Transcript of Arkansas coach Mike Anderson’s comments after loss to Kentucky:
Opening statement: “First, congratulations to Kentucky, I thought they played an outstanding game. I thought their size was a big problem for us tonight especially with Anthony Davis, he is a difference maker. No matter how we tried to amount an attack, I thought they did a good job answering with their defense. They did a good job in their preparation and I told the team I’ll take the blame for that. We were playing one of the better teams in the country and they are playing some outstanding basketball. As we’ve seen throughout the course of conference play, everyone plays pretty good at home, including ourselves.”
On Marquis Teague: “I thought he did a good job taking care of the basketball. I don’t think we applied as much pressure as we wanted to but a lot of that credit goes to them being prepared. He took care of the basketball and got it to the right people at the right time. I thought (Terrence) Jones played an excellent game for them. They had some guys step up and play well for them. Darius Miller, I thought he hit some big shots for them. Of course they limited us to one shot on the glass. We got off to such a slow start and some of that has to be credited to their defense, they have big Anthony (Davis) back there.”
On the danger letting UK run the ball: “More so in the second half is when you saw them really attacking it. I don’t know if that was a sign of fatigue on our part or them just being in attack mode. I thought that in the first half we just kind of played on our heels. I didn’t think we were playing in the attack mode that we had set out to. I thought that in the second half they really cranked it up in terms of attacking us and we had some breakdowns. They like to play up-tempo and we like to play up-tempo at the same time but we’re a work in progress. I keep saying that word with this young basketball team. This is a great learning experience for our guys. You never want to get beat and I’m probably one of the worst losers you’re going to see out there. But, in order to get where we want to go, you want to play as a team like Kentucky did tonight. They did a lot of good things.”
On how disappointing the final score was: “We came up short. There’s no shame in what [the players] did. I thought they played their hearts out. Kentucky just did so much better tonight. It’s very difficult to win on the road. For our team, we have to play the perfect game. We have to shoot the ball well. We have to be in the paint, rebounding the basketball. We have to defend. One of the things I thought we could do was get them into their bench but they were able to get such a lead that they were able to rest guys. Anthony Davis played 36 minutes. I thought he played a great 36 minutes for them. As I said, it was a great opportunity and it’s a learning situation for our guys. There are going to be more ball games. We’re going to have to play the caliber teams that we played tonight. [Kentucky] just did outstanding. They did a lot of good things.”
