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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2014Marshall HendersonAndy KennedyJarvis SummersATLANTA, GEORGIA Georgia – 75 THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student‑athletes. COACH KENNEDY: Hard fought game. Obviously disappointed that we came up a little short. I was proud of our guys' effort. Battled, battled, battled. Put ourselves in position to advance and just couldn't make the play. For those of you who followed us all year, we have been real close a number of times and ultimately it comes down to a play here and a play there. Georgia made it tonight. Q. Marshall, for it to end that way, to struggle like you did, how tough was it for you to deal with it like that? MARSHALL HENDERSON: It was hard. I have so many thoughts running through my head about everything that it took to get to here. Then to go out like that, it's crushing in my heart because I want it so bad for everyone. Then coach talked about effort. Effort's good, but you know, I'll take all this, I'll take the blame for all that. That's why it hurts. Q. Marshall and Jarvis, both of you, it looked like jump shots maybe didn't quite have the legs at the end. Was that right? Was fatigue there at all or was it just not hitting shots? JARVIS SUMMERS: Just didn't make shots. We tried. Ball just wasn't going in. That's pretty much it. MARSHALL HENDERSON: They kept telling us get our weight forward, especially me, coming up short.  Shoulders back on it. And it's tough. I tried to think about that, and when you got a guy chasing you and they just kept saying keep shooting, keep shooting, we're living by it, we're dying by it, let it ride. Q. For everybody, Marshall, what do you think your legacy will be at Ole Miss? Jarvis, if you would share your thoughts about Marshall's time at Ole Miss. MARSHALL HENDERSON: I don't know. I'm not really concerned about that right now. I'm just thinking about this loss. JARVIS SUMMERS:  Just a competitor. One of the best teammates I ever played with. His passion, it's just unbelievable. He's just a warrior. Q. Marshall, I know you don't want to think about the future right now, but what's next? Kind of what are you planning to try to do? What are you looking to do? MARSHALL HENDERSON: Go back to the hotel and go to sleep first. And then wake up and go back to Oxford and try and finish up this degree. Be done in May. Get to walk. That will be my next thing. I never thought that was going to be that important, but it's getting a little closer. It's kind of like the season, when it gets a little closer to the end, you kind of start to realize, Oh, now I want to get something done. Definitely will take a little bit of time off, but not that much, because I know that as far as basketball is concerned, trying to get to wherever is going to take me. I know that I can catch some people sleeping after the season in springtime when people just taking the whole time off and get in there and work and see whatever happens, happens. Q. Marshall, you struggled from beyond the 3‑point line a little bit tonight. Was it something Georgia was doing or did you just not have it? MARSHALL HENDERSON: I just didn't have it. It's never what the other team's doing. It's whether or not I make it or not. THE MODERATOR: All right. We'll excuse you to the locker room and take questions for coach. Q. Like I asked Marshall, to sit in like that when he struggles the way he did, I know it's a tough tournament for him and the year, just at the end of the year, it wasn't what he wanted it to be. But to see it end like that has got to be tough. COACH KENNEDY: It's disappointing. It's disappointing. He feels like he let us down. But as he said, I mean, you got to dance with who brung ya. We are what we are. We couldn't automatically say, you know, Let's go to the other option. We went with the options, there they were. For us to be in the game, we shoot 2‑25, I think that was a testament to our grit and our fortitude. Again, we're one rebound away to maybe not having to depend on making a shot at the end. Then it comes down to making a free throw. We couldn't secure a rebound. They got three opportunities. Their point guard chased down the ball and put them in the lead. Obviously we had the two guys that we wanted shooting our last two shots, it just didn't go. Q. 73 free throws, you lose a couple of different guys, had foul trouble the entire second half, just felt like the game just kind got away. It was just whistle, whistle, whistle? COACH KENNEDY: I agree. Unfortunately, that's been the case more times than not this year. Some people think it's good for the game. I don't really understand it. We had our opportunities, and in the game, you have to adjust to the game as it is being called. We obviously had foul problems everywhere, as you noted, and as a result, I think it does take away a little bit of your aggression. We were playing smaller than I would have preferred against a big physical team, against Georgia. Q. In your coaching career, have you ever had your team have seven fouls, be in the bonus four minutes and 23 seconds into the second half? COACH KENNEDY: I've done this a long time. I mean, quite possible. The game was obviously being whistled very tightly. We had to make the adjustment. Obviously we didn't make it very well. Q. A little bit more about that last offensive possession for Georgia, two offensive rebounds allowed there and then Mann gets the layup and it's the same old thing. COACH KENNEDY: You covered every game that we played and that has been our Achilles Heel. We have not done a very good job off our defensive glass. Last year we were a little better in that area and you hoping that we would continue to make improvements. We did sometimes. The game we played in Georgia which we lost on a free throw with under two seconds to play, I think we were out‑rebounded double figures, if memory serves. So tonight we were holding our own on the glass. We couldn't come up with a big one. We got the jump shot. We had to go 2‑3 zone because everybody on our front line had four fouls. When Jarvis picked up his fourth with about four to play, I just had to ride him. So I just didn't want him out there. I knew if I put him on Charles Mann, Mann was going to drive him, and then there was an opportunity to foul out of the game. Obviously that wouldn't have been good for us. We went to the zone, we got the shot we wanted we didn't give up any penetration, we just couldn't secure the rebound. Q. Can you talk a bit about Marshall's legacy to Ole Miss and specifically how he grew this year. Last night when I spoke to him, he said he was more calm this year. He felt more like himself. Do you see any growth in him during his senior season? COACH KENNEDY: When we got Marshall two years ago, I talked about his energy and his passion coming from a good place. You can see that. You can see that. You don't see many 23‑year‑old's crying anymore. That's not cool. He wears his emotions on his sleeve. Sometimes those are misinterpreted. Sometimes he steps over the line. I have said this publicly many times. The thing that I appreciate about Marshall the most is that he owns it. He is what he is. Tonight he got the shots that he made last night. He struggled early last night. We know that we're going to continue to put him in a position where he has to make good decisions with the ball. Last night he made the big ones. We go from 13 down to winning by 12. Tonight shots don't go. We have to live with that because that's who we are. Marshall's had a great impact on our program in a number of ways. The biggest being his productivity. Last year about this time we were preparing to play in the semi‑finals and in the finals, and he was the tournament MVP. One day, God willing, he'll be honored as a legend at halftime for Ole Miss. He's earned that by the way that he's played. Sometimes that's overshadowed by the other things, but he's a very good shooter, he's a very good competitor, and he certainly made our program better in his time here. Q. I wonder if you would agree that Georgia's under‑appreciated and what you think about their approach, why they're so successful. COACH KENNEDY: I think they have done a really good job after being 6‑6 in the non‑league. I don't know this, this is from my perspective, I haven't talked to Mark about it, but I think that they looked at themselves and said, Hey, we have to change if we're going to win. They got much more physical along their front line. They're very, very good at attacking the glass, very similar to Kentucky. That's why, again, if they can make a couple of shots, and they obviously didn't shoot it great tonight, that's what allowed us to stay in the game with our abysmal performance from three. But when Kenny Gaines makes shots, Charles Mann's as good as there is in this league off the dribble. He's going to get to the foul line split defenders. He's an all‑league player and he was acknowledged as such earlier in the week. When Gaines makes shots, those other guys are doing a tremendous job off that backboard to give them second and third chance opportunities. Again, very similar to what you see with the Wildcats. Q. Do you guys feel like there's any chance of getting a NIT bid on Sunday? COACH KENNEDY: I think there's a chance. I think the one thing that it used to be at 19‑13, 9‑9 in the SEC, you're a cinch to make the NCAA tournament. Those days are over. Thanks to the big daddy television and we all need television, pays all our bills. Now this number, this RPI thing now, again, I mean, look at the history of Ole Miss. 8‑8, you go .500 in your league in a major league, you're in. That's changed. That's gone forever. Just being honest, I think that obviously Georgia's beaten us twice. I think Missouri deserves an opportunity to play in the NCAA tournament. Whether or not that happens, I think it will depend on whether or not we get an opportunity to continue to play. Will they take five teams from the SEC to the NIT? You know, probably not. And I like the format of the NIT over awarding the regular season champion of low leagues, I think that's great move. But obviously it eats up slots. There's not nearly as many at‑larges and will they go deep enough based on numbers? I don't know that. I don't want to speculate. We'll find out Sunday. Q. Piggybacking off that, how do you get your guys motivated for a tournament? Obviously they weren't wanting to play when the season started and just for a team that has one senior what can you guys get out of any kind of post‑season? COACH KENNEDY: I think you saw, I think Marshall would want to go out on a different note. I know that he would be excited to play. He likes to play. Jarvis Summers, if I asked him to, would go out and play again tonight. He's going to do whatever you ask him to do. We have got a young, young front line. Every rep that we can get Dwight Coleby, Sebastian Saiz, Anthony Perez, that would be an added bonus. I know we all have to apologize for going to the NIT, which is ridiculous, but it is the name of the game. Simply because I know CBS pays so much money for that other tournament that that is the end all, be all. It's certainly the goal. But to have to apologize to play in that league is really ridiculous when 70 percent of football teams, you don't even have to go .500 against Division‑I and you get a bowl game, and it's celebrated. There's a parade. Yet if you finish in the Top 30percent in basketball, you're almost apologetic. So I would love to have the opportunity to play in the NIT if indeed we're deemed worthy. Q. On the last possession, was Marshall the first option and Jarvis the second option? COACH KENNEDY: Yeah, I knew that they probably weren't going to let Marshall catch it, so we were running him over where he could get to his‑‑ typically he's better going that way. Then we were going to bring Jarvis off‑‑ we have never even practiced that. It was just something that I kind of scratched in the dirt. Newby made the right read and Jarvis got a reasonable look. From my angle I could tell, I hope it banks, I hope it banks, because it was fading on him and it didn't go. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. COACH KENNEDY: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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