“Well before that, we’re a day early because of Signing Day and I just want to take a second to congratulate Coach (Mark) Stoops on what a great job he’s done here at Kentucky. I know they’re going to sign a great class tomorrow and he’s just done a fantastic job. He’s a good friend and I’m really happy for him and his staff. So hope Signing Day turns out the way they want it to and I know it will. So we’re happy for Coach Stoops and the football team. As far as South Carolina goes, extremely talented team. We’re going to have to get into attack mode between now and Thursday night when the ball goes in the air. It will be a great challenge for our team and we’re looking forward to preparing for victory.”

“Well, I think that (Alaina) Coates and (A’ja) Wilson just continue to get better. They are really two of the premier post players in the country and they pose a great challenge for any team with their play. They’re extremely tough and talented and seem to be able to rise to the occasion when their team needs it. So they’re very, very formidable. And then once again, they lost what I considered some really good guards with (Tiffany) Mitchell and those kids. I thought they played really hard and were really tough and their seniors that departed last year were so good for them, but they’ve replaced them with very talented backcourt players. And so they’ve just—they’ve got a fantastic team with great talent and so they’ll be difficult to prepare for. But we’ve got to really get our players in the mindset of being on the attack. This is grown-up basketball here. You’ve got to be ready to go out and give a great effort and turn it loose and go at them.”

“I thought last night it was not as if we didn’t hustle. We just were outhustled. So you give Missouri the credit for that, but you’ve got to get that corrected between now and Thursday night. You’ve just got to play with a lot more energy and enthusiasm so you can really play with great effort. But that’s really our formula for any SEC game. There’s not a game that you can look at that we’re going into that you’re like, ‘Wow, Kentucky can kind of just glide through this one.’ You got to come out on the attack. You’ve really got to get down in a stance, move your feet and try to keep the ball out of the paint. You’ve got to close out on the shooters and all those little fundamental things that we really broke down on last night. Gave up a lot of drives last night, gave up just a ton of drives that had not been happening. So attacking on defense, being really tough and then trying to make sure that we’re crisp on offense. Pushing the ball in transition, it’s been good for us this year. Try to spread the floor, try to drive the ball to the basket. Those two bigs are really tough in there so you got to be smart about your drives. So I just think it’s a posture that we have to take, an energetic, enthusiastic posture, great, great effort from our team and that will be important.”

“Well, sure. It kind of goes game to game. Our bench has certainly been helpful for us this year and is developing and getting better. Jaida’s (Roper) really done a nice job in her freshman year coming and developing, getting better throughout the course of the season. I think in this game both teams probably want to play their top players a lot. They didn’t play a ton of people in their rotation last night (in a loss against Tennessee), so I think you do whatever it takes to win. I know our players will be excited to play and this is a little different year for us than years past where you could kind of divide the minutes. So, yeah, it’s possible, but I think that Maci (Morris) and Makayla (Epps) and really all the team are working really hard in practice. I thought we had great preparation going into Missouri and probably it’s one of those nights where you got to give your opponent more credit than you taking blame. They just were fantastic and played hard and outhustled us. So we got to try to get that corrected on Thursday night. Got to outhustle South Carolina.”

“Well, you know, in our five-game win streak that ended last night we’d done a good job of really taking care of the ball. We’d done a good job on the boards and I think defensively we’ve really come a long way and they’ve learned how to play together. On the nights when we play together and play really tough and rebound the ball, we’ve won. Last night our Achilles heel got us. The second-chance points really, really hurt us. You know, a six-point game, they made three more 3s and three more free throws and a lot of those points that I thought we had more control over would’ve been the second-chance points. I think we are – I don’t know if exceeding expectations is the right thing – we just were trying to bring this team together to play our very best and we felt like if we played our best we could be a very good team. And I think we’re on the way to doing that.”

“Well, they present a big challenge. They are as talented and as big – you know, they’re not just big, they’re extremely talented. They are tremendous players. So, what you have to do is concentrate on what you do well. We need to try to run in transition. We need to try to make some 3s. When we make 3s we’re pretty good. So, we’ve got to just play real tough. If you don’t score at the rim because they’re big you can still score paint points. You can still get in the paint and score, and Evelyn’s been doing a good job with her quickness. So, you just have to put a good plan together and play to your strengths. If you sit around worrying about those two, all you’re going to do is worry because they are not going to probably lose any height or athleticism between now and Thursday night, so you’ve got to go play. Do what you do to the best of your ability.”

“Well, you know, we just missed some crucial box outs. I just thought that Missouri just really played more physical. We got pushed under the basket. You know, if you’re under the basket you’re not getting a missed basket. All you’re going to do is the ball’s going to drop through if it’s made. We’ve just got to work hard between now and Thursday, box out a little bit stronger, go get the ball with two hands. There were some 50-50 balls we didn’t come up with last night. Again, you’re getting out-hustled for those. So, you just go back to work and work hard on your rebounding. We’ve come a long way in our rebounding. We’ve done a much better than some of the games we lost: the Louisville game, the Tennessee game, Duke game… We’ve really worked to improve. So, the boards last night we only lost by two but they converted more of their offensive rebounds into points and that hurt us. We weren’t able to do that with our offensive rebounds. We need to find a way to get that done.”

“No, it was really just a daily focus to try to see how can we put this team together and what can they be good at and how can this version of the Wildcats going to be good. When you start trying to count up wins and losses that just drives me crazy because I have never been really good at that. As you look at the month of December, you had a bunch of games that you had a chance but you also could have lost them. I don’t know if it still is, but it is one of the most difficult schedules in the country and in the top five strength of schedule. I was just thinking about daily improvement and going out there and competing hard. You know, we had a winning month of November, a winning month of December and had a great January with five games on the road in this league that’s over half your games on the road and went 6-3 in January. We just got to continue to work to improve and if you can win a few more games you are going to get into the tournament I have always thought that if you get into the tournament you give yourself to win a national championship. You have to get into the tournament to make that happen. We are going to try to win every single game the rest of the way and continue to improve. I didn’t have a number or anything that we were trying to hit, but excited that the team has themselves in a position right now that we can be an NCAA Tournament team if we keep improving.” 

“Absolutely, I think that had we not played really good teams that exposed our weaknesses – and listen, we are a flawed group of individuals that are trying to make sure the sum is greater than the parts and I think that is really becoming a great team. We are well on our way of doing that and being the very best we can be. If we hadn’t had some of those weaknesses exposed, I can certainly tell you in past experiences that you don’t know what you don’t know. So you’ve got to challenge yourself and I thought it was very, very valuable to play that kind of schedule and that is what we have tried to do over the last so many years and it paid dividends being able to hang in there and win some big, important games and all the losses that we have absorbed in the non-conference definitely prepared us to be able to have the success we have had in January.” 

“Yeah, that is always important in any game that you play, but I think our team will be ready to play Thursday night.”