#15, Willie Cauley-Stein, F
On having to guard 5-foot-2 Tyrone Davis …
“Once I got switched to guard him and I heard everyone in the crowd laughing because he was so much smaller than me. He was good and he is good at what he does. He is really swift. He is quick and plays with that energy that is needed.”
On playing the new lineup with Nerlens Noel …
“I didn’t know we were going to do it. We talked about it, but we didn’t do it in practice or anything. It was definitely weird, but I liked that lineup a lot.”
On how the defense in the second half had improved…
“It is more fun playing that way. When you are playing defense like that, and you can get fast breaks more and scoring more, and it just kills the other team; it takes their heart away. That is how he wants us to play because then they have no chance to come back.”
#3, Nerlens Noel, F
On how Kentucky played as a team…
“I think it went well, and they were a good team. It is early, and we have a ways to go. I think that we played well tonight.”
On is tonight’s performance more what you expect to play like…
“Yeah, definitely. It is game time, and I am a lot more focused. It is about the team, and about winning. The coaching staff has really helped us with our game, and we are getting better every day.”
On playing beside Willie Cauley-Stein…
“It was fantastic. He is another big man that can move, and can guard both forwards and guards.”
On if he was nervous…
“Yeah, it did hit me, but after the first half I snapped out of it. I started to feel like the way I should feel. It started to feel natural. I was not really surprised that I was nervous. When you play here in front of all these fantastic fans you are going to be a little nervous. It is over now and I am ready to ball.”
#10 Archie Goodwin,G
On Coach Cal’s intensity tonight..
“I think we handled it well. It was our first time seeing him get that riled up. He takes every game seriously and we see that. It’s just about us improving every time we step out on the court. We know what he expects from us. He never tries to put us down, just constructive criticism.”
On his stamina throughout the game…
“I did get a little tired, not much. At the beginning of the game everyone is so anxious and you run up and down the first couple times you do get a little winded. I settled in and was pretty good for the rest of the game.”
On Archie’s preference of playing the point guard or off the ball…
“I feel comfortable at both positions. At the point guard it is more of a change of speed and you have to look for a lot more like coming off of the screens and trying to get the big man in. One thing that he is preaching to us is the skip pass he wants us to throw a lot and that’s one thing I have to get accustomed to..”
On how many minutes he expected to play in the first half…
“I didn’t know I was going to play like that (amount of minutes). It wasn’t something that he told us. It was just something that happened, and I adjusted as best I could.”
On the line up changes…
“It was not hard to adjust to because we have been doing that in practice. We are just trying to figure out the rotations that he wants us to do.”
#12, Ryan Harrow, G
On how the team performed tonight …
“I thought we did good. Coach (Calipari) said we did better than what he expected so, that was good. That’s what comes from the extra load of practices that we’ve been having and working hard.”
On how long it will take to gel with this young team …
“It’s going to take some time because, you know, everybody was the best player on their high school team, and then you have me and Kyle coming back and I didn’t play last year, so we are just trying to figure each other out. We all pretty much know what each person does best. ”
On getting used to all the different lineups being played…
“We’ve went through it in practice, so we’ve experienced it with the two bigs or with Kyle (Wiltjer), Willie (Cauley-Stein), and Nerlens (Noel) at the same time so we were kind of prepared for it. Coach Cal let us know that he was going to be shuffling us around before the game.”
