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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2015Keith HornsbyJohnny JonesJarell MartinNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE Auburn – 73 THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student‑athletes. COACH JONES: Have to commend Auburn on a really gutsy effort, and what they have done over the last three days in making plays and surviving and advancing in this tournament. I thought they did an excellent job. I thought our guys came out, I thought we played hard from the start. Offensively we probably weren't clicking as well as we would like and making plays, but still had a chance to go in at halftime there with the lead. At the same time, I think if we in the second half throughout the game we would have knocked down free throws, we get out of here. We just didn't execute in those areas. A lot of 0‑E areas, too. And unfortunately, we gave up a three there in regulation to send the game in overtime and they made the plays necessary to get out of here with a win today. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for the student‑athletes, please. Q. Keith, obviously you had three shots there at the end, two of them were kind of wild, but did you feel like any of them were going to go in or that you got the look you were looking for? KEITH HORNSBY: The first out of the two in one of the last possessions I thought was a great look for me. It was on line, but it just fell short. The next time I got it, perhaps my decision making wasn't where it was, because we still had some time. But I thought it was another look I could make as well, but it just fell short again. Q. Keith, the last basket you scored was with 13:51 left in the second half. What changed in their defense or in your offense to make that happen? KEITH HORNSBY: Well, they stopped helping off me, but at the same time Jarell got really hot, so we were trying to feed it in to him. We got some good success off that. I got some good other opportunities, but that's just how the game went. Q. Jarell, did the tussle there in the second half change the momentum at all? JARELL MARTIN: Yes, sir. Both teams, they came out and this game was a hard fought battle. It definitely changed after the little incident that happened. We tried to come out and play more aggressive, make some play, some tough plays. And both teams definitely came out and did that. Q. For both players, talk about the pressure when you get into tournament play, this being the first of two tournaments, of free throws and standing up there in these neutral crowds. You got, looks like, RoboCop behind the basket there and just the pressure of that. JARELL MARTIN: Can you repeat that? Q. Just the pressure of the free‑throw shooting in a tournament. COACH JONES: Yeah, we missed a couple free throws. Me missing a ton of them. Being one of the top free‑throw percentage players on our team, it definitely hurt me the most going down there and missing those free throws for my team. KEITH HORNSBY: Free throws can make or break a ball game, depending upon which team is not making them. We are perfectly capable of making all our free throws, but tonight we fell short on a lot of them. But just got to get in the gym and just focus more on free throws for the next opportunity. THE MODERATOR: All right. We'll excuse you to the locker room and take questions for coach. Q. Can you just talk about the thought process of whether there was any thought process to foul there at the end of the regulation? COACH JONES: Absolutely. With about five seconds left, debating on whether we needed foul or not. Couple of things, one is Jordon Mickey had fouled out of the game, needed to get that last rebound really come off and be effective. And possibly knowing, hindsight, if we know we're going to get the ball possibly in Bowers' hand, we should have been able to attack him at that time. He was the one who made the pitch play over to Harrell when he knocked the shot down. But, yes, hindsight, it's not good for us right now. But possibly doing it over in the situation that they were in, we possibly could have fouled before they got the shot off. Q. By my count, you had 33 half‑court possession in the second half and overtime. And you reversed the ball 27 times with the pass. How did you feel about your team's ball movement today? COACH JONES: Well, we want to move the ball and try and make the defense shift really from side to side. That's important to us. And then we wanted to go high/low with our passes. That's really important for us, especially when we have a size advantage in there trying to hit gaps. The way that the game was going and they went with a smaller lineup, we thought that we could do a much better job of taking advantage maybe of our size inside with Martin, a very capable scorer. I thought he did a good job of scoring in there and drawing fouls. So late in the game, that's what we were trying to go to. Q. Can you talk about the situation with six on the shot clock, when your guys didn't seem to be aware that there was that much time? COACH JONES: We were just coming out of a timeout, talked about. Unfortunately, six seconds on the clock, wanted to get it in, set a down screen. If we could go inside right away, we were going to do that. If not, we would hit the corner and knock the shot down. They did a great job of defending that portion of it when we kicked it back up top. Unfortunately, one of the kids wasn't aware of the shot clock and so we did not do a great job of executing there coming out of a timeout with six seconds left. Q. When they send it to overtime and the way that they did, how deflating can that be and how much of a challenge is it as a coach to get your guys back in the game for overtime? COACH JONES: Well, we quickly tried to put that behind us. We have been a pretty good over time all year. What you want to do is try to make sure that you understand how important it is maybe to strike first, score the first basket, or make sure you get that first stop. So, it can be on the positive. We got stops, fortunately, but came back and they wind up, I think, striking first and making either a free throw or basket down on their end. But we were able to play there in the over time and our guys understand the importance of it. Q. Is there a more helpless feeling for a coach than when your guys are at the free‑throw line? You can't really coach them to do anything. You can't call a play. COACH JONES: Well, good thing for us if we had to pick a group of guys that you would want at the free‑throw line, it would be some of the guys who unfortunately had some miscues there at the line today. With the number of opportunities that they had there, that was a huge advantage for us. Unfortunately, we didn't execute there at the level that we're capable of executing. Q. You quickly rushed on the court when the scuffle happened. What was the first thing going through your mind when you kind of see that developing, and if you could go back to what happened before that that led to what occurred in the corner? COACH JONES: Well, we talked to our guys all the time about games like this, and games when they get physical, how you have to play and the mindset and mentality you have to have. When I guess the outbreak occurred, I saw our guys and knew that possibly I needed to get to them as quick as possible and try and make sure that nothing really escalated or anything out there. Fortunately I was able to get out there, hopefully, in time, and not allow our guys to put themselves in any situation that they were going to be disciplined after possibly following this game for them. Q. It looked like that win at Arkansas last week put you guys in a pretty good position as far as NCAA tournament goes. How safe are you guys feeling right now as far as that is? COACH JONES: Well, our mission when we came up here was to, just like everyone else, I think, to pack their bags and came this way was to try to be cutting the nets down here on Sunday. That didn't happen or didn't occur for us. For us to get the automatic bid really from our conference, now, it's going to be on the committee. We don't control our own destiny any more. Felt like we did a good job in the offseason putting together a very challenging schedule for us. And we played one of the top conferences in the country. We think that we fared well. We think our body of work really speaks for itself. We have been in a tough conference and we're hopeful on Sunday that our name is called and we're a participant and in one of the greatest events ever in the NCAA basketball tournament. THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you. COACH JONES: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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