High Point vs. Kentucky
December 27, 2000
Coach Tubby Smith Quotes
“It is good to be back in Rupp Arena. Anytime you play your mentor and your former school it is tough. Coach Steele has been a friend for a very long time and I was happy to get a chance to coach against him. Games like this are very important to us regarding our freshmen and younger players. Games like this help with the confidence of younger players such as Cliff Hawkins and Marquis Estill. This is going to help our confidence keep going in the right direction.”
“The crowd was great tonight. Like I said, it is great to be home and have a small stretch where we are going to be playing here at Rupp Arena. I know some of the crowd left early tonight because we had the game under control. It is great to see the crowd cheer for Matt Heissenbuttel and other players late in the game like they did. It keeps the guys excited about playing on their home court.”
“I thought Erik Daniels had an outstanding game tonight. He has struggled the last couple of games but Erik never got down. Erik is a team player and he is not concerned about scoring and individual stats. He just wants to help the team win.”
“We talked to Keith [Bogans] about taking a few too many three-pointers when he should have attacked the basket. But his overall play tonight was fine.”
“I think we have a lot to work on heading into the second half of the season. With a young team, it takes a lot of practice time to work on fundamentals and we haven’t had that time until now. But now we get to concentrate in practice on our man-to-man defense and overall fundamentals like rebounding. We will practice once tomorrow and break down a lot of film but we will practice two to three times a day for the rest of the break.”
UK Player Quotes
#14 Erik Daniels
“It felt good being out there on the court and contributing to the team. I wasn’t down on myself, I just knew I had to work on some things to get back into the line-up.”
“I feel we are starting to come together as a team. We are making the extra pass on offense and playing more team defense.”
#10 Keith Bogans
“As the season goes on we have to learn from our mistakes. We came out tonight and were focused. Coach challenged us at halftime defensively. He said we had too many turnovers. We came out more focused in the second half and improved defensively.”
“It is good to have a week off. It gives your feet and legs time to rest. It also gives us more time to practice. Anytime you have a week to prepare for a good team it helps.”
“This game helps us a lot. We got ahead early and the younger guys got some playing time. We have to get focused now and get ready for Louisville. Louisville will play us tough. It doesn’t matter what their record is, we have to be ready for that game.”
#21 Tayshaun Prince
“There is always a risk in playing an opponent like High Point. We took care of business. We have to go out there and play our style and get off to a fast start to grab the lead.”
“After playing tough teams like Michigan State and Indiana, we knew that we could not have a letdown tonight. If we played well early, we knew we could grab a big lead and that’s what we did.”
“The three-guard lineup is better because it creates turnovers. The only problem is it creates one less rebounder, but with Gerald (Fitch) playing so well, we have not had to worry about that.”
#42 Jason Parker
“It felt good to get home to Rupp Arena. I think we were a little tired of playing in front of other teams’ crowds.”
“Hopefully this will get us on a winning streak. We just have to practice hard and get ready for Louisville.”
Coach Jerry Steele Quotes
“I think we can play a lot better than we did tonight. Kentucky completely dominated us in the second half. They did everything right and we weren’t able to hang with them late in the game. I thought UK put on a clinic in the second half.”
“This is a great place to play. I can’t believe the way these fans filled this arena tonight. If I was a player, they better not ask me to come to a game here because I could definitely be recruited by a place like this. I’ve never seen so many Kentucky hats, sweatshirts and clothes. It’s just unbelievable.”
“I think Saul Smith was the key to Kentucky’s game. He was definitely a leader on the floor and he was able to get the right people the ball and he controlled the game.”
“Jason Parker is an incredible player. It’s hard to believe he is a freshman. Kentucky is going to be a great team once they establish their inside game like they did tonight.”
“Games like this can weigh on a player and a coach emotionally. It becomes humiliating and embarrassing and you tend to start second-guessing yourself. We just have to learn to not let a loss like this get us down emotionally.”
High Point Player Quotes
Jermaine Wallace
“We came out on fire and I thought we would do something. We came out running but it went downhill.”
“Playing in Rupp Arena was a big experience for us. That was the most people we have ever played in front of.”
“I think that we can learn about strength from Kentucky. Learn about being strong and playing the whole game.”
“I thought we really tried, but they had too many big shots and big players. They forced us to take outside shots, because they were so tough inside. We need to learn to work together.”
Doug Alves
“We started off intense but died down. We got down too far and couldn’t get back.”
“This was the most people I have ever played in front of. Rupp Arena was a great experience.”
“We need to learn to play all 40 minutes, like Kentucky did. Our team can’t get down and expect to come back. We need to work on that.”
