[jwplayer idZ6VNXL]
Opening Statement…
“We shaved 24 points off the 94 that they got in Auburn Arena. It was our only chance. I thought our kids really competed, played hard, won the battle of the boards. Obviously for the game, if you look at Alabama’s shooting percentages, we gave ourselves a chance to win. But offensively we’ve got some limitations. We weren’t able to make some shots that we made at home against Tennessee. We turned the ball over way too many times. We turned it over 23 times here. We only turned it over 12 times against Tennessee. Obviously, that was the difference in the game.”
On the cause of the turnovers…
“Alabama was much more aggressive. They trapped our ball screens and made it difficult for us to throw out. Then when we did get it down in there, at times, advantage/disadvantage at the post, we turned it over inside. Our point guards, between Allen (Flanigan) and Jamal (Johnson), partly because of the way Alabama defended, had nine turnovers. Our inside guys, on some of those roll downs, we didn’t finish it. Dylan Cardwell for example, had a couple of great dunks, a couple of great catches, but he also had a couple of turnovers on those throw downs. Some of them weren’t forced. It was probably the difference, offensively, between us scoring the points we scored. Alabama is a really good defensive team. One-on-one they can guard it. They’re the best one-on-one defensive team in the league. They can guard their yard. We had a step up defensively tonight, we did, but we were without our best offensive player in Sharife (Cooper) and it was hard to score.”
On cutting Alabama’s lead to five later in the game…
“First of all, we are not happy with the loss. We’re not happy we’re getting swept. We’re not happy we didn’t take advantage against our rival. We’re not happy. Our guys battled. Again, to shave 24 (points) off of that, I told them it was an unbelievable effort. Part of our offensive problem was our roster and part of it was Alabama is a great defensive team. They forced us into a lot of looks. ‘Look how open he is.’ We just couldn’t get it to him, and then if we did get it to him, I’m not sure what he would’ve done. Would he have caught it? We played really hard and we had a really good defensive game plan, but you’ve got to make plays offensively. Individually, Jamal Johnson had a little bit of a run. Devan (Cambridge) made three 3s. Jaylin Williams was very productive tonight. Trying to get it to him more, need to get it to him more. We didn’t have enough offense to step up, and got no offense off our bench.”