What happened in the second half that caused things to get away?

“We’re pretty disappointed in 1 through 14 tonight. I had a great crowd. Understanding how hard the SEC is, understanding the competitive nature, understanding the size, understanding the physicality, understanding the will to win. Give Auburn a ton of credit, they came in here and kicked our butts. That’s quite obvious. This team has not resembled what we built the last four years from a competitive standpoint, from a defensive standpoint, from a loose ball-getting standpoint. So what’re we going to do? We’ve got to try and figure it out as much as we can. Guys got opportunities and didn’t seize the opportunities. One hundred and sixty-five passes when our goal is 200. Again, we’ve built something that I thought was really special. And this group of guys has not carried on the tradition, so we’ve gotta continue to get as best we can with the group we have right now.”

Was there anything positive in a game like this? At least in the first 20 minutes?

“I thought we played good in the first half. Not good, but we played decent enough to give ourselves a chance. Did not play the end of the first half very well at all. Just the competitive fiber, you know, it wasn’t there for 40 minutes.”

Inaudible question

“We talked about that over and over. They’re a team that will put you on the foul line. They do give up rim shots, although they’re great rim protectors. Again, I thought we played pretty good, pretty decent, okay, whatever word you want to say… survived… the first 16 minutes. And then after that… I mean, I’ve coached a long time and I don’t remember a home game like this ever. Since I’ve been coaching, whether it’s the minor leagues or whatever, we had people who paid good money to the game, we had people that drove far… it’s basically a filled-up building.”

On Arkansas’ pattern of not closing out the back quarter of a half

“Understanding the importance. It’s been addressed not a little, but a lot. It’s winning. Are you used to winning? Is winning a part of your DNA? Do you understand getting on the floor for a loose ball in the last two minutes of a half, become really important. They… they meaning Auburn… they’ve got a lot of guys with experience and have won a lot of games. I thought that their guys like Jaylin Williams played really well. I thought Johni Broome, I thought we did a great job on him in the first half and then I thought in the second half he was just totally dominant. It looked like we didn’t want any part of guarding him whatsoever. Some of the plus-minuses on our team, I’ve never seen some of those like that in the minutes guys played. As a competitor, disappointed. I really don’t know what else to say other than the fact… practice competitive nature and the games become two different things.”

Are you confident things can be fixed?

“How would I know? All I know is that I’ve gotta try to talk about them and address them.”

On Auburn being dominant in the paint

“I just didn’t think… I mean, paint points come in two ways: They come off dribble-drives and they come off post-ups. They hurt us in both. I’ll go all the way back to Year 1 here. I mean that group understood that we had to guard the three and we go to LSU and lose 28-1 on the glass or whatever and we still give ourselves a chance to win because they understood. This group does not understand what identity – on either side of the ball. So we have to just try to figure it out and keep talking about it. Whether it gets solved or not, I don’t know.”

On Saturday being the most lopsided loss in Bud Walton

“Ever? Or during my tenure?”

No, ever

“Yeah, that’s a pretty bold statement. And it’s factual. I don’t know what it means to that locker room. I know what it means to me. I know the history of this program. I have incredible respect for everybody that’s coached here, everybody that’s played here. That’s a wild statement.”

On the impact of Auburn’s Chad Baker-Mazara

“Was it addressed that on the right wing they run a pick-and-roll for him to get to the middle and shoot his pull-up jump shot? Yeah, it was addressed about a hundred times. But he still got to his sweet spot and I thought he played really hard, I thought he played really aggressive.”

Is the struggle of Arkansas’ offense a result of Arkansas’ struggling defense?

“Yeah, I certainly think defensively if you can create some offense, that makes it a little bit better on the other of the ball. We were bad on both sides of the ball. I’m assuming the 165 passes is an all-time low since I’ve been here too.”

How deflating is it that Auburn’s bench could be so impactful?

“Their bench is impactful every night. So no, we never talked about Broome having zero points and what’re we going to do if he has… I mean, just follow the gameplan and follow the blueprint of what we did in the first half. And maybe the results would’ve been different in the second half.”

On what he sees in Arkansas’ struggling transition defense

“We’ve struggled everywhere defensively. We’ve struggled on pick-and-rolls, your shot selection has to do with your transition defense. I mean, when you lose by 30, I could go all the way around the room and each of you could pick a different area and you would all be right. We stunk in all areas. I don’t know… I mean, transition defense, what about Johni Broome in the second half, I mean, I can go on and on. Yeah, we stunk. And we need to get a lot better to even survive in this league. We’ve gotta get a lot better. We’ve gotta get a lot more competitive. So with that, I will say, you all saw how poorly we played and there’s a million things we could discuss, but we stunk in all those areas.”