Kentucky Basketball Previews Ole Miss
UK ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS
MEN’S BASKETBALL
UK at OLE MISS PREGAME MEDIA
MARCH 4, 2019
JOE CRAFT CENTER – LEXINGTON, KY.
Assistant Coach Tony Barbee
On Reid Travis’ status …
“That’s a tough question for me. It’s all about the medical staff and their determination of Reid, so you’d probably have to go through them to get those answers to those questions.”
On UK forcing fewer turnovers in the past few games …
“It’s a concern that we haven’t been doing that, but we have to get back to what we were doing to cause those turnovers. That was we were really getting after the ball. We were pressuring, we were making passes difficult, we were getting in passing lanes, we were being very disruptive in our opponents’ offense, and that hasn’t been the case. Definitely not the last game. Tennessee was able to do what they wanted, to run what they wanted, get the ball where they wanted. Give them credit for being able to do that, but we weren’t how we’ve been defensively, so we’ve got to get back to that defensively because that’s a key in our success is being very disruptive and getting points off of turnovers.”
On how much of Saturday was Tennessee playing well and how much was UK mistakes …
“Combination of both. They’re a very good team so there’s nothing to take away from Tennessee. They did what they were supposed to do on their home court, we did what we were supposed to do on our home court vs. them, but definitely when we look back and watch the film, we had some guys back up defensively. Some guys individually, and thus collectively as a team. We’ll take that as a learning opportunity and try to make those changes in this upcoming game.”
On if selfishness is more on offense than defense …
“No. That’s probably 50/50 offensively and defensively. You can be very selfish on the defensive end of the floor as well and both of those things were in effect in our Tennessee game.”
On Ashton Hagans having to be the point man on defense against good guards as a freshman …
“Again, not to make excuses, because what he’s trying to do in this game with his game at this level and then hopefully for him what he wants at a level beyond that, he has to do it every night against really good guards because that’s what this game is. That’s what the guards that have come before him in this program have been able to do, but that’s not all Ashton. That’s Immanuel (Quickley), that’s Jemarl (Baker Jr.) behind him. All those guys that are collectively bringing the intensity offensively and defensively to the floor every single night. Now if you look at (Tennessee guard) Jordan Bone, that’s what you get from an experienced guard in college basketball. And Ashton played like a freshman and he played like an experienced veteran.”
On how you can be selfish on defense …
“When you’re supposed to be helping in the concepts that we do defensively and you’re focused in on your man and you’re looking in at your man and he doesn’t have the ball. There’s a lot of different ways you can be selfish defensively. Not playing your role in our concepts defensively can cause you to be selfish and breaks down your defense because defense isn’t any individual. You’ve got to be good individually on the ball, but defense is five guys playing as one. We didn’t do that in this last game.”
On how big a challenge Ole Miss guards Breein Tyree and Terence Davis are …
“Well, they’re two of the better guards in the conference if not the country. Those are guys that have been around college basketball for a while now. When you watch them play on film you see that. You see the experience that they have of going through the battles at this level in this conference so it’s a challenge especially on their home court because they play extremely well at home.”
On what makes experience stand out …
“You see a group of guys or a player that doesn’t get rattled. I mean, everyone’s going to experience adversity and you can see a younger player who gets rattled and doesn’t play up to his best and you’ll see a guy with some experience who doesn’t get rattled. There’ll be some challenges, some adversity they’re facing, but they’re able to play through it and come out on the other side.”
On responding to another hostile environment on Tuesday …
“Well, we shouldn’t be (rattled) and we shouldn’t have been affected at Tennessee. I mean, that’s every atmosphere we face on the road. It’s sold out, typically, it’s a hostile environment, and everybody wants to beat Kentucky. So, it was very out of character for us to get rattled in that environment, and I expect our guys to bounce back in this next road trip.”
On the difference in using a one-point loss and a 20-point loss as a teaching tool …
“Obviously, you would rather learn from a close win than any kind of loss whether it’s a one-point loss or a 20-point loss. It’s better that we lost now and not in conference tournament play or NCAA Tournament play because then your season’s over. We’ll take it as a learning lesson and hopefully our guys will learn from it and bounce back from it and perform better.”
On whether or not Reid Travis will practice today …
“I don’t know.”
On EJ Montgomery’s play on Saturday …
“As a group, nobody performed well in our collective group, and that’s the end result, a 20-point loss to a top-10 team in their home-court environment. So it wasn’t just Nick (Richards) and EJ. There was not one person on our team that played in that game that performed up to their level of expectations for themselves or for the coaching staff.”
On what it means to play downhill …
“Constantly on the attack. You know, one of Ashton’s strengths obviously is his defensive ability to create havoc on the other team’s point guard and then their offense. But, on the other side of the ball, his ability to attack with speed off a miss or make and touch the paint with that basketball, which compromises the defense, which opens up a lot of different things, shots for him, lobs at the rim, shots for our perimeter guys who can make shots. That’s what Bone did for his team. He was aggressive from start to finish. Ashton did that for our team the first time against Tennessee here. For whatever reason, he didn’t do that at Tennessee, and that’s what the difference was in those two guards.”
On whether or not they have talked to the team about Ole Miss’ players kneeling …
“We did not talk to the team about it.”
On the team’s shooters sustaining confidence in their shots …
“Your confidence is based off of your defense and obviously our defensive performance was lackluster at Tennessee. You build your confidence by how hard you play, how in-tuned you are on the defensive end of the floor because then offense just comes. If you’re out on the floor and you’re thinking shots, points, where am I getting my shot, counting the number of points, you’re not going to play your best, and that could’ve been the case at Tennessee. But it goes back to we have to hang our hat on being the toughest, most physical team on the floor with the highest level defensively and then our offense builds from that, not the other way around.”
UK ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS
MEN’S BASKETBALL
PREGAME UK AT OLE MISS
MARCH 4, 2019
JOE CRAFT CENTER– LEXINGTON, KY.
Kentucky Student Athlete Quotes
#3, Keldon Johnson, Fr., G
On what they can learn from the loss at Tennessee …
“We just gotta get better. We just gotta continue to bring it each and every night. Can’t take any nights off. We gotta compete and always stay together.”
On what they were feeling walking off the floor in Knoxville …
“We’re still confident. It’s one game. One loss. We learn from it and we move on to the next game.”
On what they want to learn from it …
“We just gotta play together. We were a little stagnant out there and we think that as long as we stay together and continue to improve we’ll be fine.”
On why Jordan Bone was able to have such a big game …
“He had a really good game. It definitely opened it up for a lot of other guys, him getting in the lane and penetrating. I think that was on us. It’s no one person. I think that it was really on us how he got in the lane and things like that.”
On why they are forcing fewer turnovers …
“We just gotta turn up the intensity. That’s it. We just gotta come in more focused with intensity. There’s nothing in particular. We just gotta come together and lock in like we usually do.”
On having something to prove coming off a loss …
“I think we’re going to go out there and do what we usually do. I think that definitely makes us hungrier that we lost like how we did, but I think we just learn from it and we’re ready for our next game.”
On who he was telling “I love you” at the Arkansas game …
“I was talking to PJ (Washington). So everybody out there thought I was talking to some girl, but I was talking to my teammate.”
On why he did that …
“It was a tough game. Of course we were just coming back. I felt like he was a little down and just letting him know that we got his back, that I love him regardless of the situation that’s going on.”
On selfishness at Tennessee …
“You could just see it throughout the game. We really weren’t making extra passes, things like that. You could tell, we really need each other out there for us to be successful. You could tell and it really opened up our eyes.”
On what the defense looking like on film …
“It was pretty bad. We were getting blown by a lot and we weren’t—I’d say most of the time it was blow-bys on the wings which caused 3-pointers out there and easy lanes to the basket.”
On the difficulty of grasping team defense …
“You just gotta lock in, pay attention to detail. I wouldn’t say it’s hard. It’s just all on how you want to take it and how you want to display it. I just think that if you come in and lock in and play for your teammates, you’ll be good on defense.”
On guarding Ole Miss’s wing players …
“Do what we usually do, I would say. Just go out there and compete and get the job done. Go out there looking to go ‘kill’ (defensive stop) from the jump. That’s’ the plan.”
#5, Immanuel Quickley, Fr., G
On the mood of the team right now …
“I think you take 24 hours, just like any other good win or bad loss. You just try to move on to the next game, try to bounce back.”
On what the team can take from Saturday’s loss …
“We learned we’ve got to fight every game. Each game is tough, especially against a veteran team and a good team like Tennessee. We’ve got to know that we’ve got to come out with a little bit more sense of urgency and we’ve got to fight a little bit more.”
On whether he thinks Ole Miss will be a desperate team on Tuesday …
“Yeah, absolutely. I think any team, though, that plays against us is always a desperate team, just because it can help their résumé come March if they were to beat us. I think every team is a desperate team when they play us.”
On how a team slows down a point guard like Tennessee’s Jordan Bone once they get going …
“It’s tough. It’s real tough. And Jordan Bone is a really good player. It’s a collective effort. It’s also individual, but also collective. The next time we play Tennessee, we just have to do a better job of that.”
On if he took any individual confidence from Saturday’s game …
“Yeah, I maybe individually played OK, but it’s all about the team and we didn’t really play that good. So, we’re just looking to come out the next game and get a better team effort from everybody.”
On if the offense affected the defense, or vice versa, against Tennessee …
“I don’t really think it was about X’s and O’s or anything like that. I think it was more fighting and coming out with a high sense of urgency that we need to come with.”
On how important it is to be sharp this week …
“It’s vital. Ole Miss is a really good team. And if we don’t come out against Ole Miss, we’re going to get beat. We know that, so we’ve got to come out with a high sense of urgency and we’ve got to come out with fight.”
On how a team can be selfish on defense …
“I don’t think we have selfish players. Just sometimes, we don’t know. Some of us are freshmen, so we’re still learning. Covering for each other, rotating, helping the helper, things like that are ways that we, quote-unquote, are selfish.”
On if he’s gotten a little more confident lately …
“Yeah, a little bit. From what I heard, people say I played OK the last game. But I think it’s all about the team, we didn’t really play that good. So, just looking to come out against Ole Miss and play better as a collective effort.”
On how tough it is to maintain a high intensity level on defense …
“Absolutely. A lot of it is on the scouting report, knowing who we’re guarding, all that stuff. But then again, it just comes down to fight, and we just didn’t bring it last game.”
