Here’s what Bruce Pearl had to say after Kentucky beat his Auburn Tigers by 27 points
Here’s what Bruce Pearl had to say after his Auburn Tigers were defeated, 80-53, at Kentucky on Saturday afternoon:
Opening statement …
“Pretty early in the season, I had talked about Kentucky, and we had the chance to play them early. We have talked about how good this team was and their potential. There’s a couple reasons for that. One, I know a lot of the kids on this team. We had EJ (Montgomery) committed for a while. We had recruited Ashton (Hagans) hard for a number of years. We were one of the first ones to offer Keldon (Johnson) when he was a sophomore. I spent years in Milwaukee, so I knew a lot about Tyler (Herro). PJ (Washington) went to the same high school as Horace Spencer, so I’ve seen him develop.
“I think the biggest thing is John (Calipari) always has great players and great talent, but he has to spend a lot of time getting them to become great teammates and play together as a group. These guys are all winners. These guys are all great competitors. There’s a little difference. You see how they all compete, how they share the ball, and you see how much better they’ve gotten. EJ Montgomery has gotten a lot better. When you come to Kentucky, you’re going to get a lot better. It’s impressive. Ashton has gotten a lot better. I’m not surprised that they’re this good.
“However, I am surprised that we were not competitive today. I thought we legitimately had the chance to come in here and play with them. We were physically overwhelmed. We have given LSU 29 second-chance points and lost in a last-possession game. You guys know how good LSU is as a program. Two weeks ago on the road at LSU, we got manhandled. Here today, we got manhandled in a different way. It wasn’t just second-chance points, it was their defense. Kentucky is one of the best defensive teams in the country. That speaks about their character, competitive spirit, and being winners. They’re not just great individual defenders. Tyler Herro, maybe coming in, players thought that they can just take him off the bounce and drive it downhill. Heck, Keldon, at his size, trying to play guard is impressive. They’ve improved in that area. They compete, and they stay in front of you. As a result, they took a pretty good offensive team in Auburn and made us look really bad.”
On Auburn guards not shooting a high percentage …
“There hasn’t been a game where Jared Harper has never had any assists. We obviously got Bryce (Brown) a ton of looks, particularly in the second half. At Auburn, he was very hot, but they did a good job by switching and keeping a couple bodies on him. He didn’t get nearly as many open looks. So, they did a really good job defensively on him.”
On PJ Washington …
“I think in PJ’s case, he had that ability a year ago. I’ve seen this, but now it’s being brought out. I think that’s what John (Calipari) was talking about. Even early on in the season, this is the type of player that he saw, not so much the player that he developed. But, John expected this. He just thought he’d see it sooner, in my opinion. He’s playing with great confidence, he’s playing a great role, and he’s been consistent with the things that he’s doing. He’s big and strong enough to physically dominate the most physical and powerful forwards in the country. Yet, he’s quick enough and skilled enough to be able to step on the floor and do things like a big guard. National player of the year candidate without question.”
On how UK made up for the absence of Reid Travis today …
“They say listen our best rebounder, our most physical player, isn’t with us and we had tried and talked about going inside a little bit more. We went inside early, got away from it and then the only thing, too, about going inside is, you have perimeter players who can get open and make passes and make plays and get those guys touches. Our game plan was to try and get inside more to Austin (Wiley), try and go inside more to Anfernee (McLemore) and Horace (Spencer) and more than anything I thought their perimeter guys did a good job of standing our catches and not making it as easy to go attack EJ inside. Look, EJ and Nick are both McDonald’s All-Americans and it’s not like they’re not great players but I think there’s a reason why Reid Travis was out there. He was playing really well against a team with a bigger dominant front-line player, it could bother them without him but not against us.”
On how surprised he was at how well UK shot the ball without Reid Travis …
“They shot it great. I’m sure John challenged them and said hey, we’re going against a team that has made more threes, shot more threes and shot the best percentage in the league, we don’t just shoot a lot of them, we shoot a lot of them we make a lot of them and we have the best percentage in the league. Not tonight. I think he challenged his shooters a little bit. What bothered me the most probably, two things. One, we knew PJ was shooting as well and for some reason we backed off of him, shouldn’t have. And then we came off, again, dribble penetration is key and they have guys who can turn corners. We came off Tyler a few times, made open shots. What they do is good, what they do is simple. Just their personality.”
On the experience of coaching in Rupp Arena …
“Listen, I spent nine years as Southern Indiana’s head coach and I thought the closest I was ever going to get to Rupp Arena and coach might have been a sports center in Owensboro, Kentucky and for those of you who have been there, you know what I’m talking about. That is a great place to coach but you’re Division II and you might buy a ticket to come watch a game in Rupp. I saw the Final Four in here a bunch of years ago, didn’t have very good seats. So it was a dream to coach in here. I think the first time I coached in here, I brought Tennessee and it might’ve been our first time and we actually won that game. How many guys come into Rupp and win? It was one of the highlights of my career. I was so excited I took my shirt off. That was back when it might have actually been worth taking off but it’s not worth it anymore. And then when I walked out on to the court, and I just want to say this for the fans that were there, they cheer, they give you an ovation or a hand, recognize you. There have been a couple times my teams haven’t played well here and I actually apologize to Kentucky fans who know their basketball and I’m sure they’re happy Kentucky won, think they were probably expecting a little more out of this Auburn team than they got and so I felt kind of uncomfortable going out there to that kind of applause because of how my team played, the way I coached. It wasn’t up to the standards of being at the opportunity to coach here.”
On Ashton Hagans hitting jump shots and if there is any way to prevent Kentucky from making them …
“Well try not to let them go around you. He’s going to go around you but try to make him go left around you occasionally and not right around you and he went right around us and made jump shots. He played great but all of his shots were in rhythm. He knows teams are going to go double in the post on PJ and he knows where he needs to go and he’s not even thinking twice about shooting it. Ashton is such an unselfish player and always has been. He’s always gotten off more at empowering his teammates and giving his teammates points and he’s always been able to go by anyone and finish the rim. He never really had that work on his three-point game much and now here he’s bringing all that stuff and now because they’re coming off of him why would you be surprised he has just worked on it and he needs to go and make open shots, and he is. Like he does everything else, he does it with confidence.”
This story was originally published February 23, 2019 at 6:31 PM.
