On if the struggles among older players is mental or physical:
“I can’t imagine there’s something physically wrong with them with as much time as Garrett, Chad, and out staff spends on trying to do everything we can physically to help with their bodies. Every day, all day long how hard those guys work to do everything that I think you can possibly do to help guys recover. So, I would have to think that it’s probably mental, and I do think this game is four times more mental than it is physical. It also gets back to DNA. You’ve got to understand that you’re going to have to compete every single night at a very high level, and if you’re not going to do that I think you’re going to struggle You come out of a timeout, and you start anticipating that a guy’s going to do this without being on edge. If you’re not on edge and you don’t understand that every possession matters, you’re not going to get consistency. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing offense or defense.”
On what makes Cameron Thomas so special and how big was he for LSU today:
“Well, you have to give him credit, he got his numbers. He’s a tough guy to guard who’s very aggressive, and he’s going to seek his shots out. I go back—I wish we had guys on our team that could do that. Some players you almost beg them to do that, other guys you beg them to maybe not do it quite as much. So, you have to give him credit, and that’s in his DNA. He’s an offensive, aggressive player that has a variety of things he does. He’s got his little step back, he’s a terrific free-throw shooter when he gets fouled, and so you have to give him credit. They put him in positions to where they think he can be most effective. He’s looking to be aggressive offensively. You look at our freshman – I don’t think our freshman are much different, maybe not to that high of level in terms of wanting to score, but he wants to get buckets and I think that’s paramount in his mind, and that’s what he is going to go do.”
NEXT: Rick Barnes postgame continued