[jwplayer LUbKEU3R-er0jUifI]
Opening statement…
“Good afternoon. I’d like to start the conference off with a boom and congratulate my good friend Gus Malzahn and his new head coaching position at UCF. UCF is getting a great coach and a better man, and as much as anybody, I’m happy for the student-athletes there because he’s going to make a difference in their lives. I’m happy for Gus.
“As you might anticipate, there’s a possibility that there could be a delay with tomorrow’s game against Mississippi State. We’re still awaiting final word, but obviously there’s a lot of weather over there and we are in the process of discussing what that delay might look like. I don’t have any final information on it, but I do want you to know it’s being discussed and it could be forthcoming. It’s all weather-related.
“Talking about Mississippi State, they’re really good defensively. When they hold teams underneath 60 points, they’re 41-5 (under Ben Howland). They’re big. They’re like Kentucky. They’re the sixth-tallest team in the country. They do a great job of protecting the rim. They identify with their defense. They’re physical. They also do a good job of defending without fouling. Offensively, we are very much a 3 and a free team. We like the 3 ball, we spread it, but we also do things where we feel like we force people to foul us. We only went to the line 10 times at Kentucky. We actually only shot three free throws on all of our two-point attempts, which was really interesting. It’s never happened to me in my career. Devan Cambridge had a 1-on-1, and then Allen Flanigan had an And-1, and that was it on two-point shots. We’ve got to do a better job of being able to make our 3s and get fouled because it’s a part of our offense. That’s something that Mississippi State is also good at. I just want to compliment the sophomores in this game. I think you’ve got a collection of some of the best sophomores in the country. Ben (Howland) had some really good freshmen last year in (Iverson) Molinar and (DJ) Stewart, (Tolu) Smith was sitting out. And we had Allen Flanigan and Jaylin Williams and Devan Cambridge. It’s been talked about, and I appreciate that – the jump that all those freshmen have made in their sophomore season. Allen has scored in double figures 19 times this season, which leads the SEC. That says a lot about how much we rely on him and how important his consistency is. JT Thor was the only freshman in the last decade to have 24 and 9 at Rupp as a visiting team, and Sharife (Cooper) became one of two players since 2010 to have 14, 8 and 6 in Rupp on the road. It wasn’t good enough to get it done. Still obviously disappointed but getting on to the next one and take the next challenge. Obviously, Mississippi State and Auburn are tied right there in the middle, the beginning of the lower half of the conference, and so this game will have implications as far as those final standings are concerned.”
On the similarities between Auburn and Mississippi State…
“I think personnel-wise, we’ve both lost a lot of players from a year ago. They’ve still got (Abdul) Ado back as a very veteran inside player. That would be one of the differences. As far as roster experience is concerned, Auburn and Mississippi State are two of the teams that are definitely in a rebuilding year.”
On what he wants to see the team improve on in the final five-game stretch…
“It’s some of the same things that we’ve talked about all along. We’ve lost however many games since Sharife came back by a total of, I think, 15 points, maybe an average of three a game. The things we’ve talked to the guys about – I remember Phillip Fulmer talking to a team before a football game and he said, ‘You don’t have to have an ‘S’ on your chest, you don’t have to be Superman, but you better represent that ‘T’ on your helmet.’ In other words, you don’t have to do spectacular things, but you’ve got to block out. If you can’t catch it, at least tackle it and don’t turn it over. You don’t have to do spectacular things, but you’ve got to be able to communicate your actions. It’s simple stuff. It’s stuff that we struggle with over and over again. Sometimes you can make those changes within a year, sometimes it does take an offseason. Obviously, our offense is better than our defense. We don’t have to make spectacular changes, just solid ones.”
On the team battling back from Kentucky’s second-half run…
“I appreciate you shaping that in the way of giving those guys a compliment. They certainly didn’t quit. They do have the ability to come back and they’ve done that all season, but where I would take us to task would be how did it get to 14? How did it go from a six-point lead at halftime to 14? Was Kentucky 20 points better than us in that stretch? They were better, but not 20 points better. We may have contributed to it with some early shots or lack of execution. That’ll happen on the road. You can tell the building got a little lit and they were the more aggressive team to start the second half. I think we contributed to it a little bit. My point is rather than that have been a 20-point run, it could’ve been a 10-point run, then all of a sudden, you’re not battling back from 14, you’re battling back from less than that and now you got a better chance to win the game. Again, you’ve got to go through it.”
On wanting to win the final three home games…
“We know that would be big, but obviously, Mississippi State is a game that’s from conference standings. The winner of this game has a chance to finish above the other one with only four games left. The Florida and Tennessee games are against two NCAA Tournament teams. They’re seeded third and fifth or sixth. So all of our games are against good teams. We’ve won three games on the road, we’ve always been a decent road team, but there’s just not the same home-court advantage because the crowd’s not there. It was easier to win at South Carolina, Georgia, and Vanderbilt than it would’ve been in a normal year. It’s certainly easier to win at Auburn. I think that nationally, those numbers bear that out as well.”
On how to improve on the turnovers…
“You’ve just go to your strengths and stay away from your weaknesses, take the passer off the hook. You’ve got to tackle the ball. It may not be in the best spot, but you’ve just got to take the passer off the hook. And playing off two feet, being under control. Those are all the things that we all kind of do and learn. Look, the guys I put in actions all the time are Sharife Cooper and Allen Flanigan. They’re going to turn the ball over more than any of the other guys because I am putting them into situations where they have got to force the action, and they’ve got to force the action without turning it over as much.”
On Derek Fountain while preparing for Mississippi State…
“He’s a stretch-4 man. He can really shoot it. When they play him, they put four shooters on the floor and when they play (Tolu) Smith, who doesn’t shoot it, they’ve got two monster inside players and are physical inside. So, you’ve got to be able to play a team with a stretch-4/a shooting 4, and then you’ve got to be able to play a team without one. Your defensive game plan and how you guard, you’ve got to have some adjustment on that.”
On what he is most proud of with his sophomores…
“I think they have all met my expectations, which is hard to do. I ask Allen (Flanigan) and Jaylin (Williams) to do a lot, and I think they’ve both responded. I think Allen could be the best defensive guard in the country. He is not yet, but I think he could be. That’s a lot to ask, right? And I want to see him have a better assist/turnover ratio. I want Jaylin to do more. I want him to score more, I want him to rebound more, I just want him to be more active and more aggressive and more physical. I don’t ask Devan (Cambridge) to do as much, and so Devan takes what he gets, and he is really productive. He made a lot of progress in this offseason working on some things, so that I could force him into situations where he would need to do more. So the example would be Samir Doughty. Samir Doughty would be a great example of I really didn’t ask Samir to do that much until his senior year when he was ready. And so that would be an example of the progression. Allen has made more of it this year. Devan has made some of it, but he’ll make even more of it next year.”
On the challenge for Auburn’s big men against Mississippi State’s big men…
“You saw that challenge against (Olivier) Sarr and (Isaiah) Jackson, even though Jackson is a freshman, and I reminded our guys he’s a freshman, too. He got the better of us at times against Kentucky. Ben Howland watches tape, too. So you know he watched Kentucky push us all over the parking lot on the inside in the second half. I would imagine Mississippi State is going to go inside, just like Kentucky did. We’ve got to do a better job at defending the post and that is something we obviously need to work on. Some of it is Jaylin (Williams) is going to be giving away 30 pounds and JT (Thor) is going to be giving away 50 pounds. Some of it is physical and some of it we as a team can overcome.”