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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Post Game Quotes: Missouri
1/21/2017 | Men's Basketball
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 really 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."
