|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 16, 2019Mike WhiteJalen HudsonKevarrius HayesSt. Louis, Missouri Auburn-65, Florida-62 THE MODERATOR: We are ready to begin with Florida. We will ask for some opening thoughts on the game from Coach White. MIKE WHITE: High-level game. Two very good teams. We knew we'd have to play really well, better than we did at Auburn this year, to give ourselves a chance. We definitely did that. We had multiple opportunities to take this one. Just didn't make all the necessary plays. 20 points off of turnovers I think was the biggest factor. That's what they were very good at. I thought they were very good in that regard, then doing what they do offensively, spreading you, hitting timely threes. I thought Jared Harper was amazing. I thought that we made a few defensive mistakes, but we were pretty good defensively. They're that good offensively. It was the turnovers that ultimately cost us. But in terms of effort, I don't know that we could have played any harder. These guys right here are playing as hard as they played in their entire careers, getting after it, laying it on the line. They spearheaded us getting better throughout the year. We're a much better team than we were a few months ago. These guys to my right are largely responsible for that. THE MODERATOR: We'll take your questions for Kevarrius or Jalen. Q. What did they do, 36 turnovers in two games against Auburn? What do they do that makes it so hard to move the ball against them? KEVARRIUS HAYES: Kind of deny passing lanes. We tried to reverse the ball on top of the key. They're good at disrupting and jumping passes. Every time we tried to get in a player set, they'll try to shove you off, kind of keep you from getting dribble handoffs or simple catches on the elbow. They're a very physical pressuring team. JALEN HUDSON: They're always in the gaps, so it's hard to reverse the ball. They're very active even on the ball. They have a lot of versatile defenders, can guard multiple positions. They're able to switch on the ball, off the ball. It was hard for us to get into the paint. A lot of times we were late shot clock because of their pressure, our inability to turn the ball. Just the late shot clock and us trying to do things we shouldn't have done created a lot of turnovers. Credit to them, they played really hard. Q. Jalen, the guard's ability, especially Harper's, to step back and keep making those threes. You went in the game pretty well aware of his range. Does his range surprise you still? JALEN HUDSON: Yeah, even now it's surprising me. I knew early on the coaches did a really good job with the scouting report. They were doing a lot of switching, we had to do a lot of switching as well. Other people ended up on him, he was able to get hot. Down the stretch he made a really big shot. Made big shots all night. Credit to him, he and Bryce Brown made really big shots for them. Q. Kevarrius, you will be in the NCAA tournament. What will your message be? You have control of the locker room. What are you going to say to these guys? KEVARRIUS HAYES: It's a different level of competition regarding the NCAA tournament. Everybody is playing to win. We have to bring our A game, because that's exactly what other team is going to do. We might end up going against teams we haven't played against before. We have to lock in and be more focused than ever going into those games. THE MODERATOR: We'll excuse the student-athletes and continue with questions for Coach White. Q. What makes it so difficult to move the ball against them? MIKE WHITE: I think they have the best team speed in our league, first and foremost. They play really hard. They're prepared. But their speed I think is what separates them. I guess I could expand. McLemore, Okeke, Spencer. Their frontline guys, Purifoy, Wiley moves like a big, and he's a force to be reckoned with on the interior. Those other interior guys move like wings, they move like threes. All of their guards move like ones. Harper, Bryce Brown has tremendous speed and quickness, Samir Doughty, McCormick. They're just really fast at every position. They overplay stuff. They randomly switch stuff. They're unpredictable on how they guard certain actions throughout the game. They got the best of us twice this year in terms of us getting out of our comfort zone and trying to make a few plays that we didn't belong trying to make. I thought we had great poise for about 24-ish minutes, then started with a one-footed floater across the paint, late clock, a jump pass, pick-six, trying to split a ball screen on the sideline. Stuff we hadn't been doing lately. Some of it is our poor decisions, but some of those poor decisions are forced by their speed and quickness, by a little bit of a scoring drought. As good as they are offensively - and they're as good offensively as anybody in our league - I thought their defense performance was the biggest factor in the game today. Q. You got five guys to go over 30 minutes, six guys in double-figure minutes, they have nine guys in double-figure minutes. Third game in three days for both teams, that has to be a factor a little bit. MIKE WHITE: Absolutely. Absolutely. They've done a good job of that all year. I think Bruce has had a lot of teams like that, where they got a bunch of guys that can hurt you, starting off the bench, what have you. Unfortunately, that's been a factor that hasn't helped us this year. We're not as deep as we'd like to be. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|