The University of Mississippi Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Georgia State
11/17/2017 | Men's Basketball
Head Coach Andy Kennedy
Opening statement…
"In the first half they were just toying with us with high ball screens. Their number 15, (D'Marcus) Simons, is a heck of a player, who was just in complete control of the game early. In the second half, I think we opened up with a 10-0 run to take the momentum right away. We got it up by six or seven and they responded, so we went back to that 2-3 zone just to try to keep them in front of us. Dribble penetration was killing us all night, and that was the reason for the move. We haven't been as good in that 1-3-1, that's why you haven't seen it as much. I just don't trust some of the new guys in the rotations. The rotations are a little longer. We just went back to that 2-3 to try to keep the ball in front of us. We were able to hold them to a much lower percentage. They were over 50 percent in the first half and around 35 percent in the second half. That's the difference in the game. Ron Hunter is going to run a zone. He has done that for years. We knew it was going to be that matchup and the biggest point is to disrupt you. We had been talking about that for three days, not to settle. We made some poor decisions early that put us in a hole early. We shot 46 percent in the second half, opposed to 42 in the first; 32 assists with 13 turnovers. Thirteen turnovers is not a terrible number. I thought the timeliness in our shot-making was key, because we didn't make a lot from 3. The timeliness with some of our turnovers kept the game closer than it needed to be."
On Bruce Stevens…
"I just like his energy offensively; he goes for 8 (points) and 6 (rebounds). Defensively, he is still learning and a lot of that was with KG (Marcanvis Hymon). KG has been playing around 27 minutes per game, and when he gets in foul trouble early it limits his opportunities. Bruce is a guy with a big body that can score inside. Dom (Olejniczak) defensively gives us a presence, but he wasn't doing as well as we would have hoped with (D'Marcus) Simons at the end. (D'Marcus) Simons was coming right through his face and finishing some plays over him. Dom is very good at walling up the basket, but Bruce is just further along offensively with his skillset."
Closing thoughts…
"All three of these wins have been valuable. I am not sitting here telling you they will be in the Final Four, but I know all three of these teams are going to do very well throughout the course of the season. You are what your numbers say you are. These are going to help our numbers because these teams are going to have success. We try to challenge ourselves because Utah and Rice in Las Vegas are going to be a whole other ball game, so we have to be ready for that."
