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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2012Tony BarbeeKenny GabrielFrankie SullivanNEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA Ole Miss – 68 CLAUDE FELTON: We're joined by Auburn head coach Tony Barbee and student‑athletes Kenny Gabriel and Frankie Sullivan. We'll start with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student‑athletes. COACH BARBEE: Absolutely. Before I get to the game, I'm going to address the story that came out today. And obviously our university released a statement which I totally support and stand behind, and obviously because of the nature of the allegations and the story, and because of the statement, I won't be able to elaborate or answer any questions or make any further comment other than that I totally support the statement that the university has made. And that's all I'll say on the story and the allegations today. And then I'll talk about the game. Just disappointed obviously with the outcome. I thought our guys fought hard, disappointed with the fact that Kenny was not able to play more than 13 minutes because of foul trouble and that really‑‑ it's hard for us to score and play with him not on the floor. And he couldn't get into a rhythm. But proud of the way my team fought, proud of the way the seniors fought. And give Ole Miss credit, they really battled. They played tough and they're a hard team to keep off the offensive glass. And not only did they get some offensive rebounds, we got some too, they were able to convert them into buckets. So I thought that was the difference in the game. CLAUDE FELTON: All right, we'll take your questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Did it feel like you picked up those three fouls pretty early there? Did it feel like you picked your head up and all of a sudden you're on the bench with foul trouble? KENNY GABRIEL: Yes, it did. Sometimes as a basketball player, you're going to get two or three fouls in the first half in the early minutes and you just got to battle through. The calls are not going to go our way the whole time. So with that said, we still was only down five at the halftime with me on the bench and not being able to get rebounds for my team. But at the end of the day, we still had a chance to come back and win the game, but they just got‑‑ they just out rebounded us, so that's what basically cost us the game. Q. How much of today before the game did you guys have a chance to‑‑ did you guys talk before the game about anything that happened today? And coming into the game, were you guys distracted at all? KENNY GABRIEL: No, we wasn't distracted at all. We know that we came down here to New Orleans to come down here and play basketball and put everything else aside. We just wanted to be focused on this game and this game only. If we won, we were going to focus on Tennessee. We just came down here with a focused mindset. FRANKIE SULLIVAN: We came into it with a game plan, everything off the court is off the court, everybody have their problems. So we just came into the mindset of trying to win a ball game. Q. I know you only played 13 minutes today, that's not the way you wanted to end your career at Auburn, but if you could‑‑ maybe it's too soon, I don't know, but if you could reflect just on maybe where you think this Auburn program is going after where it's been. KENNY GABRIEL: Yeah, I think that Coach Barbee's going to do a good job with the guys that's coming in and the returning guys on just teaching them how to fight. And I see myself grow from a player from last year, because I used to just put my head down. And whenever coach got on me, just like just balled up kind of, sort of. But now after he gets on me, I just got to take it and deal with it. And that's one thing coach is going to do, he's never going to just beat around the bush. He's going to tell you straight up what you need to do, how you need to do it, and when you need to do it. And if you can't take it, man, you really can't play for him. So with the freshmen that they have coming in this upcoming year, I just want them to know that I'll be back and just to teach them on Coach Barbee and just trying to help them to win. Q. With the foul troubles and things like that that you guys had, it seemed like you were really trying to get the guys going. And some of those shots, you take 11 shots I think from behind the 3‑point line, do you feel like you were forcing it a little bit tonight just trying to get a spark going? FRANKIE SULLIVAN: I wouldn't say forcing it. The shots just weren't falling for me today. I tried to lead my team on the offensive end and on the defensive end and to fight and not to die. And the plays that we were ‑‑ the calls wasn't going our way and that's adversity. You face adversity every day, and that's what coach teaches us every day, that we hove to fight every day. And I'm proud of my teammates and I'm proud of the team. Q. You still got another year. Would you just talk about where you think this program is and where you think you guys can go from here. FRANKIE SULLIVAN: No doubt. It's nothing that we can't do, like with the players coming next year, we got some great athletes coming in. And what the coach is building here, you can see from last year to this year, the growth in the players and their mindset. And once we get players in, like Jordan that's coming in, and plus the guys that's coming, we're going to be pretty good. And especially with the experience that Willy Kouassi got in these last couple games of playing, I think we're going to be pretty good. And coach is going to instill that fight in us, so I look to us doing big things next year. Q. It looked like Nick Williams was a difficult guy to guard as a whole for the perimeter players. It looked like he was able to make space and get shots off. Can you talk about that task. And he ended up W‑22 points, a lot of clean‑look jumpers. FRANKIE SULLIVAN: That was some great screens, and people who was guarding him, I think that it's a team thing. It's not one player that's have to guard him, and that's where we broke down, not showing him the screens. And he got some looks and he knocked them down. CLAUDE FELTON: We'll excuse the student‑athletes and take questions for coach. Q. It looked like your defense got you guys back in the game in the second half, but just couldn't get going offensively. Is that what you saw? COACH BARBEE: Yeah, with Kenny out of the game, it's hard for us to manufacture points, because Frankie is really our only explosive threat offensively. So they did, Ole Miss did a really good job, when he was out of the game, of making the game hard on Frankie. And Frankie also knows with Kenny out, he has to be more aggressive, and that led to the amount of shots he took and the amount of threes he took. But give Ole Miss credit. They made the plays, they made the shots, and that four‑, five‑minute stretch when there was a three‑, four‑point game in the second half, Williams really made the difference. He made some tough pull ups, some difficult shots, and he's typically not that aggressive. But he was tonight and he made the difference there in that stretch when they were able to stretch it out to 10 points. We just couldn't overcome it. Q. You had not just Kenny in foul trouble, you had three guys with three fouls or more. Combine that with not having Ward, were you kind of running out of options, at some point that has to take a toll? COACH BARBEE: Yeah, with the injuries, we have got three potential starters out with injury that weren't with us on the trip, so our depth wasn't there. And then when we got in the kind of foul trouble that we got into, I was searching for answers. And we had some lineups out there that we didn't have out there all year long. So it affected our ability a little bit to defend and rebound and to score. But give Ole Miss credit, they're a tough physical team and they took advantage of that on the interior today. Q. The adversity that you guys faced this year, I know you're proud of the progress that the program made this season. Does a report like today, does it hurt the image and hinder what you're trying to build? COACH BARBEE: No, not at all. Q. Having played Tennessee and Ole Miss, can you just maybe elaborate what you think the difference in tomorrow's game might be based on what you've seen from the teams? COACH BARBEE: I don't know what happened in the series in the game this year. I don't know. Who won? Q. Tennessee won in Knoxville. COACH BARBEE: Tennessee won in Knoxville? There's not much difference in the style. You're talking about two of the bigger, more physical front lines in this league. With Maymon and Stokes, and then obviously with Ole Miss's front line that we just faced, it's going to be ‑‑ I wouldn't want to be in that paint tomorrow with those big bodies being thrown around because it's going to be a battle down in the paint. Q. Talk about Nick Williams and just he's not really known as a volume 3‑point shooter to make four of seven, that's got to be somewhat surprising. COACH BARBEE: He came on late. He came on late. He made‑‑ he's made some big shots for them all year long. And he's not necessarily a shooter, but he's a guy that can make some shots. And he played with a lot of, thinking back to our game in Oxford and how they finished the last five or six game of the year, he really came on with making shots and making plays like he did. So it wasn't a surprise. With the foul trouble we had, we had some smaller matchups on him. And he's a bigger physical guard. Took advantage. He just got to a spot, jumped over the top. And give him credit because he knocked them down. But he's a talented player and that's what you want out of one of your veteran leaders on your team. You want them to take over when it matters. Q. The players said that they weren't distracted. Did you see any sense of distraction today? Did you happen to talk to them about it today? COACH BARBEE: I didn't think they were distracted. We were focused and ready to play. We just had some unfortunate adversity with the foul trouble that we got in early, and we had to play some combinations out there early that we haven't had to all year long. And so we were focused. We were ready. The guys competed. We played hard. It's just unfortunate that it was anybody's game. And give them credit because they made the plays when they needed to. Q. With the disparity in fouls in the first half, did you have any issue with the officiating? And then where do you feel about where this program is? What does it need to do next year to take another step? COACH BARBEE: No, I didn't have any issue with the officiating. I don't think it played a difference in the game at all. And in regards to next year and beyond, I'm ecstatic and excited about the direction of this program. We're headed in the right way. I talked about it before, when you take over a program, obviously a lot of times you get a program like this, because it's not ready‑made and you got to build it and you got to grow it. But what happens is when you're doing that, there's going to be some growing pains. And the best part about me and my background having gone through something very similar at UTEP, there's a, there's nobody who wants to win more now than me. But because of what I've gone through at UTEP, the same type of building process, there's last patience and a perspective that I have that allows me to ‑‑ I'm going to fight, I'm going to get my guys to fight and compete, and we want to win every game when we step on the court.  But at the same time in the back of my mind, I know that this is a process. Now, the fans might not see it in terms of ‑‑ obviously everybody wants to win now. But in terms of what we're building and where we're growing, I'm excited about our future. With the guys that we have got coming back, with another off‑season of growth for Rob Chubb, for Chris Denson, for Frankie Sullivan, for Noel Johnson, the guy who went through some adversity this year. And then extremely excited about the recruiting class that we have got coming in because they're all guys that are going to make a huge difference in the direction of this program. So I'm excited about where we are. Obviously disappointed with today. But the fact that we took steps in a positive direction this year, more wins than we had last year, more wins in the SEC, our RPI came down over a hundred points from last year, our strength of schedule improved over a hundred points from last year. All those things say we're headed in the right direction. So sit here disappointed because you're always disappointed when your season ends on a loss, but there's only really one team happy at the end of the year where they're at, and that's whoever cuts those nets down in April. CLAUDE FELTON: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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