Opening statement …
“We talked about trying to cut back on our turnovers and challenged our point guards to play better. I thought Wendell (Green Jr.) and Zep (Jasper) were terrific tonight. We’re best when everybody contributes, we got 30 off the bench tonight. We got good play from Devan (Cambridge) and good play from Jaylin (Williams) and great play from Wendell coming off the bench, Dylan (Cardwell) was good off the bench. Our bench was terrific, which is important. We got to get that on the road now. Obviously, Zep shot it really well. I had a conversation with him the last couple of days about trying to be more aggressive offensively. It’s funny, I really think I had to talk to him about it to get him to look at the basket a little bit more. But obviously, he’s a good shooter. He’s just such an unselfish kid, and I had to encourage him just to be a little bit more aggressive. And he certainly was. He stayed out of foul trouble, and the good thing is I was able to have him out there longer and let him defend. He’s one of our best defensive guards. So, that was really encouraging to see.”
On Zep Jasper’s aggression ….
“I just think he’s such an unselfish kid that it actually took that conversation because he was deferring so much, afraid to miss or make a mistake, and that’s just not how you can play the game. He’s so competent defensively. I just wanted him to know I believed in him offensively and I think we would be better for it. And we were. Zep made the shots, Zep made the plays. He’s played well against Ole Miss twice; he played well against them there, too. Credit to our league, when our league can put a team out there like Ole Miss that is going to finish near the bottom of our league because they’ve had injuries and illness. It’s been a tough year as far as their roster is concerned, but Kermit Davis is a great coach; he gets them to compete, and they played hard and hung in there. We are getting really close to March, and we’ve got a long way to go as far as starting to play better. We’re not where we want to be. The good news is we know there’s room to get better.
On adjustments …
“I thought we did better shooting the ball. We made nine 3s. Jabari (Smith) made one but didn’t have a great shooting night. Zep made four, Wendell made three, Chandler (Leopard) made one – which is great. I loved seeing that at the end game for Chandler, and I loved the reaction of the bench. Those kids work so hard. They work so hard. All week long he’s Matthew Murrell, right? And he got in there. Dylan Cardwell with a nice assist. We didn’t turn it over as much. I thought we had a little better offensive execution. Our guards had to work really hard defensively against Ole Miss. Now, we have to go to Knoxville on Saturday, obviously against one of the best teams in the league, and so we’re going to have to step up pretty significantly.”
On everyone making plays in the game …
“That’s it. Balanced scoring, more balance to the minutes, more balance to the shots, and that’s when we play best. So, that was good to see. That was encouraging.”
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