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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2009Korvotney BarberRasheem BarrettJeff LeboTAMPA, FLORIDA Tennessee – 94 CLAUDE FELTON: We'll get opening comments from Coach Lebo. COACH LEBO: Well, first like to congratulate Tennessee. I thought they played awfully well tonight. Especially on offensively. When they score like that, shoot the ball like that, again, I think they're a Top 10 basketball team. I've always said that. But they really got on out of the gate shooting the basketball from the perimeter, especially Chism. Five men that can shoot the basketball. When he's on fire like that out there, it certainly presents a lot of problems because you're not used to defending that at the five position. But our team just battled and battled. We had a couple of shots and a couple of maybe fast break opportunities that we couldn't getting to or to finish in the second half to maybe cut it to a four or a five and just couldn't make a couple of plays there. But, boy, am I proud of my group. We lost to Tennessee. We split with them this year. They're a team that was picked preseason picked to win our league, and they're playing awfully well right now. And I couldn't be prouder. These guys really hurt. Especially my seniors. It was hard to be in that locker room. But they've taken us on a tremendous ride. And I think certainly one that should get us, in my opinion, into the NCAA Tournament. CLAUDE FELTON: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Do you agree with Coach? Obviously, you think you guys did enough? What do you think about the future? RASHEEM BARRETT: Yeah, I believe, me, myself and the rest of my teammates agree with Coach. Like he said, for the last month and a half we worked as hard as we could work. I mean, people said we were down. Couldn't do anything, but we did a lot. And I think we deserve the bid. Q. Talk a little about the second half. You cut it to five, and what was Tennessee doing to keep you guys from catching them? RASHEEM BARRETT: Like Coach said, Chism in the five man shooting threes is hard. We're not used to doing that. They play a little bit more aggressive than we did throughout the game. They're just a great ball team. You can't take anything away from them. They played a great game. Great players, and they deserve to win. Q. Did you guys come into this game feeling like it was a must win for your NCAA Tournament hopes? KORVOTNEY BARBER: Yeah, yeah, we did. But really we wasn't thinking about the NCAA, we just came into it as another game. We knew it was going to be a dog fight. Tennessee just played more aggressive than we did, knocking down the shots and they came up with the win. Q. If you don't get a NCAA bid, will it be hard to get excited about going to play in the NIT? RASHEEM BARRETT: It won't be hard to be excited about being in the NIT. It's another ball game. We're all here to play basketball, what we love to do. We feel we deserve a bid for the NCAA. But we're going to go in with our best foot forward. We're going to practice hard. I'm sure Coach is going to prepare us well, and we're going to do our best. KORVOTNEY BARBER: He said it all. I mean, we haven't been to a postgame since I've been here, so I think we want to go to the NCAA's. But we're not seeded, then that's fine with us. Q. Can you talk about your thoughts on being so close and in a position now that you've never really been in before since you've been at Auburn? And just being on the fringe of getting everything you probably signed up for when you came to play at Auburn? RASHEEM BARRETT: It's a wonderful experience. I can't take anything away from the four years. To end it like this, having me and Quantez as seniors, we enjoyed our ride. To put us in position, like Coach said, at the end of your senior year, something you've never had before, postseason play, it's just wonderful. NIT, NCAA, we never experienced it, and we worked as hard as we could. Q. At the end of the half, it looked like you hurt your arm? What happened there and did that affect you in the second half? KORVOTNEY BARBER: I just tried to go for a rebound and my elbow kind of went in a little bit. But it was nothing major really. CLAUDE FELTON: We'll excuse the student-athletes. We'll continue with questions for Coach Lebo. Q. It looked like in the second half in particular you guys had a good many open shots and threes, and even in closer. Was it frustrating that they just wouldn't go down? COACH LEBO: Yeah, it was. I thought we had a couple of fast break opportunities, too. Where Frankie had a couple at the rim where we didn't convert on. Had a couple of open threes that we needed to make. But we made some big ones also. Defensively they had us spread out, attacked us a little bit at the three position with Ty or Smith they - Tyler Smith they went a little bit bigger and played a lot at the three and tried to pound it inside against us. When they're making threes from the perimeter, you've got to get out there, and it opens up some things for them. But we had some chances. We had some shots, we had some plays. We got a couple of stops when we needed to, but we just couldn't convert them when we needed to in a couple of crucial times there to maybe cut it to three or four. Q. The people who actually look at the NCAA and who gets in and what have you, I think you were one of the third teams just on the outside looking in before today, and I know that you've also been pretty vocal about telling people that this is a team that deserves a look. Can you make one more pitch, I guess? COACH LEBO: Well, I mean, the SEC, as much as it's been bashed, I'm not so sure we're even going to get the automatic qualifier, they may even take that from us this year. I mean, my lord. We are down, but to say that we haven't disappeared. That's what gets frustrating. It's been since 1996. I think we've had five in. We've been the hottest team coming down the stretch. Not just hot for a week or hot for two weeks. We've won 11 SEC games. We beat the top two teams in the league. They talk about the West being weaker than the east. I don't see that. You look at the numbers. When is the last time that a team has won 11 SEC games and not get in and they just bash the SEC this year. It's just, to me, it's just not fair. We're a young league. We didn't have a lot early because of our youth. Our team in particular, we had some injuries. We didn't have Rasheem Barrett really healthy until January. You look at his numbers when he was healthy, and we had some losses without him being healthy. We're a different basketball team, obviously, with him in there. I just feel really strongly that we deserve to be in. I think there's four teams that certainly to get in. Mississippi State's one that obviously could get in tomorrow if we keep the automatic bid. I'm not sure if they're going to keep that or not for this league. We may have lost it. I'm not sure. Q. Talking about a lot of the end of the season, what about in the beginning, you lost some games early out of conference. How much should that play a role, and obviously it does because people look at RPI's? COACH LEBO: It does. What's odd to me is they always talk about your total body of work. Then we play a tournament and in three or four days they determine who goes. So it's kind of one thing or the other. So we had some losses early. We didn't have I didn't think our full team there. But what we did coming down the stretch in the league, you can't take that away from these kids. My opinion, you know, I've watched a lot of basketball. And this league, while we're not going to get 7, 4 or 5, is where we should be, I think. Q. If it is an NIT bid tomorrow, do you think that's something the team can approach with enthusiasm? COACH LEBO: I don't think it will be enthusiastic to start. I'm not going to lie. I don't think. I think it's going to be hurting, and they should be. So we'll have to deal with that once we find out. But we'll just have to wait and see when it comes out tomorrow. Q. Regardless of what happens tomorrow whether it's NIT or NCAA. Can you reflect on what happened this last month on or so? COACH LEBO: These kids have been unbelievable. I thanked them for the ride. You've got to realize that every game that we played, they said has been a must-win for about the last 11 games. We've had a lot of pressure, and with each win, the pressure and the magnitude of each game kind of snow balled. The kids have been unbelievable through all of that. I think everybody was kind of waiting for us as we come down the stretch to lose that one to take us out of consideration, lose that one and take us out of consideration, and we didn't do it we kept winning and kept winning and showing great toughness. It put us in a position that I think we're going - we deserve to be in. But we've played our last ten, 11 games with everything to lose, all right. And it's been emotionally, I know, draining on the kids. How can it not be? It's been emotionally draining on everybody, but it's been a heck of a ride. Boy, it's been fun. I'm awfully proud of those guys in there. They gave me everything that they could possibly give me. We remembered one of the better basketball teams at Auburn. 22 wins, four years it's just phenomenal. Q. Can you talk about the performance Korvotney had today? Have you ever seen him play this well? COACH LEBO: He was great all year. I was just so disappointed. Not to take away anything from any of the guys that were first team. They all deserved it. But what he's meant to this basketball team, what he did this year, the only guy scoring in double figures, double rebounds, double in all the games in SEC play. For him not to be on it bothered me a little bit, because to me, he's a first team all SEC guy. If I could vote for it, I couldn't vote for my own guys, but he would be in the top four. MVP, I think, of our team. He's had an unbelievable year. His toughness physically, his toughness mentally, his leadership. He's battling every night against bigger guys, and he comes out of just about every game with these kind of numbers, and I'm just awfully proud of him. He's a kid that's really, really improved from the time he came to where he's left. Paragraph I told him I'm not saying goodbye to him yet. We're not having that speech yet. We still have some basketball yet to be played. Q. Having played Mississippi State and Tennessee twice, just your thoughts about that match-up tomorrow? COACH LEBO: Well, it's going to be a battle. I think that Tennessee's probably going to try to go inside. Mississippi State's going to use their four-guard lineup to try to spread them to see if they can make shots. It will be a heck of a basketball game. They didn't play too long ago. I believe it was in Knoxville with Mississippi State played them very well. So it's going to be a heck of a match-up, I think, tomorrow. End of FastScripts |
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