Related pages This one leaves an empty feeling Box score Season stats Possession analysis advertisement [an error occurred while processing this directive]

"It shouldn’t have (come down to the last shot) tonight. We can say what we want to about the other games, but tonight you go 6-19 from the free throw line, and probably four or five of those are front-ends, and we gave them the game. Down four, throwing the ball inbounds, we just throw it to them. We only had 12 turnovers, but it seems to me our turnovers come at the most inopportune times. Our perimeter played good. Our big guys really struggled, obviously. But our perimeter played good, which is something that hasn’t happened for us, getting good, consistent perimeter play. But tonight I can’t fault them. They shoot the ball well, and other than guarding one player, they played pretty good. "Our youth showed up again. I don’t think youth is the reason you miss free throws. But players make plays. They step up and make free throws. And we’ve got to start doing the things that teams do. They make free throws with the game on the line. Free throws have cost us two games now. We missed three consecutive front-ends against Arkansas or we’d win that game, and tonight if we just hit four more ­ if we just shoot them miserably ­ we win the game. A pretty frustrating loss. "Sasha had a bad game, and C.J. had a bad game. We didn’t play them as many minutes because Julian was playing better than any of the big guys. They doubled Sasha, but he still didn’t play the way he’s been playing. And we could have missed free throws all night if we could have finished the first half. We’re up 11 with 2:27 left, and we go brain dead. We go double team the ball for no reason at the end of the first half, and give them an uncontested three. We gave them all the momentum. We outplayed them the first half, and we’re only up three because we went brain dead. I guess that’s just youth, but we gave them points, and they’re not a team that needs to be given points. "I was really proud of Mario. He came back and had a much better second half. He had a really rough first half. I thought Russell had a solid game, Hawk had a solid game. Those guys did what they could. Brandon started out on fire. I thought Micah did some good things. Julian gave us a spark. We played guys who played pretty well, but we missed free throws and we didn’t have anybody in the hole who could deliver."