Dec. 7, 1999
Coach Tubby Smith Quotes
“It’s good to be back at home in Rupp. I think that was a big key tonight.Withour depth and athleticism, I think we were really able to get out andestablishtempo and show a defensive presence. I thought we challenged passes andrebounded well. We were able to control the game the entire time, and I waspleased with our effort offensively and defensively. This is the type ofeffortwe’ve been looking for.”
On snapping the three-game slide
“It certainly makes us feel better about ourselves. It was good to work on thefundamentals. It gives us confidence going into our next stretch of games. Wecan carry a lot away from this game. The guys were smiling and I was smiling.It’s really nice to be smiling again.”
On Desmond Allison’s play
“Desmond hadn’t been focusing in the last few games, but he understands thatother guys are ready to step in and step up. Tonight, he stepped up. He hadgood looks and followed through on his jumper. He elevated well and had goodbalance. He shot the ball very well.”
On the play of Marvin Stone and Keith Bogans
“Marvin was excellent. He’s got such great hands and really understands how toplay. He does still need to continue to improve. Keith also did some goodthings tonight. He got some open looks, put up enough shots and was able topenetrate to create more offense.”
On the play of Tayshaun Prince
“Tayshaun needs to move faster. After he makes a cut, he needs to come upreadyto shoot. He has such a slow load on his shot that he won’t get off a lot ofshots until he does that.”
On the team’s play
“We’re not there offensively. Even tonight we had open looks and taps that wedidn’t finish. But it is nice to see an improvement.”
UK PLAYER QUOTES
#32 Desmond Allison
“Tubby stayed confident in us despite the losing streak. He just made sure weremembered that we are capable of playing a good full-court game for 48minutes.”
“It felt good to come out and play well in front of the home crowd. Ourtroubles started on the road so it felt good to come home and end them.”
“We expected a tough game tonight so we wanted to stay focused on getting thewin. We knew that we had to play our kind of basketball to get the job doneandthat is what we did.”
“We expect Maryland to come out tougher than they did the last time we playedthem because they will be playing in front of their home fans. They are wellcoached so it will be tough to beat them twice. We will have to focus on ourdefensive pressure and our rebounding. If we can play our offensive game likewe did tonight then we will hopefully have a good chance at getting anotherW.”
#42 Jamaal Magloire
“Tonight we were able to pressure the ball well, box out on defense andreboundwell. Those were all areas that we improved in and hopefully we can build onthat heading into the Maryland game.”
“Hopefully we will start off against Maryland where we left off tonight. Wewill just continue to work hard in practice on our fundamentals.”
“The hard work is really paying off for Desmond (Allison). He will only getbetter if he continues to get the most out of his individual workouts.”
#40 Jules Camara
“We were very unselfish offensively tonight. We played our type of transitiongame and got the easy baskets that we needed.”
“This game will help Desmond a lot. The way he played offensively anddefensively will only help his confidence. This was the kind of game heneeded.”
“We will have to play fundamental defense like we did tonight. Maryland has(Terrence) Morris who is a star, but they have other players who can scorealso. We cannot allow him to beat us alone. It will take another good teamdefensive effort for us to beat them again.”
#24 Marvin Stone
“We played well tonight. I think I played well offensively. I just wanted togo out and have fun. It was a good game all around.”
“We needed this game. We needed to get back on the winning track. Hopefullywe can keep this up. We’ve got Maryland coming up and it’s going to betough.”
“We are right back where we want to be. We were relaxed tonight and we got agood win that we needed.”
#21 Tayshaun Prince
“Going out there tonight we just wanted to win. It didn’t matter what theirrecord was, we still had to go out there and play good to win. We needed tocome out and execute and we did.”
On the upcoming Maryland game
“It is good to get off some of the rust. They will play us tough. We knowwhat they are going to do and they know what we are going to do. We will haveto come out ready to play.”
UNC Asheville Coach Eddie Biedenbach
“We didn’t have a good game tonight. We had hoped to come in here and playwell. Kentucky has a lot of good players. They played physical tonight and wedidn’t have a continuous battle on the boards. We didn’t work hard enough andgrind it out enough to run our offense with any kind of consistency. We turnedit over 29 times which is far too many. It just was not a good performance forAsheville against a good Kentucky team. It’s disappointing because we havebeengetting better while the games have been getting tougher. Our guys tried hardand it wasn’t their effort but rather a combination of mental alertness andplaying like you are supposed to play.”
On UK’s defensive pressure:
“We turned it over in their press but it wasn’t so much their press, rather(us) not attacking their press. We just didn’t do the job we were supposed todo. It was a good press but that wasn’t what got us beat. We didn’t do what wewere supposed to do.”
On comparing UK to their other opponents this season:
“They compare to Tennessee. I think whoever has the best attitude and playsthebest will be the best team. Connecticut is better than both Kentucky andTennessee. Connecticut is a top five or six team. Kentucky and Tennesseeare 15to 20 depending on how well they get together. At this time of the year,Kentucky and Tennessee are probably at the lower part of the top 20.”
UNC Asheville Player Quotes
#21 John Risinger
What are your thoughts on the game tonight?
“We did not come out as strong as we should have in the first half. We beganto play better during the second half.”
What do you think of this Kentucky team compared to the other top teams youhave faced?
“I think that Kentucky is a real strong team. They work hard and they areright up there with the other top teams we have played.”
What is the key to this Kentucky team?
“The key to their offense was Saul Smith. He does a real good job runningthings and pushing the ball up the court. He also gets the rest of the guysinto the flow of things.”
#11 Brett Carey
“We started out real slow. We need to come out with more intensity like wedidin the second half of the game.”
“Kentucky is a good team. We have played a lot of tough teams, but they aredefinitely one of the toughest teams we have played this year.”
