Opening Statement …

“This win is a big one, for a lot of reasons, but the one that matters most – for me and our team – we did it together and it’s a great gift to our seniors. They were huge in the game. Our team pulled together tonight. We won on Senior Night, and that’s a special thing. I’m proud of our players. They battled, hustled, and found a way to win against a really good team.”

On Makayla Epps’ put-back to win the game … 

“It was a great hustle play. She just kept playing. She just kept battling and found a way to get it in the bucket. A lot of times when people see a shot miss, they’re loafing back and not going to the boards. She just hung in there, and it was a huge play in the game. I thought she and Evelyn (Akhator) really stepped up on Senior Night. It’s pretty amazing.” 

On Taylor Murray’s performance …

“She’s becoming quite the floor general. She’s starting our offense and defense. She’s all over the place making plays and pressuring the ball. When she came to us, she didn’t talk very much. I can’t get her to stop talking now during the game. I try to get her to sit down and rest for a second, then she calls me back over to the sideline to talk to her to make sure we’re doing what we need to do. She’s doing a great job as a floor general. Really proud of her.”

On Mississippi State and Akhator’s focus for the game …

“With the way that they play, they give you some driving opportunities. They’re probably the only team in the league that we’ve seen do that. We thought we had an advantage there if we could get the ball to her. We worked hard over the last couple of days to try to get in our mind what we needed to do to win. One of the keys for her was to not post up, sit on the block, and try to play a power game with them. Try to step off the block, get to the high post, and try to step out on the short corner. It was an incredible performance from her.” 

On if he told Akhator anything before the fourth quarter to try to get her going …

“At halftime, we were just trying to keep our poise and composure. (Mississippi State) shot the 3 well in the first half. We were right there where we needed to be. We get it and tie it up in the third. We said, ‘We’re right here.’ We were trying to talk to Evelyn and the kids that were being guarded by the players in foul trouble – they seemed to be a little tentative, so we were trying to drive it at Mississippi State in the fourth quarter.”

On his message to the team at halftime …

“I’m telling you guys it wasn’t a real fired up or impassioned locker room. We were poised and in control. We felt like we had hustled in the first half. I think (Epps) did not want to lose tonight.”

On the Wildcats’ hustling tonight … 

“I’m really proud of how our kids hustled. I thought Mississippi State played fantastic. How could you get a better game than that other than being on the winning side? We could barely stop them. We made one more play than they made. I don’t know how much we outhustled them. I think we just made one more play at the end of the game. We’re fortunate to make that play, but our kids did hustle tonight. I’m proud of our players and Mississippi State has a fantastic team. 

On how big forcing turnovers was for Kentucky…

“It was probably the game. Victoria Vivians is so explosive. All their players are just really, really good players. Really talented team. We had to flip something in our advantage in this game. We had to play real tough. We had to play real tough. Definitely had to take care of the ball. With them they have great rebounding margin and great turnover margin. We were able to get in there and disrupt and hustle. I thought the kids did a good job. That’s a good night’s work, 22 turnovers.”

On fighting back in the first quarter…

“Well I thought we were a little disjointed offensively. I thought we were forcing a couple things. I didn’t feel terrible about the 10 points, two of them were 3s. Vivians’ was really deep, although we need to try and close that, that was really deep. I think it was (Ketara) Chapel that made the other one, she can shoot the 3 but I don’t think that’s how they’re running their offense most of the time. So I wasn’t overly concerned with our defense but I thought we needed to settle down a little bit and we did. Makayla got the good steal and got her first two points and then Maci drove the ball and got to the free throw line. I thought that settled us down. It was really good when we started getting the pace where we wanted to.”

On what this win means to the program and where the program is now from a year ago…

“Well, just a lot of negativity swirling around the program. I didn’t understand why. I didn’t understand what all was going on. I thought we had a great program. I thought we treated people with respect and had an opportunity to grow as a person. It was very tough, difficult time. People were leaving left and right and there was a point where I just didn’t feel like I could get it stopped. When those six finally said ‘we’re in’ we finally had a point where we could march back forward. So I don’t know how many months it’s been, nine or 10, or whatever it’s been. But to be on a night where we had to hustle, fight, work and you know we won that game over the course of 106 practices. I mean we’ve been practicing, working hard and so it means a whole lot. Thank God for giving us strength to hang in here and play and win an important game down the stretch. Now we’ve got a bunch of basketball left. We’ve got to keep going. We got to bounce back and get ready to compete against a really talented South Carolina team. For tonight, I think for me, the best feeling for us is Makayla and Evelyn will always have tonight. You only had one chance at it and now that they have it you can’t take that from them ever. To have that moment with them at half court with just a jam-packed building. Just thank the fans for coming out and honoring those kids. That will be one we don’t soon forget if we ever do. I don’t think we ever will.”

On winning on eight straight senior nights…

“I’m just so grateful for that. A lot of kids, you know, it’s not a guarantee. On year we made a layup against LSU and save Victoria (Dunlap) and that crew’s senior night. It’s not a guarantee you’re going to win on senior night. You’re thrilled they can walk out of the building in their last regular season game and know they did well on senior night so it’s a big moment for these kids.”

On any thoughts from her game winning shot against Mississippi State two years ago…

“Oh yeah, as soon as the shot came off. And you know, Vivians’, it came off of her fingertips. It’s so crazy, it’s the same exact, basically almost the same exact play, the same exact shot, and the same exact outcome. It’s just crazy how things happen. I only had two rebounds and that was one of them.”

On turnovers being the key to the game… 

“I didn’t even know they had 22. One of the things that was on our scouting report about Mississippi State is that they force their opponent into twenty-plus turnovers. You know, we’ve done a really good job this year taking care of the ball and that’s just, shout out to everybody on the team for doing their job. Coach told us, you know, ball security and taking care of the ball and executing our plays would be big in this game. Some of their key players had, you know, Morgan William had four, and that’s just very uncharacteristic of her. I’ve got a lot of respect for her. [Victoria] Vivians had four, uncharacteristic, and one of the kids had six. So that’s just us being at the right places at the right times, you know, moving, being at the right position, and just working hard to get steals and making them turn the ball over.”

On what this win means for seniors on Senior Night…

“Well, you know I am very pleased and very excited right now. They gave us the top two teams in the conference, two of the top teams in the country. That atmosphere out there was amazing. Memorial Coliseum felt like one of them Rupp Arena games. It was very loud in there. Shout out to the fans for coming out on a weekday. I know people have school and work tomorrow. Mine and Evelyn’s’ teammates wanted us to go out in style. It could possibly be our last time playing in Memorial. Just to get a big win like that really means a lot to us.”

On Epps’ confidence coming into these last two games …

“People count us down and out whenever we went through all of that turmoil last season after the season was over. Kids leaving left and right, people thought the six we had remaining that we couldn’t get the job done. I kind of took that on the chin and I told them that’s disrespectful in a sense. Like I said, I looked at the schedule before the season. Of course you have to respect Mississippi State and South Carolina for what they have done and the programs, I mean the way they’ve made their programs to be, but they’re two of the toughest teams in the country, two of the top teams in the conference and in the country and just to only play them once, well we play South Carolina twice but we only play Mississippi State once. Just to see how brutal they have been beating people in the SEC. Just coming out we knew we had to play today, and to get the win, like I said, it’s a crazy feeling. My phone’s buzzing, people are texting me left and right. Like I said though, we stunned them right there. 

On her making big plays against Mississippi State … 

“Oh yeah, you know I was telling them that too. You know, I haven’t lost to Mississippi State since I have been in college. I got a lot of love and respect for Coach Vic Schaefer, like I said, he has a lot of tremendous players, but two that got a lot of my respect, Victoria Vivians and Morgan William. I knew he was going to have something for me, Dominique Dillingham the defender, she was on me tough all night. They had the paint packed. I started off struggling, got frustrated with myself in the beginning, but my teammates rallied behind me, but you know, just to top them off, 4-0, it feels good.”

On how special it was to go through Senior Night with her father…

“Yeah, you know, I told everybody that asked me I wasn’t going to cry, and I almost cried. There was a whole lot of people out there and I feel like I couldn’t cry and then go play my best basketball. But just to share a moment with him, same scenario just 20 years later. I am going to collage those pictures and have them in my house wherever I live in the future. They will be on all social media sites, just really special to me. We will always have that; nobody can take that from us. 

On how important the fans were tonight…

“The fans were very important to us. Every time we scored they were just a booster for us to keep coming back and just getting stops on defense and just running at them.”

On how much it meant to them to get a win for the seniors…

“It’s just very important. Our goal is to just come out and play hard and we knew that this was probably our last game in Memorial so we wanted to just give it our all. We just played hard for each other and we played hard for them too, because they have done so much for us.”

On how she attacked in the fourth quarter and overtime…

“The beginning of the game, or before the game, Coach Mitchell told us that the guards or the post players can’t guard us. We did some plays, where I have to take them off the dribble. I think they went into foul trouble early, so that gave me a plus to like attack them off the dribble. Epps and the rest of the team believed in me, they just gave me the ball. I said yeah, I am going to attack them off the dribble and I did.”

Opening statement…

“I really want to compliment Kentucky and their kids. They really played an outstanding ball game and this should be about them. They certainly played harder than us tonight and I have to wear that as the coach. I obviously didn’t have my kids ready to play. We turned the ball over 22 times and again, I’ll give Kentucky credit for that, and we only forced nine so I’ll also give them credit for that. They really took care of the ball and that may have been the fewest turnovers we forced all year. And of course, Evelyn (Akhator) and Makayla (Epps) both were sensational tonight. Epps has now beaten me twice on the same play. Two years ago she beat us with the same play – offensive rebound and a stick back. So it’s disappointing, but at the same time you really have to take your hat off to those kids. They really willed themselves to victory and really played really hard. I thought their kids really played hard. I thought that first half we had a lot of issues with the point guard position. I thought Morgan (William) played very well in the second half and we ironed some of that out, but during the first half we really struggled offensively and defensively. Even though the book only said they had two fast break points, I felt like I was looking at a completely different game ‘cause I thought they had 10 to 12 fast break points. It was obviously a great basketball game, but I didn’t have my kids ready. I’ll take responsibility for that. I don’t like getting outplayed or outhustled, but we did tonight and that’s my responsibility and you have to take your hat off to Kentucky. Those kids played extremely hard. They’ve always done that. It didn’t matter that it was senior night because I think if it had been any other night, they would’ve done the same thing. We’ve got to go home now and try to win one at home.”

On his final assessment of MSU’s offense…

“We were driving to the hole and we fell down. I haven’t seen it, so I can’t answer anything further than that. It’s a tough deal, but that’s all I can tell you right now. I know what the official assessment was.”

On what accounted for their 22 turnovers…

“We just tried to do too much with the ball. We had people trying to do things that they didn’t need to do. Again, it was my fault for putting them in those positions. It’s my job as a coach to put them in positions where they can be successful. We can’t turn the ball over like that. We have to take better care of the ball, but that’s how Kentucky is. They’re really handsy, they steal and they do a really good job at it, so you have to take extra care of the ball. We just didn’t do that tonight. I’ve got to do a better job of making sure our kids understand that. We go over one down everyday and the way we guarded it tonight, it looked like Ned in the third grade. We didn’t guard it hardly at all. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and I was literally going insane on a couple things that we kept doing over and over again. Obviously I didn’t do a very good job of coaching my kids tonight, but this should be about Kentucky. They did a tremendous job tonight and those kids played extremely well and hard and you have to take your hat off to them.”

On what changed against Evelyn Akhator in the second half…

“I don’t think anything changed, we just didn’t have an explosive player to turn and run. We would turn and walk and then our help side was really nowhere to be found. She’s not an assist player, we talked about that, and she’s got like seven or nine assists in fourteen games. When she puts her head down, she’s going. So if you’re in help you have to get there or get run over. We’re pretty good at taking charge, but we didn’t turn to run and stay with her and that kid just attacked us off the bounce all second half.”

On Makayla Epps overall…

“She owns me. She’s singlehandedly beat me both times here. Here, she’s been special. I’ll take some solace in knowing that she’s done it to a bunch of people. She’s a heck of a player and she’s just got a real presence about her. So, you have to give Kentucky credit. They went to her quite a bit. The play that beats us is her hustle play on the rebound – it’s happened twice in our last two visits here.”

On her memory of the foul sequence…

“Coach drew up a play and I went to do what Coach said, but I guess I traveled.”

On team changes in second half…

“Basically, Coach just told me to guard the ball, attack the basket, because we ended up giving them bonus, and just put our heads down and attack like they were doing us. We had all the fouls, so we weren’t playing aggressive enough. We weren’t getting to the rim, but once we started getting to the rim we made them run.”

On personal changes in second half…

“I just attacked the basket. I looked for my shot and I looked to get to the rim. I was being passive in the first half, so I figured it was up to me to step up in the second half for my team.”