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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 15, 2019Avery JohnsonAlex ReeseDonta HallSt. Louis, Missouri Kentucky-73, Alabama-55 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Alabama. We will start with an opening statement about the game from Coach Johnson. AVERY JOHNSON: Congrats to Kentucky, their staff, their players. They came out and put an extreme amount of pressure on us defensively. We didn't do a great job of getting in our offense. They turned us over. They blocked shots. I don't know if I've ever been a part of a game where a team had nine blocked shots in the first half. They were active. We just weren't efficient on the offensive end. That carried over defensively. We couldn't get our defense set. We just struggled to score. Second half we showed some life. Alex Reese gave us some huge minutes. Donta gave us a lift in the second half. We cut the lead down a little bit, but just couldn't get enough stops. They have a really long team. Getting Reid Travis back obviously helped them, those eight points and seven rebounds. But our guys fought. Our guys fought. It wasn't because of a lack of effort. They just did a great job of disrupting us offensively and setting the tone in the first half. It was uphill climbing all night long. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student-athletes. Q. Donta, can you speak to the defense that Kentucky had. Seemed like they came at y'all physically in the first half. You had a rough go getting started offensively. DONTA HALL: Yeah, like coach said, they came out with energy. They a long team. They have plenty of blocked shots in the first half. They energy on defense was pretty good. Got to give it to them. Q. Alex, talk about your offensive game. You were able to make something happen. Talk about your night offensively. ALEX REESE: I feel like I was able to knock down shots. My teammates were able to give me good looks. I was able to knock them down once I got into a little rhythm. Q. Donta, you've been a team-first player all season long, a team leader. What do you think the biggest reason is for the team's inconsistencies throughout the season? DONTA HALL: I feel like probably honestly our energy coming out into games. Sometimes in the second half I feel like our energy be up and down. That's pretty much what our inconsistency is. Probably like attitude, stuff like that, commitment. Q. Donta, you wanted to win the game, but you scored your thousandth career point, Alabama native, how big a thrill is that for you to have that kind of career here at Alabama? DONTA HALL: It's amazing. I love it here at Alabama. The four years have been great. The people around me, coaching staff, teammates, managers, you name it, it's been amazing. It's a family, and I love these guys to the heart. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Donta and Alex. We will continue with questions for Coach Johnson. Q. If by chance Sunday you do not hear your name called on the NCAA show, is this team prepared to accept an NIT bid? AVERY JOHNSON: Yes, uh-huh, we are. We need as many games as we can get. We have a young guard. You saw Alex Reese have one of his best games in a while. He's been in and out of the rotation. We still got quite a few guys returning. We can use the practice. Q. Avery, you talked about their defense early. How much did their aggressiveness inside, around the basket, shock y'all a little bit? AVERY JOHNSON: How was it going to shock us if we've already played them this year? Nothing that they did really shocked us. They outscored us in the paint. I think in our first game, they had seven offensive rebounds. Tonight they had 12. I don't think it was a shock. It's not like we played a team tonight that we hadn't played against before. A lot of these kids have been competing against each other in high school, AAU level. I think Galin Smith and P.J. Washington even played on the same team. Nothing they did really shocked us. We just didn't have that extra burst that we needed to be successful. I think it was more about our decision making on drives, pick'n roll coverages that really hurt us tonight. Q. Nobody knows what will happen on Sunday, but if you're sitting there first four teams out, second four teams out, somewhere in that range, Donta said a problem in a lot of the games was energy and attitude, how disappointing is that, whoever is responsible for it? AVERY JOHNSON: Well, the main thing is I think our kids are great kids. I just think it's more about the attitude towards the smaller, finer details of basketball. Diving for a loose ball, spacing on the floor, just understanding that you have to have the right mindset. When we run a play, all five guys got to be on the same page. I think that's more what he's alluding to. I thought sometimes in the second half our energy levels weren't as good as it should have been. That's something that we had to take a look at. Yesterday I thought we were good in the second half. I thought we had a good burst at South Carolina. Some of our last games to finish at home, we just didn't have that extra gear. Seems like some of the other teams got a little bit stronger and faster. We were still in the first-half mode. Q. You mentioned with Kira being a young point guard, you need to get him more games. You being a former point guard, how do you keep his psyche into the game throughout? AVERY JOHNSON: He's a pretty levelheaded kid. That's why we loved him even in the recruiting process. We thought he could go through some adversity and still handle it. We just didn't know we were going to get him a year early. He's a great kid. Good family. Mom's a really smart lady. Both of them are hard-working people, both mom and dad. He's pretty resilient. I just think we'll get him a couple days' rest. Wherever we end up, he'll come back out and try to play much better. We'll do whatever we can to help him continue to grow and develop into the type of guard that he needs to be to be successful. Q. When you talk about attention to small details that can make a difference, do you see going forward those improvements can be made? AVERY JOHNSON: Absolutely. Obviously I expected a little bit more in year four. You guys who are on the beat with me every single day, I haven't backed off from it. When you're out of position, you lose some close games. I don't know how many teams have lost as many buzzer beaters as we've lost this year, close games, games in the last four minutes. Just being able to close out games and learn from those situations, there's still some growth there. But we're not as far off as a lot of other teams around the country. I think we're close. We just got to get over the hump. Q. There's one more opportunity this year. Are you looking forward to next year? AVERY JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Especially with Kira. Alex Reese, a lot of these guys coming back, Galin Smith, I don't think Herb Jones played his best basketball at the end of the year. Petty, Dazon. A lot of these guys, obviously got some talented kids coming in. I think we're in a good spot. Alabama basketball, the following we have from our fans, the passion that our fans display, whether we win or lose, you got to take it both ways. They really care about Alabama basketball. A lot of it's because we've gotten them hyped up over the last three years to expect more. I'm really excited about moving forward. Q. From a big picture perspective, how would you assess your first four years at Alabama? AVERY JOHNSON: Wow, I don't want to necessarily give it a grade. I think it's to be continued. People talk about, Well, Collin Sexton hit a shot to help us get in the tournament. You want to have good players to help you get in the tournament. We advanced for the first time in a long time. We were expecting a little bit more to do it by committee this year since we didn't have that first team all SEC guy outside of Kira making the all-freshman team. I think it's to be continued. I think we have to get in the post-season wherever we land, then I'll have a little bit more of a concrete answer for you when our season, at whatever point it's officially over. I think we still have some room to grow wherever we land in the post-season. I hope that's the NCAA tournament. Q. Back on January 5th when you did beat Kentucky, where did you think the trajectory of the team was at that point? AVERY JOHNSON: The way we beat them, obviously if Herro would have thrown in that last-second shot when we were out of position, we would have been deflated. I was still kind of in the middle. The SEC, we knew it was tough. I wasn't expecting Texas A&M to throw a buzzer-beater on us. A lot of unexpected things happened that's not reality. We came into this tournament trying to control our own destiny, playing against a team that was well-rested, waiting for us, trying to even the series up. They were ready to go. We just didn't have that extra burst tonight. But our guys played hard. Q. The scheduling analytics, the effort you put forth towards that, how much do you think that's going to factor in come Sunday? AVERY JOHNSON: I think it's going to be factored in at a high level. Northeastern is going to the tournament, right? Liberty is going to the tournament. I keep going on and on. Look at how tough the SEC is. Outside of obviously the glaring losses, Ole Miss twice, once when they were ranked, a lot of quadrant one wins. Hopefully we'll be able to sneak in. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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