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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2013Tony BarbeeChris DensonFrankie SullivanJosh WallaceNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE TEXAS A&M – 71 THE MODERATOR: We're ready to continue on with Auburn. We'll ask Coach Barbee for some general thoughts on the game and then we'll take your questions for the student athletes and then excuse them and finish up with coach. Coach, if you'd begin. COACH BARBEE: Yeah. It was a hard-fought game. I'm proud of the way the guys fought, the way they competed. Dug ourselves a little hole but tipped to fight, Claude back in. Unfortunately we just came up a little bit short. THE MODERATOR: Questions for any of the student athletes. Q. Josh and Frankie, Elston, you guys did a pretty good job of ball denial on him. What's the tough it thing about guarding him? JOSH WALLACE: I mean, he's just a great shooter. Sometimes he's going to hit shots but you kind of know he's going to hit shots. Got to make him work for it. He's a good shooter. Best way to play a guy like that, don't let him get the ball. FRANKIE SULLIVAN: I think they set screens for him when they really need to get him open. They set some good screens and at times we broke down. It was on us, not him, and he just hit some good shots. He takes good shots, makes good shots. THE MODERATOR: Other questions for any of the student athletes? Q. Frankie, 19 points tonight. I guess have you been able to think about your career ending yet? FRANKIE SULLIVAN: It really hit me in the locker room just now, especially after fighting so hard knowing we could have won the game. Just the mental lapse. You go back and play the year back over. It's disappointing we didn't do better because we had a great team. We let it slip on our part. Everything was coming. It's a great school and institution. I love it here. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for any of the student athletes. Q. Frankie and Josh, to end the season again we've been talking for weeks about how poor the season has been, how frustrating it's been for you guys. To walk away and have the end of your career be this way and have this be one of the worst seasons in the program's history, how is that going to stick and how will you remember this season and your time at Auburn? FRANKIE SULLIVAN: Most definitely just not only work towards like on the basketball like in life. When you're down, it's a down time for you in your life. You go through struggles. I think it's one of the major struggles in my life. I learned a lot from it, so hopefully I can carry on into the field I go into next year. I don't take it as a bad thing. You learn the best experiences from your bad experience. I think it's good for us in a way. JOSH WALLACE: I mean, it's not how you want to leave your legacy at a school. That's definitely not how you want to go out, but I mean we fought and just got to walk out the door with your head held high and hope -- I know these boys next year is going to carry the torch and do better things than us. Q. For Frankie, can you talk about what you guys did to make the comeback to tie it up and then what happened the last couple of minutes, why you couldn't take the lead? FRANKIE SULLIVAN: At that point in time we were clicking on all cylinders, boxing out, getting rebounds. We played with a lot of confidence during that stretch. Just a couple mental lapses. All it takes for a team like to hit a couple big shots. Q. Chris, clearly you're going to want to do better than the next season than did you this season. You're going to be unlike the two guys to your right, someone returning. What in your estimation needs to improve next season as a guy that's going to be assuming a leadership role? CHRIS DENSON: Just attention to detail, like Frankie said, we had a lot of defensive lapses that we had tonight that could have been avoided. I think that that's the main thing when you work on next year and get like the younger guys, the freshmen coming in just to buy into how hard and how close we play. That's the biggest thing. Q. The one play with about 11 minutes to go when you tie the game, that was the closest the game got in the second half. There's a lot more to go after that. What did you think on that play you made the steal and make that bucket to tie it up? Did you think that you guys were going to be able to gain the lead that the point? CHRIS DENSON: Oh, most definitely. That's what Frankie said we were clicking on all cylinders. When I got the and 1, I thought it would be all right. Defensive lapses really held us back. THE MODERATOR: Other questions for any of the student athletes? Raise your hand. Okay, fellas. Thank you, you can return to the locker room. We'll continue on with questions for Coach Barbee. Q. Tony, can you talk about the offensive rebounds. Looked to be a key stat tonight. COACH BARBEE: They're a big team, big and physical. We've been outmanned at the 4 spot all year long playing small. Those guys, Allen, Noel, fought their butts off in the paint. I told the guys I was disappointed about the rebounds at halftime. It was the number one key for the game. I think they had 6 offensive rebounds at the half and we had none. We were -- it was a minus 9 at half. That would be the number one priority. Disappointed in the rebound number given that it was the number one key for the game. Q. Coach, there were moments seemed like all year where you were two down, down two, down four, make a mistake, they hit a 3. How many times have you just relived that in your head all season where you're like we were two, three plays from making it a game and then we would lose on two, three plays? COACH BARBEE: I haven't replayed it at all. You have to look ahead. After the season is over, now that it's over I'll spend time reflecting on why things went the way they did and try to get better from there, that's all we can do. Thinking about what happened in the past and harping on it as the season is going on, obviously you watch tape with your team and players to try to eliminate some of those mistakes and breakdowns. It's just disappointing that we had opportunities and more than our fair share of games this year and couldn't get over the hump. THE MODERATOR: Hands up. Other questions for Coach Barbee, please raise your hand. Q. Coach, heading into the season you felt that this was going to be your strongest team and it was going to be your best team. By result it was not. How was it that you so misjudged how this team would end up performing? COACH BARBEE: I didn't misjudge anything. I didn't misjudge anything. Your win/loss record at the end of the day doesn't indicate why the season went the way it went, and like I told the team after the game, that a lot of disappointment, lot of frustration in the locker room, but I told every one of them that I'm the coach of the program and I'm the leader of the ship and it all falls on me. I took full responsibility in front of those guys where this season went and challenged them like I told them I'm going challenge myself. We all got to get better so we can come back next year and make sure next year doesn't go the way this year went. THE MODERATOR: Other questions, raise your hand. Any other questions for Coach Barbee, raise your hand. Q. You mentioned the power forward, talked about power forward and point guard. Are those two positions that you kind of have to focus on going into next year? COACH BARBEE: Focus on in what way? Q. In terms of developing players at those positions. COACH BARBEE: We focus on developing our players every single day, and whether it's the guys who are returning or the incoming recruits, we've got to make them all better. We've got to make them all better to avoid what happened this year. THE MODERATOR: Time for one more. Anybody? Okay. Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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