A few words from Lamont Paris, Hayden Brown and Meechie Johnson after the 71-68 win at Rupp Arena tonight:
From Lamont's Opening Statement:
"Sometimes in this whole process, buried way beneath all the hard work and sweat, yelling and all that stuff, we talked to our guys all the time that there's fun in disguise, buried somewhere in there. It showed its head today."
Paris on the game:
We were hot early, we ran some good offense and made some shots. A couple from way out on the moon. But they came back, which we knew they would."
"It's fun to have a front row seat for all that stuff. I thought it was a great college basketball game between two teams who felt like they had to have the win."
Meechie Johnson:
"it was just one of those nights man. I just wanted to do anything I honestly could to help my team win. My coach has a lot of confidence in me and my teammates have a lot of confidence in me."
"Coming out with a win was the only thing that really mattered to me during this whole game coming off a loss like we did. They were 9-0 here, so we just wanted to make something happen."
Hayden Brown on what the win means:
I"t means a lot for me personally. Take that away from it. I love seeing each and every one of the people in that locker room smile. That's what I came to South Carolina for. However I could help and assist that to happen, in his first year here, his first year her and a lot of people's first year here, that's what I came here for."
No basketball season is ever going to look pretty. I think Meechie and I both said last game it didn't definie our season. We were coming off a loss that obviously wasn't pretty, but we had the internal character to look each other in the eyes and say that's not going to define us."
Lamont on how the team responded late::
"We made some timely shots here and there, I think that was critical when they made runs. I think at one point they had made five baksets in a row and then another time they had four trips in a row they had scored. The difference in that is monumental between five in a row, gap, four in a row, vs. nine straight.
On slowing down Kentucky's run:
"We generated some good offense and that was a part of what slowed down the run, but we were also very deliberate about getting back into the stuff that we wanted to do, and attacking when we had a chance to attack and spacing the floor and the matchups that we wanted to try to get involved with. I think a lot of it was a couple of timely shots and a stop here or there when we needed to. They're a really good team, they don't do the things that they've done by accident."
"I think the biggest part was we got back to what we needed to do."
On the closing minutes:
It looked like it might go a certain way. I couldn't be prouder of these guys at that moment. These guys have never been here playing, they've never been in that situation, never. To not let that thing continue to slide in the wrong direction and reel it back in and make a play when we needed to, I thought that was a big reason we were able to keep just enough distance.
Paris on where they felt like they could attack Kentucky::
The ball screens. I wanted to try to get into ball screens. It appeared in the last game that there was maybe a little indecision on waht they wanted to do in the ball screens. That's outsider looking in, of course. We probably ran more than what we normally do, but I also wanted to have them move. I wanted to have Tshiebwe have to move and make decisions on if they were going to swtich this or go under this or what they were going to do. I thought the ball screens and attacking the rim was a big part of what we wree going to do.
On our board before we went out onto the game was "Be Aggressive." We have to be aggressive, but then you have to be intelligent when you get around the rim.