and that’s what we did Saturday, some of the shots and things we were doing, we weren’t sharing the ball, we were getting shots blocked, not playing off two feet, every guy thinking that they have to go make something happen as opposed to we collectively have to make to make something happen. But defensively, it’s a mindset, and we haven’t had that the way we need to all year long.”
On the short rotation they had on Saturday:
“That’s my fault, and I’m going to fix that because we need Yves Pons, we need John Fulkerson, we need Derrick Walker, we need Jalen Johnson. We need those guys, and those guys need to understand that they are needed but they also need to understand that when they come in the game they can’t have any negative stuff, they can’t come in the game and give up two or three quick baskets because if they do then they can’t stay in the game. They need to come in and understand those minutes are really important and we need it probably more in the first half. So, it’s important, but they have to embrace that role, and we still got to get back where we were. Kyle Alexander hasn’t been a factor in three weeks, he has to go back and do his job, he just simply hasn’t done the job he is capable of doing, but we need those guys and it’s up to me to get them in the game.”
On Jordan Bowden and Lamonte Turner’s shooting on Saturday:
“I think they missed shots. I don’t think they took good shots. I don’t think we played together. We had a couple times where Grant threw the ball out to Lamonté, and it wasn’t a great pass. It was down below his knees, and we always say, ‘don’t shoot a bad pass’ and he had plenty of time to pick it up, shot fake then take one dribble and pull the defender in, you had Admiral and Bowden on the other side. We are not making that extra pass, when we started making some threes in that game, those were the times when we did that, and I think they understand that at times they forget about Grant Williams, they give him the ball that’s when they get there best looks. We will go three or four minutes and those guys don’t realize that he hasn’t touched the ball. He actually came over to me the other night and said, ‘Coach, if you get me the ball I’ll create some offense for those guys,’ and he does, he doesn’t necessarily have to shoot the ball but when there not shooting the ball they are jumpy, thinking ‘I have to get a shot up’ as opposed to just playing the game.”
On Kyle Alexander:
“I don’t know if I have the answer for why he is struggling, I wish I did because he has just got to get back, he had two games where he was terrific, and then from then on, it’s been a slow decline. Where he just isn’t playing with the same energy and effort, and I think some of it is that he went through a period where he was getting some tough calls against him that were tough and then I think he goes into the game thinking “I can’t be as aggressive early in the game” and if you don’t start off with the right mindset you won’t end with the right mindset. I think he has let some of those games where he got in foul trouble affect him where he needs to just go play, and again have confidence in his teammates, if you get In foul trouble you have to believe that these guys can come off the bench and do the job for us and we are going to have our bench for the reason to motivate guys to play hard.”
On Vanderbilt:
“Well, they lost a key player early in the year. They were terrific against us, no doubt about that, they have been in some really close games, they really have been there. They are playing a lot of young players, putting a lot on a lot of young players to do some things but it’s tough when you spend your whole preseason thinking you are going to play one way and then all at once you have to remake yourself. It’s hard to start remaking yourself once you spent all summer and all fall and then you lose key pieces and then you have to change. You have to put guys in roles they maybe weren’t expecting to be playing but they have been in a lot of close games even though they have not won a conference game they have been in closer games then people might expect if you really break it down and look at it.”
On what he has seen from the frontcourt bench guys:
“Yves, I think we have to get him back, he was playing a great role for us when Lamonté was out, where he was really pressuring the ball, guarding the ball, doing those type of things that we need from him. Jalen (Johnson), he will play based on his defense and we need Derrick Walker to give us a physical presence and we need John Fulkerson to be the guy we know we recruited. I will always go back to his Freshman year when we were at North Carolina, he was the best player on the court then he got hurt after that. He can’t have the mindset that he has a role to play, he should be pushing every day to play more minutes and not be content with just being a role player, because he is too good to think that way. But we need each one of those guys to embrace what they have to do, what their job is for this team right now. All players want to do more, probably, but the fact is you have to do exactly what’s needed for your team right now and that’s what we need from those guys.”
On what he’s seen from Derrick Walker:
“I think we’ve got to get Yves back, because he was playing a great role for us when Lamonte was out where he was really pressuring the ball, guarding the ball, doing those type of things; we need that from him. Jalen will play based on his defense, and we need Derrick Walker to give us a physical presence, we need John Fulkerson to be the guy that we recruited. I’ll always go back to the freshman year when we were at North Carolina, and he was best friends with Corey, and he got hurt after that, and he can’t have the mindset that he has a role to play. He should be pushing every day and want to play more and more minutes, and not be content with just being a role player. He’s too good to think that way, but we need each one of those guys to embrace what their jib is for this team right now. All the players want to do more probably, but the fact is, you’ve got to do what’s best for your team right now and that’s what we need from those guys.”
On the impact that Tom’s story has had on the team:
“When I first got here, Dave Hart and John Gilbert, we were at Dave’s house and some people came over, and I was talking about different teams, and he said, ‘we have a tremendous guy that works with basketball.’ When he mentioned his name the first time, he mentioned his last name and I said, ‘I’ll never learn to pronounce that.’ When Tom came in one day, Dave told me his situation, and he said but we don’t want you to act as if you know it, because he’s the kind of person that likes to come in and talk on his own. A couple days later he came in and I think he had a boot on, and he came in and he said, ‘has someone mentioned it to you?’ And I said, ‘sort of, kind of.’ He went into it and through that time, he and I have shared a lot of really good moments together and when they did the big article on Tom, I don’t think any of us really, other than his closest people to him, knew how sick he really was. We saw, at times, where a year ago, he missed some time during last season where he couldn’t travel with us. I never heard him complain. Not one time, even when I asked him how he was doing, he was ‘fine,’ even though you could look at him and tell that he wasn’t feeling great. I’ll remember that day he called and said, “I got the call”. I remember going over there, we were planning on going back that night, but we came back the next day. I remember we had just walked into the hospital and his wife had his phone, and one of our players texted and said, “Tom, can you send me some photos of me?’ And I took the phone and I texted back and said ‘Well, I’m in surgery right now, I’m having my liver transplant, can I get back to you later,’ and that person wrote back ‘I’m so sorry, I hope it goes well.’ The fact is, if you knew what we knew, and if you look at it today, I would say that you should always want to know that if you can donate when your time is up, you should want to do it because he’s got a new life, he’s a new man, he’s a person, he’s gotten to be better looking. He was a guy that was strong with it. I’m telling you, watching how he lives, and the fact that he was given a new life, because I don’t know how much longer he could’ve gone with what he had. His story has touched me, and a lot of other people around him, and I can’t imagine my life without him in it, I really can’t. I’m thankful for the fact that someone did what they did and it was a match, and I would just encourage everybody to be an organ donor if they can, and help give life to someone else when their time is up.”
On the team being selfish during the Kentucky game:
“Well, when I say selfish, I should probably say, we got to a point where we weren’t in sync, we never settled in on offense. Every guy said at some point, ‘I’ve got to make something happen’ as opposed to ‘we’ve got to stay together and work the game.’ When you think about it, as poorly as we were in the first half, it could’ve been a four-point game until the last play. We just had terrible ball-screen defense, but even with that, it was a two-possession game and we come out not ready. We just never adjusted to what was happening within the game, and then you get behind, then all at once, everybody thinks they have to do this. That’s the fine line between winning and losing, it really is. I don’t mean selfish from ‘I’ve got to get my points,’ it’s like ‘I’ve got to make something happen,’ as opposed to saying, ‘we’ve got to make something happen as a team.’ We never got all five guys that were on the court on the same page at the same time.”
On why Jordan Bone didn’t push the tempo in that game:
“I think there’s alit that happens, and when you talk about pushing the ball, he’s the catalyst, but the guys do have to go with him. Early, I thought he was doing it, but at the start of the game, I don’t think his decisions were great in terms of what he was doing with it. He’s’ gotten so much better in terms of starting to understand all that. Throughout the game, as a group, I don’t want our guys out there being robotic, I want them playing the game. We just have to execute what we do and the shots will come where they need to come from, and we’ll be in a position to rebound. When somebody comes down the floor and takes a quick shot, and guys aren’t down the floor, and it happened a couple times. Certain guys though they had to make something happen quick. We were way too impatient, and against a good team like Kentucky, you’re going to have to maybe give it your second or third option, and keep moving the ball, and the flow of the game. We didn’t get the flow like we needed, and every time we did do that, we got a good look at it. That where we’ve got to continue to have the discipline that we need to have in games, because every game that you’re going to be in from here on out is going to be a close game, and you’ve got to rely on each other.”
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