Opening statement…

“Our kids fought, I was proud of them, and so did Texas A&M. They fought. That was a heck of a basketball game, just the play at the very end there that kind of sullied up the game. That’s what it did. They played, Billy had them ready for our stuff. I thought we played well offensively and did enough, we just didn’t rebound. We started rebounding late and had to go zone because we couldn’t guard them. We were a couple of rebounds away from creating a gap and we just couldn’t seem to get them.”

 

On the difference in the game…

“They were right from the start of the game way more aggressive, way more physical, wedged us, got into our bodies and we weren’t ready to battle back.”

 

On rebounding from the loss…

“Here’s the hard thing, these kids are not machines and they’re not computers. It’s hard for them to [have] unbelievable energy every night. When I walked in, Billy (Kennedy) looked at me and laughed and said, ‘You have to do this every night you coach.’ This is what we see. We either find it or we get beat. Today, I thought we had it and I thought we had a lot of good stuff going on. Texas A&M did what they had to to make sure that it was close. You wait for that one thing to happen, boom, the game changes. You lose and you go home.”

 

On Texas A&M’s resume…

“They’ve lost road games. Everybody is losing road games across the country. In this league it’s the hardest league in the country to win a road game. He’s fine. A&M’s fine and A&M is a NCAA Tournament team.”

 

On the end of the game…

“When Isaac [Humphries] got that big block, he’s a big reason why we were up at the end. Rebounding the ball, blocking shots, I mean he got it and we were all so excited and ran to him. He was excited as well. He started to throw it and he tried to [stop it] but it came out of his hands. He was saying sorry but he really has nothing to be sorry about. He was a big help in this game and did his job.”

 

On players getting hurt…

“I wouldn’t say I feel good about it because we lost but I feel like everyone that had to step up came in and fought. Like I said Isaac [Humphries] came in and did a great job. He had 12 boards and he came in threw his body around. They had a lot of offensive rebounds as well and they had a lot of threes. That’s what we have to work on.”

 

On giving [Jamal] Murray the ball in overtime…

“I think he hit a three. Once he hits a shot we know where he goes from there. We just kept feeding him and feeding him because he’s just making plays happen.”

  

On Kentucky’s quick turnaround from Thursday to Saturday’s game…

“We are aware that [A&M] had four days to prepare for us and we had one. We were focused but guys banged up and guys tired, fatigued. We did a great job but just not enough.”

 

Opening statement…

“It was a heck of a game, real fortunate to get the win. I was really impressed with Kentucky’s guards. Obviously down the stretch, they made it hard to put them away and I’m proud of our guys for being resilient and hanging tough and fighting and figuring out a way to win. Tyler Davis, what a heck of a play he made at the end and went to the rim like he was supposed to and made a big shot.”

 

On technical fouls…

“I thought both technicals weren’t very good so it was a little bit different, but I mean if you’re going to call a blocked foul when you think it’s a blocked foul, kid slams a ball on the floor, that’s the rule. That’s a technical foul. You’re going to call a tech on me, running in our huddle and running out when I come back out and I’m wrong and I need a tech. I think as long as they call it right when they see it and what they believe in, I can live with that.”

 

On being a part of the game’s atmosphere…

“It was thrilling. Obviously, until the end I thought we had pretty good control of the game but I was really impressed with [Tyler] Ulis and [Jamal] Murray, the plays that they made, the special plays and the lob play that they executed down the stretch and their defense was really, really good but we didn’t execute. We had some possessions that weren’t very good offensively that we need to clean up. We were fortunate.”

 

On A&M and UK going into overtime for consecutive years…

“I hope it’s not overtime next time and I hope we can win. But, I guess it was our turn, it was our turn. I think style of play has a lot to do with it, just defensively and offensively how we both like to play mostly man. We played man the whole game. Our guys, everybody raises a level up when Kentucky comes in and it’s interesting and again I’m proud and excited we won but when you have the Kentucky jersey on, you can see those kids think they’re going to win every game and that’s a credit to John Calipari and what he’s done with the program. That’s what I was really proud of our guys this year, we were resilient and I thought we thought we were going to win the game. We never thought we weren’t going to win the game, that’s why we were fortunate to win.”

 

On Super Bowl MVP Von Miller giving the team a pre-game pep talk…

“It was incredible. I watched him throughout the season and I watched a couple of his highlights on YouTube. Just an incredible athlete and it really meant a lot and he gave us an extra boost of motivation to go out there and play hard.”

 

On impact of the win moving forward…

“It just means that we’re getting on the steps of being on the right track where we were earlier in the season, how we know we’re a good team and we’re all clicking and doing the right things. We’ve just got to continue to build on this and take it one day at a time.”

  

On his perspective of the last play of the game…

“Once Danuel [House] got the ball, I knew he was going to either shoot it or drive it. He was getting to the basket, he just wasn’t getting some calls. But, I kept my guy on my backside and once he put the shot up, I just had a chance to grab the board and put it back in.”

 

On emotions during game…

“What was going through my head when we were going into the first overtime, I felt like I was drained from my energy just flowing all night. I was like ‘Dang, I’m drained right now’ but got no choice but to keep playing hard and we did that.”

 

On Texas A&M team…

“We’re a good team as well, we can play with anybody. I know we can. I just believe in my teammates. I know we can compete with any team in America so whoever we step on the court with, in my mind, I’m ready to go to war with my teammates.”