On what first place and winning the SEC means …

“Well, I told the guys yesterday: ‘It’s a big game if you win. It’s a huge game if you win. If you don’t, then it’s the next game and we march on. It’s not the end of the season. We have to play on.’ I’m trying to get these guys focused on what we have to do. They looked great yesterday. I thought the guys were really focused and locked in, and that’s the best that we can ask  go from there.”

On De’Aaron Fox’s status …

“He didn’t practice yesterday. He did a little bit of stuff and I haven’t been in there to see. But I would guess that he’ll be a game-time decision.”

On what Fox’s condition is …

“Game-time condition. I don’t know. He got his knee. He hit his knee. It’s nothing. It’s not sprained or anything. I think it was a bruise.”

On if the team is inconsistent …

“Not this team; just a couple of guys on the team. And if you have a couple of guys on the team that are inconsistent that way, it’s hard to get rhythm in how you’re playing. So I’m saying to the guys, ‘You have to come with this mindset. You don’t have to be perfect, but you have to be in the same area – in the same area code. You can’ be here and then the next time we don’t know (where you are).’ Again, I’m trying to let these guys know. The biggest thing is prepare to play well and letting it go. You have to let it go. You can’t have all this other clutter hanging around that’s slowing you down, that’s keeping you from being aggressive, keeping you from playing with great energy. You gotta wipe that stuff out and be ready to go.”

On talking to the team about just having fun …

“That’s all we’re talking about. You gotta go out – and I’ll say it again: The inconsistency makes it hard to have fun because sometimes that’s demoralizing. One guy, you’re like, ‘What in the?’ And I’m not saying for me; I’m saying if you’re on the court. You need a team full of guys – they don’t have to be great; they don’t have to be at their best – but you have to be in that range of what you are as a player so we know what to expect. And I think we’re getting closer to it. Look, you want them to peak at the end of the year. That’s what you want, and we haven’t peaked yet so that’s not a bad thing. Now the question is we gotta get them there to where we start playing a little more aggressive, more energy, more 50-50 balls, we play tougher, make easy plays, stay connected defensively and offensively, lock in more. All that kind of stuff is what we need to do.”

On what they need need to do to rebound better … 

“We have to rebound the ball better. They beat us to every ball and every 50-50 ball tipped.”

On Kentucky having more turnovers in the later part of the season and if that goes back to playing anxious … 

“No. I think, here, again, you guys that have followed us in my time here – and some of you haven’t paid any attention but you followed us for all this time: You know early in the year we got our thing because no one knows our team. We’re new. But then there comes a point they say, ‘Alright, here is what you got to take away and this is what you gotta make hard.’ And then you’ll have guys at that point say, ‘Well, this isn’t fun anymore.’ No kidding. They just made it harder. So you gotta figure out how do I have fun when the game is rough and tough and they’re taking away our best stuff and we got to figure out now what do we do? And it happened this year the same way. It was fun to run up and down the court throwing hook passes and reverse dunks. And all of the sudden they shoot the ball and the coaches ran back, the players ran back, and the guy that shot it before it left his hand, he was running back. OK, now you’re not getting as many layups and makes it a little harder. Not playing a couple guys. ‘We’re not going to play these two.’ Now it becomes, ‘OK, how are you going to play now?’ And that’s this team. We have gone through this every year and then we make adjustments and they get it back and then we get going. We just have to do it with this group. Like, I’m, you know, I said to the: ‘This is, this is what you play for – this kind of game where both teams have something to lose.’ Every team we play has house money. They’ve got house money. Well, we all (have house money now). When we went to Alabama and Tennessee, we both had something to lose. Now, this game, we both have something to lose. They have something too now. They’ve played great, and so we’ll see. We’ll see. And again, I keep telling them, there is going to be a time this season when you lose your season ends. This ain’t it, so just play. If you win, it’s huge! Big! If you don’t, you lose the game. Next game. Who do we play next? If you win, it’s huge. ”

On how Florida looks without John Egbunu … 

“They’re still good. Their guard play and what they were (hasn’t changed). They’re missing one big guy but the other guys, they – the games I watched, the two without him, I mean, they beat South Florida and they beat them pretty handily. So, they’re good. They’re what they’re ranked. They’re one of those top five, eight, 10, whatever they have them there. They’re good and they’ve been good on the road, too.”

On Isaiah Briscoe being more confident …

“He was better yesterday. Yesterday was a good practice for him. We did some stuff. Stuff’s not easy. Every game’s what it is and you can’t–you’re trying to get better as you’re trying to figure out what we do here. I’m going to say this: I don’t think anybody’s feeling sorry for us, that’s one. And the second thing, I’m telling everyone out there, every team at this time of the year has issues to deal with. Every team. There’s something that happened that their program is having to deal with or their coaches or their team. Every team has issues. We’re trying to figure our issues out better than they’re trying to figure their issues out. And we’ve got a bunch of good guys that want to do this that we’re trying to do what we need to do as coaches to help them.”

On who the point guard will be if De’Aaron Fox cannot play …

“I don’t know. We’ll have to figure that one out. What do you think?”

On Dominique Hawkins being the first one off the bench …

“That’s not a bad idea.” 

On getting another shot at Florida …

“Another opportunity. Like (Coach) Cal said, if we win it’s a big game. If we lose it’s on to the next one. It’s just another opportunity.”

On playing for first place in the SEC standings …

“We’re playing for first place, but like Cal said, if we lose it’s on to the next game. We gotta focus on who’s next.”

On what it would mean to win the SEC …

“It’s good, but Cal plays for the NCAA Tournament. He’s told us that before. We’re just fighting for the NCAA Tournament. If we lose, we care about it, but we gotta move to the next game and the next game is going to be there.”

On how much this game means after losing by 22 in Gainesville …

“We want to come out with a lot of energy. If we do that, I think we’ll be fine. But like I said, if we lose we gotta be ready for the next game. But they did put a whoopin’ on us down there. We gotta bring something back.”

On how embarrassing it was to get beat like that …

“Super. I mean, we didn’t really get beat like that. We watched film and we were down six, we were down four sometimes, we were down eight and then we just let little mistakes slip up on us. We did that to ourselves.”

On Florida’s guards …

“They’re great on ball screens. They read everything great. They can get to their spots great. They do everything great off the ball screen. We just gotta focus in on that.”

On what he says out of Florida’s guards defensively …

“We just gotta, like I said, have a lot of energy and a bunch of ball pressure and I think we’ll be fine.”

On why they didn’t have the energy the first time against Florida …

“I can’t tell you that. We don’t know, but we didn’t have it, so that’s a bad thing.”

On having the video put out promoting him for All-America …

“I didn’t even see it yet, but (UK assistant director of media relations) Deb (Moore) sent me the link and stuff, but I haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet.”

On if freshman guard De’Aaron Fox practiced Thursday …

“He did a little thing but you gotta ask Coach on the rest.”

On what they’ve done to get more together as a team …

“Ran. Ran a lot. A lot of running.” [Laughter.]

On getting beat on the boards by 25 the first time they played Florida …

“Bad. We gotta come out with energy and we gotta be way more physical than they were. They were more physical than us down there.”

On Florida graduate senior guard Canyon Berry shooting free throws underhanded …

“I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it before. I don’t care, he makes them. Whatever it takes to make them.”

On if he’s ever tried shooting free throws underhanded …

“I’ve tried a couple times. That’s pretty hard to do. I don’t know how he does it.”

On where the team’s confidence level is after five straight wins …

“We always have confidence, but sometimes we come out with confidence and no energy and sometimes we come out with confidence and energy. That shows us who we are when we come out with energy. But we always have confidence.”

On why a team can ever come out with no energy …

“That’s a good question. I really don’t know. I don’t know what to tell you. Not focused is the only thing I can say.”

On who on the team will call others out if they don’t look like they have energy …

“Everybody. We can say anything to anybody and nobody takes hard feelings. We’re alright.”

On it being a good thing they can do that …

“Yeah, for sure. We can do that now. We got to that point where we can tell anybody anything and we’ll say, ‘Alright, we gotta do something and get better.’ ”

On Adebayo saying he didn’t do anything different at Missouri …

“Yeah, he didn’t. We just threw him the ball more. That’s all. We got him the ball.”

On if they’ll look for Adebayo more against Florida …

“For sure. For sure. I think Florida lost their big, so yeah, I think we have an advantage there. So, we gotta get Bam the ball.”

On whether he did anything different vs. Missouri …

“I didn’t do anything differently. My routine’s the same. I went out with the same intensity, the same fight I had, and just came up with a little more rebounds, a little more points.”

On whether that builds his confidence …

“Yeah, it should add to anybody’s confidence. Not just mine. We all have high confidence so it keeps carrying on.”

On the confidence level of this team right now …

“We’re at an all-time high because we’re getting it together. We’re coming together even more and we’re buying in.”

On what they want to prove vs. Florida …

“Just that we just got fight, we got determination and we got heart.”

On what he remembers about the first game vs. Florida …

“We just came out sloppy and they came out with intensity. That’s pretty much it.”

On whether that’s easy to fix …

“Yeah, we just all gotta have the right intensity, the right mindset. We gotta all be ready for the game.”

On whether a sense of urgency is kicking in …

“For every person that’s just getting into college like us, we’re eager to get to the NCAA Tournament, but we gotta take it game by game.”

On whether the goal is to match Florida’s 22-point margin of victory …

“The goal is to win, pretty much. If you look at it, a W’s a W no matter by 22 or by one.”

On what Isaiah Briscoe gives the team even through struggles …

“He still brings leadership. He’s a high-profile guy. We look up to Zay. He’s a good defender. I know he gets in the right spot on offense. He just helps us out in other ways.”

On whether they say anything to Briscoe when he struggles …

“We all just cheer him on. We don’t bash him or anything like that. We just try to build his confidence.”

On rebounding vs. Florida …

“It was pretty much we all just gotta rebound and just come up with boards.”

On whether he can explain why Florida dominated on the glass …

“They just got more 50-50 balls than us and it just turned out they had more rebounds.”

On whether there is a revenge factor in this game …

“You want to win every game. We lost down there, so our expectation is to win.”

On whether they think about winning the SEC …

“I just want to win, so winning an SEC title is something to me just like it is just winning another game.”

On whether he can play the rest of the season like he did vs. Missouri …

“I think I can be that every game the rest of the season. I just gotta put my mind to it and be more confident.”

On whether consistency is all about confidence …

“Yeah, and then my intensity and my confidence and just seeing how the game’s going.”

On what he attributes inconsistency in rebounding to …

“When my teammates rebound, it’s hard for me to rebound. We’re all fighting for rebounds so you’re going to have to share some.”

On what he remembers about the last Florida game …

“We came out lackadaisical.”

On why that happened …

“I don’t know. I have no idea. We just came out slow and they came out hot.”

On whether that’s the biggest change that has to happen …

“Yeah, that’s the biggest change. Just coming out with intensity, everybody’s game ready and ready to go.”

On what winning the SEC would mean to them …

“Winning is everything, so we just want to win. Losing doesn’t feel good, so I’d like to be on the winning side.”