Kentucky Head Coach Matthew Mitchell
Opening statement …
“Today was a real good win for us against a really talented and tough Tennessee team. I’m so proud of our players for hustling in practice on Friday and Saturday and this morning. We worked really hard and it’s a real credit to them for fighting hard enough to get a victory over an extremely talented, tough team with great size, great skill, really well-coached and so proud of us hanging in there to get a big victory.”
On this being a step forward in toughness …
“It’s a big step forward. I’m so proud of us jumping on them early and building a big lead, but more impressed with the response because we ended the half 5-of-26 and I didn’t think they were particularly bad shots – we just couldn’t get the ball in the basket. We wanted to make sure the players weren’t deflated going into the halftime because they sure came out and hustled, but Tennessee is just so talented and big and they are bigger than us at almost every position on the floor and just showed a lot of toughness today.”
On the biggest difference between Sunday and Thursday vs. South Carolina …
“We needed a mindset change from Thursday night to Friday, is what we needed. Obviously, we didn’t get a whole lot taller or faster or stronger between Thursday night and Sunday. We needed to come in and get our minds on playing with a blue-collar attitude, with a really tough approach to everything we did, so we had very short practices on Friday and Saturday but they were very tough and physical. We just didn’t come back from the holidays with the right mental approach, so it’s inside us – we just need to bring it to the forefront each and every game. There are no gimmies in this league and we just have to be that kind of team, so extremely proud. I thought we really got on the offensive boards early in the game and that shows that we were hustling. That’s a great indication of a team hustling and I would just say the biggest difference is that we had a different mindset, so you credit our players on doing that.”
On what was causing offensive problems going into halftime …
“Before we went into half, she was getting a lot of open shots that she normally makes, and in that situation, you just have to keep going. I thought we were creating some open shots and missing them. It’s a tough team to play against because they’re so long and they put so much pressure on you shooting the ball with their length. Just about every shot during that run seemed to be contested and I thought we got back on our heels instead of being the aggressor. I just tried to tell her (Rhyne Howard) then and at halftime to the entire team that we were creating good shots and we had to keep our composure and keep our belief that we could make the shots. It was a great response by the team and by her in the second half. We really made some big shots. It was hard to stop them. They are just so explosive, athletic, big; it’s just hard to keep them off the boards, only lost by five, but big, big advantage for us on the turnovers. So, if we can keep that number around even, we can compete.”
On the importance of making shots …
“They can’t rebound it when you make them. We were able to shoot the 3 well, and we had too. We had a hard time scoring inside on them. I thought a lot of our players went really tough to the goal today, so you credit Tennessee with their length and size. They had a bunch of blocks, but we wanted to just keep going and we finally cracked the code there a little bit late in the game when we were able to get the ball into the lane, and high post and then dump it down. But it’s hard, hard to score at the rim against Tennessee, so we needed a day like that where we shot the ball well. We needed to come together to get the win, so real, real happy for the players.”
On Rhyne Howard’s performance …
“She really did a good job, and we were still getting on her to play a little more defense there at the end. We just ask her to do everything. It’s amazing. Amazing performance. It’s a really talented player who wanted to win today and wanted to help her team and she did it in so many other ways than scoring. I thought the steal there early in the second half really got us back going and got the crowd back into it. What a great crowd today, great energy in Memorial (Coliseum) today and Rhyne had a great game.”
Kentucky Student-Athletes
#10 Rhyne Howard, So., G
On your game in the second quarter to the third quarter…
“It was very important. I knew it was going to be a good game, and my coaches and teammates were telling me to keep going. That gave me more confidence in myself, just knowing that I can do this and I can keep going, and eventually those shots are going to fall.”
On being from Tennessee and having that as an incentive to play well…
“No, this is always a big rivalry game. I’m always going to have fire in me toward them and any other team in the SEC.”
#1 Sabrina Haines, R-Sr., G
On taking charges and if you practice that…
“Oh, we practice that on the regular. We have a specific drill in practice that we take charges and do layups on, and we practice it in warmups. So, I think charges are underrated, they’re an underrated stat because they can change the momentum of the game and the fact that our team is so committed to sacrificing our bodies and putting our bodies on the line to change the momentum and help our team however we can is important.”
On if Rhyne Howard’s talent ever surprises you…
“Oh my gosh, I didn’t even know she had 37 until before I walked in here. I was like, ‘You had 37… like 3… 7…”. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, she’s an amazing player and it is really an honor to be able to play with her. The fact that she’s also so unselfish along with that, like she had 37, but she will just make the best play for whoever and whatever is available. I’m just happy for her that she was able to do what she does.”
#3 KeKe McKinney, Jr., F
On your two 3-pointers…
“Oh yeah, it’s good. I always feel good when I hit shots, not just with this game but in any other game. We work on our shot, I work on mine a lot, so me being able to come in here and actually produce gave me a lot of confidence and it did feel good.”
On if 3-point shooting was a part of the game plan…
“Really, the game plan was to shot fake and get to the rim, but if you were open, don’t hesitate, just shoot, you know. So, we were open and shots went in. We had a game plan, but sometimes when you’re in the game, different things happen.”
Tennessee Head Coach Kellie Harper
Opening Statement …
“Well we’re obviously disappointed we weren’t able to come up with a win and I think we’ll look back and find just a handful of possessions that could’ve changed the outcome. That’s going to be really disappointing because wins are hard to get. When you have the opportunity, which we thought we did, the you have to find a way to pull it out. Obviously, Kentucky did what they needed to do. They made shots, they put points on the board, and we couldn’t keep up with that.”
On Rhyne Howard …
“Well I think she’s a terrific scorer to be honest with you. I think she can score in several different ways and if you leave her open you can mark it down two points or three points. I thought we had some breakdowns and left her open and she’s going to capitalize on those because she can score with you guarding her. I think she understands how to play without the ball. She knows how to play to get herself the opportunities to score. I assume she did alright on the boards, yeah she had nine boards, so you know that she is getting rebounds and anything defensively. To me, her size and athleticism helps her there.”
On how Kentucky played against Tennessee compared to playing against South Carolina …
“I think defensively we couldn’t guard them. We just didn’t guard well and South Carolina guarded them, that’s the difference. We still scored 76 points, that’s a lot of points, but we couldn’t slow them down. We were struggling trying to change our defenses, trying to find ways to slow them down. It just felt like we just didn’t get the big stops when we needed them.”
On the difficulty of neutralizing Kentucky’s 3-point shooting …
“Well, they shot about five more than they normally do, so I don’t know, it may have been their game plan. I think a lot of people when they play us, they don’t want to go inside because we are so big, but I think that’s the way they’ve been playing. They’ve been playing to shoot the 3, so I don’t know if it was a stretch for them to have that game plan. I thought they were open. They took the shots, they were open, and I think they made a lot of them.”
On Rennia Davis’ roll and keeping Tennessee in the game …
“Well, I think Rennia is a talented player. She can shoot, she can score, she uses her athleticism around the basket as well. She stayed positive and I think it could’ve been really easy for our team to kind of quit on us when we were down in the first and third quarters, but they hung in there and kept plugging away, and put ourselves in a position to have a chance to win the game.”
On the crowd at Memorial Coliseum today …
“This was a really good crowd. I made a comment before the game. I thought it was a really nice crowd. This is our first SEC road game. I expect to see a lot of people in the stands when we travel. It’s fun to play in atmospheres like this. Trust me, I’ve played in atmospheres where there’s nobody there, you don’t want that. So, I think it’s a lot of fun, it’s great for women’s basketball to put people in the seats and see a pretty exciting game.”
On her team’s turnovers and how it hurt them …
“They did. We were anticipating, I knew turnovers were going to be a factor. And if we could have taken care of the basketball, I thought it would have been a positive factor for us. Kentucky relies on that. They rely on turning you over. Some of those were definitely on Kentucky, their aggressive play. Some of them were on us, just not making smart plays. We had several offensive fouls that turned into turnovers as well. That’s an area that’s been a concern for us and we’ll continue to work on that. Moving forward, when you shoot nine times less than your opponent from the field, and we had to catch up get to that point, it’s tough. The volume, they just had more volume of shots than we did and it was because of our turnovers.”
Tennessee Student-Athletes
#0 Rennia Davis, Jr., G/F
On UT’s late first-half run …
“I feel like we’re capable of doing such things, we just have to find that consistency. That’s where we’re struggling right now.”
On Rhyne Howard …
“She’s a good player. I think a lot of her looks were wide open as well, so that was on us, but she’s a good player herself as well.”
On UT’s turnovers …
“I know for myself, personally, a lot of the turnovers were unforced. And then a couple of them, they were trapping off the screen, so that kind of shook me a little bit. I think once I turned it over off the screen. But overall, we’ve just got to take better care of the ball.”
