On the passing John Chaney and Coach’s memories of Chaney:
“It was a blessing to get to meet him and be able to be around him some and he was just a lovely person. He was always the same person every time I spoke with him and treated me very nice. The way I got to know him even more without him knowing that, was through Dan Leibovitch who is the associate commissioner of basketball in the SEC. Dan loved him and I would ask Dan about him and Dan said that if you were a student-athlete in Chaney’s program; it was all about getting an education. He drove that through his players and Dan told me that no one cared about his players wanting to create a better life for themselves more than John Chaney. We lost one of the best in the business. He came through during a time where there weren’t that many black coaches. Someone told me back in the day he was a public player of the year. He probably wasn’t recruited the way a player of that stature should have been but he made the best of it. You look at the legacy he left behind, he left the thing so much better than he found it and he’s so terrific for the game of college basketball.”
On his relationship with Kermit Davis:
“Kermit’s one of those guys the first time you meet him you feel like you’ve known him your whole life. He’s always had a pleasant personality with me and I’ve kept up with Kermit because ever since he got into coaching, everyone knew he was a terrific basketball coach. He did an incredible job at Middle Tennessee and there’s a lot of things about Kermit I like because he’s real. When he left Middle Tennessee, very few coaches would’ve said what he said. He came to Ole Miss and said this is a total rebuild. Most coaches wouldn’t want to say something like that and that tells you who he is, how secure he is and what he does. Everyone knows how good he is with the X’s and O’s and he’s done a good job at building programs and he’s doing the same thing with Ole Miss.”
NEXT: Rick Barnes media availability continued