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March 19, 2015
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
KENTUCKY - 79
HAMPTON - 56
COACH JOYNER: I thought our kids competed well, especially in the second half. I thought they competed well the first two minutes of the second half. We did have a section in the first half, about that last 10, 11 minutes, but we did get a little unrattled, and I thought we got caught up in the moment a little bit. That's understandable at this stage, especially when you've never been there before. But overall, no one's happy with a loss, but I am pleased with the overall effort. I thought Quinton played one hell of a game. Again, as I said all year, he's a warrior, and he played like one. We probably played -- and this is not an excuse, just a little bit of reality for us. Probably our eighth game in about 12 days. So I think a lot of the little shots we normally hit, we didn't make. A lot of that, give credit to Kentucky too. Geez, they're long. You have to make shots over long people, and it makes it difficult. But I'm proud of the way we competed and the way they represented themselves for the better part of the game.
Q. Quinton, how much was your ankle bothering you? What did you think of how you guys competed?
QUINTON CHIEVOUS: I wasn't really thinking about my ankle. I didn't really feel pain until after the game, until it was over. I think my team competed great against the Number 1 team in the country. I feel like, if we didn't have a couple of those turnovers in the beginning when they were up, I think it was 14-18, I feel like it could have been a little bit different. But you really can't gamble and turn the ball over against Kentucky. You have to have a perfect game if you're going to beat them. I feel like we lost control right there, and it was a little too late in the second half, when we made a run, to come back.
Q. Coach, you mentioned their size. How much did that impact things?
COACH JOYNER: I think that's the difference in the game. Because when you try to double down, they're big enough to throw out and they're talented enough to throw out. Definitely, when it comes down to the part about rebounding, the size -- and their size can also run the court and create problems for you in transition. Defensively, they're able with their size to switch one through four and sometimes one through five. So that disrupts your offense. So the size did bother us a lot. I think that's the key to the ball game, not just against us, probably everybody that they played this year. If you can't combat that with bigs who are able to step out, we tried to use what size we did have, like Quinton and Charles (Wilson-Fisher) were efficient in certain situations. We tried to use them to attack their bigs, and we were actually successful in certain situations, but we couldn't get enough of it to really get us where we wanted to be to keep us in that ball game. Then when you come with two 7-footers and bring two more 7-footers off the bench, it can begin to wear you down, and I think that was a problem for us. They just wore us down.
Q. Coach, the fact you had four juniors to play and the fact that you come off your conference championship, a tournament winner, how excited do you feel about next season? Is your team competed today. They played well the last three weeks. Feel excited about next year?
COACH JOYNER: Very excited. Again, we only have one senior, Emmanuel Okoroba. The one thing I think our team should take care of is if we are able to is one, God willing, if we can stay healthy, and two, if you are able to compete at this level for an entire season and you are lucky enough to have this opportunity again, you don't have to play against the likes of Kentucky. You can probably gt someone that you can compete against a little better. At the end of the day, these boys learned some valuable lessons, and we learned things about ourselves. We need to handle the things we need to handle academically and get back to working on next year. Maybe we won't be in this position -- when I say that, not having to be the 16 seed facing the Number 1 seed.
Q. Followup on that real quickly, with the success you've had the last few weeks and the success of your tournament, does this make a great name for the MEAC to let everybody know the MEAC is a very competitive conference, things you can do, and look forward to the future for not only your team but your conference?
COACH JOYNER: By all means. I don't think we get the credit that we are due for the teams that we have. We made it and (North Carolina) Central did, but Central is an outstanding team. (Maryland Eastern) Shore is an outstanding team. Howard is an outstanding team. Norfolk (State) is an outstanding team. We have five teams in postseason this year, which is probably a record for us, I don't know. All of those teams competed well. Nonconference, I think we won a lot of games, as a conference. Sometimes I don't think we get the credit for the teams that we have, but if we could continue to do things like this. I mean, I don't like to lose by any means, but if we're able to battle the Number 1 team in the nation to a 34-38 second half and if you don't have the problems that you're going to have in the first half, that says a lot about us, and it says a lot about our conference. Hopefully, we can build on this from here, and we've got to continue to compete in a nonconference games and stay competitive so we can eventually get the credit that we're due.
Q. Coach, you brought your team up here. You won a tournament game. You go up against Kentucky. You scored more points than 20 of their opponents this year on this stage. Talk about lessons that the kids learn. What did your kids gain? What did your university gain from this, playing on this stage?
COACH JOYNER: First of all, the publicity that you get from playing the Number 1 team in the nation and all the hoopla that's around Kentucky, I mean, they even followed us. They followed me walking my kids through the mall. To get that type of exposure and to hear your university's name announced that many times, not just on national TV, but throughout Facebook and Twitter. I mean, that's probably $10 million worth of free publicity that we got this week. You can't pay for that. That was a great thing. The biggest -- again, the thing that we kept telling our kids was we stay together. Don't let the moment get too big. You're going to make mistakes. You'll be fine. But I want you to continue to compete. I think the biggest lesson that they learned was what it takes to compete at this level, and if you do the things that you're supposed to do -- I don't care if you're Kentucky, I don't care if you're Hampton, I don't care if you're at Little Sisters of the Blind, if you do the things that you're supposed to do, we can play at an elite level. We don't have to play against the likes of the people they play against every night, but, again, you just said something that one of my assistants told them in the locker room. You scored more points than UCLA and some other people did. You did some good things out there. Now, right now they can't see that, but as time goes, they'll absorb the good things that they did tonight and the great things that they did over the last two weeks for themselves, their families, and the university.
Q. Coach, you talked about beforehand, about how good you thought Kentucky was. Now you've seen them in the flesh. How good are they, in your mind?
COACH JOYNER: They're as good as advertised. I mean, I think they don't have a recognizable weakness for us. I know, when they have to play the likes of some of the top five, ten teams in the country, there's some things that they can attack in a different way than we probably could. For what we thought -- for the things that we thought we could attack, I thought that we got everything out of it. But my top three scorers -- three of my top four scorers, and not having Dwight Meikle, when they're on top, Reginald Price and (Brian) Darden have tough shooting nights like that, it's going to be hard for us to win. I mean playing anybody. But Kentucky is as good as anybody. They have good size. They have great wings. (Tyler) Ulis and the Harrison twins, it's going to take a good team to beat them. You're going to have to be the better for 40 minutes. You don't have to go in being the best team, you have t be the best team for that night. But it's going to take a great 40 minutes to beat those guys. At one point in the game, probably late in the game, I asked one of my assistants, when is he going to start his bench? He said, they are in. Their back five is as good as any in the country I've seen on TV. I thought we played well against them. I want to commend my kids for that.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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