Q. I’m sure you’ve seen last couple days it’s been kind of a crazy sequence of events. Duke, then Virginia in the ACC tournament, now Kansas in the Big 12, out because of positive COVID tests. As somebody that’s likely in the NCAA tournament already, is there any worry for you about continuing on, the risk of that, what happens if you pop up with a COVID issue this close to the NCAA tournament?
RICK BARNES: I’m not sure, unless you’re on it like we are every day, the stress of getting tested weekly, knowing that the one thing you hate is throughout the whole year, the testing protocol, knowing first thing in the morning, 6:00, you’re going to get a text, all guys are negative or we got a positive. That’s been going on now for, what, four months, five months.
Has it been stressful for everybody? No doubt about it. Players included. We’ve tried and will continue to handle it the best way we can, do what we need to do there. But, yeah, it’s been a concern all year for everybody. We know it. I don’t know the protocols at either the Big 12 or the ACC. All I can tell you is I don’t think there’s been a better league in the country from start to finish trying to do things the right way and be on top of everything than the SEC. Again, I admire how diligent they’ve been about everything.
To answer your question, I don’t think there’s a coach, a player in the country that doesn’t worry about that every time we go in and get the swab.
Q. Do you wish there was a little more cushion between now and the tournament?
RICK BARNES: I don’t think it would matter. I really don’t. I think we got to proceed as we say we do. Again, I don’t know what their protocol is. I don’t know if it was contact tracing. I have no idea. I don’t know the protocol, what went on there. But, no, it’s like we said when we started the season late, I didn’t think we should. I thought we should have started on time and give us a longer runway. At some point in time it’s got to come to a conclusion regardless. I know every player in the country, staff, it’s been a major concern knowing things like this could happen. Again, I don’t know the whole deal, but I just hope it works for all of us. It has been a long, trying year for everybody. For the players again, we talked about it this morning, it was a year ago. We actually had a little placard made up for Jordan Bone that we put on our bench today because he was the one guy, I remember seeing him in the back of the bus a year ago when we walked out of this building, he was devastated. He couldn’t believe his college career was over with. What we talked about was being grateful for what we’ve been able to have up to this point. Whatever we can get done, be thankful for it, be grateful for it. It’s been a long year for lots of people. We’ve gotten to this point. I just hope we can finish it and finish it strong for everybody. But there still is a lot to be grateful for because of how far we’ve come from a year ago.
NEXT: Rick Barnes’ postgame continued