Mizzou Men's Basketball Postgame Quotes
Ole Miss 75, Mizzou 71
Mizzou Head Coach Kim Anderson
Opening Statement…
“Certainly, I have no fault with the effort that we gave. But as this has been the case in several games this year, we don’t make smart plays. We are a team that has very little margin for error. We talked about that. Every possession is important for us. When we don’t execute, we don’t make free throws, we don’t get to our defensive assignment on time, we make dumb fouls. We just aren’t good enough to overcome all of that. Having said that though, I am proud of these guys. They play their butts off. I know people are tired of hearing that, but they come every day, they work hard, they prepare. They don’t always get it right away when we get in the game. They don’t always get it right away. Sometimes it takes a timeout or two to get them in the right spot. You can’t fault their effort. So, we go back to work and get ready to play Mississippi State.”
On Cullen VanLeer putting the team ahead…
“Well, I was really happy for him. He is a good shooter. It is mental. I continue to work with him. He’s been here working. I mean, he puts more time in than anybody. I was happy for him, because he has put in a lot of time. He made three of them. Maybe this will bring back some of the confidence for some of the guys.”
On lack of execution for Mizzou…
“We just can’t afford to make mistakes. I don’t mean necessarily turnovers, which we made too many. We gave up 18 points on turnovers. There’s a difference in the game when you’re 18-to-13. We start the game off, and we knew exactly what they were going to do, and we acted like we haven’t practiced. Then we woke up, and we did okay. A lot of it is concentration. A lot of it is still that they are younger guys, and they are still trying to learn. At this point of the season, they all knew what to do. It’s always something.”
Mizzou sophomore forward Kevin Puryear
On missed free throws playing a major role in the outcome of the game…
“It’s actually kind of crazy, because I felt like these past couple of games we’ve actually shot free throws fairly well. I think we just have to put all the pieces together. Some days we don’t shoot well, but we make our free throws. Today we made our shots, but didn’t make the free throws."
On his career high in scoring and its impact on his confidence moving forward…
“How I’ve been performing lately – especially these last three or four games, has been really frustrating. Our whole coaching staff has done a great job of trying to keep me calm, playing the next play and staying confident. This gives me momentum going into further games and gets me ready to go to battle with these guys.”
On him continuing to work on his three-point shot and the impact it had on his play today….
“I work on that shot every single day after practice. It was definitely good to see some of them go through the hoop, and when you prepare every day like I prepare on my jump shot then when you get in the game it feels more confident. I’ve never gotten discouraged. I’ve stuck with it and it showed tonight.”
Mizzou senior forward Russell Woods
On whether missed free throws becomes contagious for the team…
“I think it’s just a mental thing. We’ve just got to go to the line, take a deep breath and knock down our free throws. I don’t know if it trickles down, but I know that at the end of the day we have to make our free throws.”
On how his game has flourished during his senior season similarly to how former player Ryan Rosburg’s did in his senior season…
“Honestly, I just want to win games to try to help my team. It’s my senior year and I want to go out like that, but I don’t care about any of that. I just want to get some wins and cheer my team on.”
Ole Miss Head Coach Andy Kennedy
Opening Statement…
“I want to tell you how much I respect Coach Anderson and the Missouri program. I know how many great players and great games have been in this building. To their credit, I thought they really fought. Kevin Puryear had a great game. We really recruited him hard out of high school and the kid goes 11-for-14, 4-for-4 beyond the arc. He had the ball hitting underneath the rim and spinning in. He had some huge plays for them. I told our team throughout the course of the game that I thought our approach was similar. We had issues related to personnel as it was Deandre Burnett’s first game; the first time he has been in live action since he hurt his ankle against Georgia. He hasn’t gone live and you can tell I was real cognizant of that by easing him in with a mere 36 minutes, but it shows you where we are from a personnel standpoint. We needed bodies and guys that could make plays. We got in foul trouble early, which made us even thinner than we typically are. Missouri made plays. They took a one-point lead around the seven minute mark and the crowd was in the game. I want to give their crowd credit too. I know they’ve lost nine or ten in a row and for their faithful to still come out shows they are proud of this program. We had to make some plays. You want to win SEC games you have to make SEC plays. We had some guys with huge plays and were able to get a road win.”
On Cullen VanLeer’s 4-point play…
“You would think as long as I have been doing this that I would have seen almost everything but this team continues to show me new stuff. The ball is on that side of the floor. We are typically up line and in line and that guy is typically a catch and shoot guy. We were switching everything trying to follow him to the basket and stay attached. My assistant was saying that he was going to miss on purpose and I suppose that was what he was trying to do. I was a little surprised because if you make it there is still six seconds to play. Even if we make both free throws, which is a challenge if it is the wrong guy for us. We were fortunate to come up with a big rebound and were able to knock down two big free throws to give us some separation.”
On Breein Tyree…
“He is getting better. Here is a kid that is not only a freshman but he is also coming off an ACL injury last April. He is coming in new to the SEC as a freshman. He had no reps basketball-wise between the months of May and October. In November, we threw him into games. He was trying to get conditioned. He was huge for us in the second half against Tennessee in our last outing. He is a guy that is going to have a very bright future once he continues to garner experience.”
