The UK Basketball team faces North Dakota on Wednesday night at 9:00 PM in Rupp Arena.
The Wildcats will be looking to improve to 2-1 by playing against an undefeated Fighting Hawks team. It’s been a tough start to the season for Kentucky mainly because of turnovers.
A couple of the UK players talked about that and more as they get ready for Wednesday’s game.
#0, Quade Green, So., G
On playing late games …
“It’s just a regular game to us. We play at 9 o’clock tomorrow, too. Everybody is ready to lace their shoes up and hoop.”
On what the younger guys learned against Southern Illinois …
“I just know it was too close. Seven minutes, second half. The veterans had to step it up at that point, and we did.”
On how they changed the SIU game …
“We had to step the intensity up.”
On the team’s turnovers …
“We’ve got to cut the turnovers down and boost the assists. You’ve got to be comfortable with the basketball and put it in a good spot so everybody else can score it.”
On what he tells the team’s younger point guards …
“Keep calm, be collected, just go out there and play. Don’t worry about anything else, just go out there and play. Have a ball. Have fun with this.”
On Nick Richards …
“Nick just had confidence (against Southern Illinois). He just wanted every rebound. He wanted to prove something to coach, and that’s what he did.”
On what the team learned from the loss to Duke …
“It’s motivational. That’s all that is really. Losing like that, it’s a motivational thing.”
On the freshman class …
“They’ve been pretty good. I like the freshman group that we’ve got. I love them, actually. They come in to work every day, so you can’t take anything from them.”
On the focus in practice …
“Defense and loose balls, (taking) charges. I think that’s what today’s practice is going to be too. We love those practices, everybody can (get after) each other. He lets everything go. There’s no referee in our gym.”
#3, Keldon Johnson, So., F
On the turnovers on offense …
“We looked at the turnovers. Of course, a lot of them were unforced. Just mental mistakes, things like that. We all know that we can’t have that many turnovers in a game, especially turnovers that weren’t needed. They were just easy mental lapses, so we’re just working on it.”
On staying locked in on defense with North Dakota having long offensive possessions …
“Just playing our style of basketball, getting after people. I think as long as we play our basketball, we’ll be fine. Regardless if it’s long possessions or not, just stay together, talk and I think we’ll be fine.”
On what the team learned from the first week of games …
“Definitely. I think each game was a learning lesson. I think we learned a lot from each game and it’s just up from here. We’re just going continue to get better as a team and as individuals and I think that it will be great.”
On what he learned individually …
“I know that I made some mental mistakes, some kick-outs that I should have made, but just learning, keep playing as a team and trusting our teammates.”
On whether shooting struggles are mental or mechanical …
“It’s a mechanics thing. Just gotta keep shooting. We work on shooting every day, just applying it to the game and keep trusting it. Don’t try to go back or revert back to old habits because they’re not falling right now. If we keep shooting like we know we can, they’ll eventually fall.”
On what Coach Cal means when he says they are making things harder than they need to be …
“Just trying to make the homerun play every time. I think that instead of making the simple play, making the play that’s the easiest, I think that sometimes we try to complicate, try to get the highlight play, if you want to say that, or make the spectacular play.”
On what fueled the run to win the game vs. SIU …
“Just our passion for basketball. We wanted to fight. We wanted to win. We just dug down. We knew we were down and we knew if we just gave up there they were going to beat us. We just came back and fought and that’s about it. We just kept fighting until the end.”
On North Dakota …
“I don’t really know much. I heard they’re a pretty good team. I think we’ll be fine as long as we come out and play our type of basketball.”
