|
No. 10/10 Kentucky – 101, Arkansas-Pine Bluff – 43
Postgame Quotes
Kentucky Head Coach Matthew Mitchell
Opening Statement …
“We wanted 40 minutes of hustle today and I thought that we were close to that. I am really proud
of our players for giving a good effort and coming out and working hard today. It was a good win and
completes a good week of basketball for us with three good wins. Now we will break for finals and our
players really need to turn their attention full focus there. I am really, really happy we got the victory
today.”
On A’dia Mathies’ status, who did not play in the game on Sunday …
“She sprained her ankle yesterday in practice, unfortunately. We had a really tough practice yesterday
and it was just a bang-bang play under the basket. We are hopeful it is not too severe. We will x-ray it
in the morning for precautionary reasons and the doctor feels like it is a sprain. We will just see, those
are tricky and funny and you just never know how quickly a player (can recover). Sometimes a player can
bounce back in a couple days and sometimes not. We just don’t know. The doctor was encouraged with
what he could tell without looking at anything. Certainly, if it is major we will notify everybody.”
On the team competing well today without A’dia Mathies …
“It was a great team effort and great to see Crystal Riley back out on the court and I thought she (played
well) for her first game. Crystal isn’t going to get to practice a whole lot this year because of the troubles
she has had with her feet. She has done a good job of staying mentally in to practices and I thought that
she did a pretty good job today. You saw a little bit of rust and she got a little happy out there shooting
the ball today. But she is a good weapon for us and she can keep the tempo going and I thought that she
played pretty good defense. Keyla (Snowden) stepped up like she need to because she is a good scorer
and Brian Goss turned it on in the second half and had a good second half. We have some fire power
and we would not want to think about a team without A’dia Mathies for very long. This is a tough game
and injuries are part of it. We just have to stay focused and keep working and everybody do their part
and we will be alright.”
On setting the school record with 49 turnovers forced in the game …
“Today we were really focused on our turnover margin. We had a game earlier, I can’t remember which
one, where the opponent had 36 turnovers but we had 26 turnovers. Turnovers are great but really
the main focus is margin. The margin today is really unbelievable. That is the players focusing on both
ends. Look, our players work really hard to get in position to do that. They are fundamentally sound and
I thought that today in a game where they probably could have gotten away with some things not being
particularly fundamental they had some discipline and that is when you see a 36-turnover game balloon
into a 49 because we were sharp today. I am really proud of that, just very, very proud of that.”
On if he was worried about the team’s focus in this game because it is sandwiched between some big
games …
“I was very worried about our focus today. We gave them Friday off so it was one day of preparation
and we had some good focus yesterday. I was concerned and we tried to give them some specifics today
for them to worry about. I am not a huge numbers guy, but turnover margin was one of them. I thought
that had to be sharp to do what they did today and then we wanted to try to keep running and stay
aggressive offensively. This team can’t afford to take a day off offensively. We are still trying to find our
way there. I was concerned about that before the game and I am happy with what I saw out there.”
On what he has learned about this team during this nine-game home stretch …
“I think that throughout the nine games you saw they played hard and really mad some athletic and
exciting plays. I think that it can be an exciting basketball team. With the wins over Louisville and Duke,
I think that you saw the possibility of us having some quality depth. You can say you are playing 10 or 11
players, but you have to find out how many you have that can really play. I think we have the possibility
to have some quality depth. We also found out that we have some really passionate fans and great fans.
We had another great atmosphere here today, really good nine-game home stand for us.”
On what this week looks like from a practice standpoint …
“It’s Monday and Tuesday off. Not every single player in every single class has a final. There are
some papers and other different things. They have to learn how to balance their responsibilities.
That is part of life and they will have it the rest of their life. We want them to be really locked in
with their academics but we are working on that all the time. We talk to them about their academic
responsibilities, their basketball responsibilities and their social responsibilities. It will clearly be a week
they need to lock in and do well and perform well academically. We will give them a couple days off and
get right back at it because we have a huge game coming up next Sunday.”
On Samarie Walker being available vs. Notre Dame …
“She will have to complete the semester and we think she will do that. She has been practicing as a
member of our team and she gets reps in game-day practice with the game prep and everything. We
have included her in everything. When we take the floor on Wednesday then playing time will be up for
grabs and I would say that based on what she has been doing she will have an outstanding shot to be on
the floor against Notre Dame. I think that we will be a better team. She fits in well with what we do and
is an absolute beast around the basket and is very strong and can rebound and finish. You have to think
there would be some nerves and rust there as long as she has been out but we really tried to get her
prepared and integrate her into the team. This wouldn’t be a huge shift in what we are doing. We are
hoping that transition would be smooth.”
|
