On if having a few extra weeks off helped both physically and mentally:
“I do. I really do. You don’t know coming out of it. At home, our biggest concern was coming out and it being senior night—you always wonder on senior night, because of the respect our team has for John Fulkerson and Yves Pons—we had a good week off. I think our guys enjoyed practicing. We competed a lot and had a number of competitive practices. You can always tell this time of year when you cut practice short, but they want to keep going. That’s always a good sign, but obviously it’s our job to manage all of that. Both Florida games were played at a really high level. I don’t know what it looked like on TV, but I can tell you up close and personal that these two games were as high level of games as you’re going to see in this tournament. I said it yesterday, Florida led the league in a number of offensive categories and then you go and play a team that had the year that Alabama did and we battled. Did we get a little fatigued at one point in time? I thought we did. Could I say that I wish Josiah wouldn’t have gotten in foul trouble? I would, plus if Fulky is in the game you don’t have to put all of the pressure on your guards and we didn’t have that yesterday, but what we did have is group of guys that played with tremendous heart, courage and a willingness to win.”
On if there was one thing they could improve on, what would it be:
“Definitely limiting turnovers and taking care of the ball. In terms of shot selection I think most people think of it in terms of taking bad shots. In our situation its just taking shots. Yesterday, we turned down shots three times and they resulted in turnovers. So, it’s a willingness to take shots from the right guy at the right time is important. Like I said, we’ve gone back and shown it to them. Some of our turnovers have been because we’ve been unselfish and just turned down shots. We have to take open shots when they’re there, because if not, you’re now putting pressure on guys to make plays with the clock running down and that’s when some of those turnovers happen. Both teams yesterday were heavy gap teams that tried to keep things out of the lane. But, I’ll always stick with protecting the ball. Not only is that not turning it over, but it includes shot selection, whether it’s not taking bad shots or not taking a shot at all.”
NEXT: Rick Barnes previews NCAA Tournament continued