Post-game reactions following 83-71 victory over UK
Kentucky Head Coach John Calipari
On Elston Turner's performance and reacting to A&M's late-game run...
"Well, in the NBA coaching, obviously there's a couple guys that would do that to you, but in college, that was like phenomenal. I think it was 63-59 with about 4:00 something to go, and it was a situation that I talked to the team yesterday about, gut time, stop the runs, stop the bleeding. And they were listening to what I was saying, but I don't think they heard me, what you do defensively, what you do offensively, because we had Maryland do it to us; we had Duke do it to us; we had Vanderbilt the other night do it to us. We had other teams and this team went on a 16-1 run, and you're not winning that way and it's both on defense and offense. But I will tell you that that performance was -- that's as good as it gets, the way he shot the ball."On choosing Archie Goodwin to guard Elston Turner...
"Mistake. It was a mistake. I was talked into it. I didn't want to do it and it was my decision. It was a mistake. Because from that point on, he was getting 50. Stupid on my part to do that.As a staff, we said he's going to have to guard a 5-11 guy or Turner. And I said, let him guard -- it was just a mistake. He's not ready to guard a kid like that, he's just not. Doesn't have the intensity. You've got to have an unbelievable fight in you to guard a guy like that to have pride that you're not going to do this to me. And he may have done it anyway to be honest with you; it may not have mattered who guarded him."On his reaction to Elston Turner's late game three-pointers...
"I was okay. I thought he did okay. I thought he did a pretty good job in the end there. The one three that he made when we were up four, he got whacked on a screen and we didn't switch out. I mean, we sat there and let him shoot it, and that's -- again, it's young freshman errors to recognize that and say, we know who is beating us and who is not going to beat us. This guy is not beating us. You just huddle and -- but again, we are still coming together."Kentucky Forward Nerlens Noel
On Elston Turner's shooting throughout the game…
"I haven't seen anyone shoot like that. He is a great player. We should have done a better job as players to close out on him and force the drive."On what happened in the last four minutes of the game…
"A couple of mental break downs for myself. We broke down defensively because they went through screens and made big shots."Kentucky Guard Archie Goodwin
On Elston Turner's performance…
"We just tried to contain and make him take tough shots. He was just on, got going early and we tried all we could do. In the second half, we shut him down a little bit but it still wasn't enough for us to get a win."
On losing the lead at the end of the game…
" Very frustrating knowing we had the lead with four minutes to go. We just have to continue to work on game time situations like that. These are the ones that we can't lose."
Texas A&M Head Coach Billy Kennedy
On how his team battled back when Kentucky took the lead…
"I thought we started to go inside. Ray Turner was in foul trouble early in the first half and we were able to get some momentum and able to get some other guys going. Fabyon Harris gave us some good minutes. He came in and scored some baskets and we got some good scoring from other people. Elston (Harris) had 25 in the first half and played darn near the whole game. We needed to get someone else to step up. I thought that was critical."
Texas A&M Guard Elston Turner
On the chance to play SEC teams like Kentucky…
"From our team's standpoint, we were up at six in the morning this summer running in 110 degree weather in Texas. Our coaches always emphasized, 'This is what's going to get us to the top.' We always talked about how it's going to be tough when we go to Rupp Arena and we go to Florida and Tennessee and all of the other schools. We just kind of emphasized, what we have to do to win, we're going to have to grind in the summer offseason. We've been together ever since, I think, May or June and our team chemistry is great right now."
Texas A&M Guard Fabyon Harris
On Elston Turner's performance…
"I just stepped back and watched the show for a minute like everybody else did. I am used to seeing Elston do that in practice and he just showed he could do that on the big stage and he did that tonight."
