Kentucky Men’s Basketball
Kentucky vs. Georgetown College [EXH]
Postgame Quotes
Rupp Arena – Lexington, Ky.
Nov. 9, 2014
Georgetown Head Coach Chris Briggs
Opening statement…
“Obviously, a long night for us. I’m super proud of my guys, I thought we came out ready to play. I’m just really pleased with, this is going to sound silly, the first three minutes of the game, the way we played and came out ready. We had the same problems that the rest of the country probably will have the rest of this year. Those guys are unreal. I told the guys in the locker room, they could have beaten some NBA teams tonight, there’s no question in my mind. It’s going to make us better. Our guys know that we have things to work on. Offensively, execution-wise. We struggled early to make shots, we missed layups, we missed some open looks and missed some free throws, and it just snowballed and got out of control quick. For the most part, I’m proud of our guys, they kept fighting, kept competing. I’m pleased with our effort. It was a great experience. We had a great week preparing for them. We had a great week of practice and enjoyed that. But now we have to move on, because we have conference games Thursday and Saturday on the road. That’s over for us, tomorrow we have a new day and have to get ready for games that mean something for our season.”
On Kentucky’s defense…
“Well defensively, they’re so long, they’re so athletic. I mean, you guys saw it, sometimes our guys were getting in there, getting to the rim, and in our league, they’re finishing that, getting dunks and layups. When we did kick it out, we were getting open looks, we just didn’t knock them down. But defensively, you can’t win one-on-one, you have to move the ball a few times and then get reversals and attack closeouts, because if you just try to go one-on-one, they’re just going to block it, it’s ridiculous. It’s like going in there, I don’t know how to describe it. Defensively, they’re going to be a problem for a whole lot of people because they’re so long, so athletic at every position, all the way down to the guard spot. I was really impressed with their intensity, UK’s intensity, defensively in the press, getting after us, and making it hard for us to do anything.”
On what he thought about Trey Lyles hitting back-to-back 3s …
“Not a lot of teams have that. Some teams in the NBA do. Their length is extremely ridiculous. I was impressed by him when he hit those back-to-back 3s. That was one thing I kept talking about in the timeouts with our guys. I kept telling them to make them shoot jumpers and put their hands in their faces. I would rather see them shoot jumpers than dunk. That is why we went zone. We played more zone tonight than we probably had in my three year coaching career here. It was one thing we talked about to make them shoot jumpers and contest them. They might miss those because they aren’t going to miss dunks.”
On how to defend Kentucky…
“You better recruit better first. I don’t know what to tell you, we did everything we could, we went zone, we tried man, we tried trapping the post, we tried it all. It’s going to take an extremely off night and an extremely great night out of somebody who has big-time NBA talent as well to get those guys. I knew they were good coming into this game, but sitting out there watching it in front of their eyes, on the sideline, honestly I don’t see how they’re going to get beat this year. I don’t like to say that, because I know people have off nights, and things can happen and this-and-that, and injuries and things like that, but if they play like they did tonight, they’re an NBA playoff team.”
Georgetown Student-Athletes
#35, Deondre McWhorter, F
On how he competed tonight …
“Well, I had a good time even though it was such a lopsided game. We did everything we could against them. We played to the best of our abilities and as Coach Briggs said they are a really good team. I am not taking any negatives from it, just positives. I had a good time playing against them.”
