UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 29, 2020

Joel Justus

Press Conference

Richmond Spiders 76, Kentucky Wildcats 64

Q. No three-pointers today, how do you address the shooting? Are guys taking more shots? How do you fix that?

JOEL JUSTUS: I think you have to go back and look at the film, look at the tape and see exactly where our shots came from for the whole game.

I think you've got to look and see how we were played within the offense. I think you've got to see what your screens look like. You've got to see what your cuts look like. You've got to see what your passes look like. Before you can go and look at the end result, you've got to really look and see the building blocks of your offense and see kind of what happened.

It's early; it's young in the season, and obviously you've got to give some credit to Richmond and how they played defense before you can go and just kind of make a statement in terms of we need this, this and this, especially this early right after.

Q. They were obviously veteran across the board but they had a really bothersome point guard who has a chance to be the all-time leader in steals in Division I basketball. You had a freshman point guard a lot of times today. How much were you concerned about that matchup going in, and what is your evaluation of how Devin handled that today?

JOEL JUSTUS: Well, I think when you look at a young man like Gilyard, you are obviously aware of the kind of impact that he has had on many games during his time at Richmond, and then you come in and you have to be prepared for that. You have to be kind of cognizant of that with your players and we were. Our guys knew how good not only Gilyard is, was, but also, Blake Francis.

And I think that our guys are smart enough to know the premium that you have to have on backcourt play to be successful here and be successful anywhere. I think you tip your hat to those guys, especially. They impose their will on the game many times before tonight and we were able to identify that with our guys. They saw it.

So like I said, I think this is an opportunity for our guys to learn. It's a lesson for them, especially in that backcourt, how young we are, and I think we'll grow. We'll get better from this.

Q. What do you hope the guys learn from this, what they will take away from this, and also, how much were you guys -- it looked like Olivier was much more active tonight. What was that about?

JOEL JUSTUS: I think your first question, I think that we have to become a little bit more unselfish on the offensive end. I think you look at the fact we had zero assists in the second half. I think as coaches, that was something that was very obvious as we were playing and the ball was sticking a little bit. You only have five for the game and obviously all those were in the first half.

So you've got to look at that, or early on, and how we want to play, who we are, defensively, you give up 59 percent from the floor, almost 60 percent in the second half. We have to find out where our lapses were. We have to take better care of the ball. You know, 21 turnovers is something that's a little too high, even as aggressive as Coach wants to play and as our teams here in the past have played, we'll tend to have double-figure turnovers.

But, hey, look, there were holes tonight that hopefully we'll learn from, we'll have lessons on and we'll grow as a young team.

Your second question in terms of Olivier, I thought we liked our matchup. He was a guy that we could play through and Coach felt the same way. Wanted to go after him early, and especially when Golden got in a little bit of foul trouble, we knew that he would have to back up a little bit in terms of his aggressive play on the defensive end, and it was good to see Olivier play that way early, and then you know what you've got now.

Q. You mentioned zero assists the second half and 21 turnovers for the game. Is that panic on offense when you got behind or the game stayed close and your guys just didn't handle things the way you wanted?

JOEL JUSTUS: I think there was a variety of turnovers. I mean, we had a couple rebounds stripped from us. We had a couple -- I mean there was the one deflected ball in front of our bench. The passing turnovers, we had a couple travels.

So 21 is not necessarily through your offense, but sometimes, hey, look, this is -- this was a team that was going to present veteran moxy. We knew that coming in and we knew that we were going to have to play really well to win the game, and we did it. That's partly due to the way Richmond played, and I would say, and I think everyone in our locker room would say some of those turnovers, some of the missed shot, some of the missed free throws, those are self-inflicted.

But to beat a very good team and experienced team, you're going to have to play really well. You're going to have to play 40 minutes, oftentimes 30 seconds of possession. And shoot, there was a period of time in the second half where we had consecutive stops, we didn't have any. We might have one, but to string together consecutive stops, we weren't able to do that for a while.

Q. You out-rebounded them 34-51 and had 21 offensive rebounds and seems to miss a lot of shots around the rim. What do you attribute that to?

JOEL JUSTUS: Some of that is nerves. I think some of that is first game or second game jitters that you're going to have with these guys. What we do know is these guys are competitive. Talking about our team is, they are guys that want to win. They are trying hard. They are practicing hard.

Hey, look, I think sometimes the ball doesn't go exactly the way you want it to go. But your effort, yeah, is great. To get 21 rebounds, that means we were going. I mean, those don't just fall in your lap. You've got to have an effort to go and offensive rebound, to have a presence on the boards. So I think once again, it's a lesson for our guys. It's a lesson for our staff to go and see what we can do to get better, and especially with a quick turnaround like this.

Q. I would like to make a comment about the free throws. You missed 11, 12 free throws. Do you believe that was a lack of concentration about your players? Also, how do you evaluate BJ Boston's performance?

JOEL JUSTUS: I think as I've said, I mean, it's a young season. It's a first opportunity for our guys to be in close games, to be in a big game like this to where every basket matters, every possession matters, both on the offensive end and on the defensive end.

Our guy, sometimes missed free throws are a product of trying too hard. But I think it's not a lack of concentration. I would say it's potentially concentrating too much. But our guys will be in the gym and they will spend time. Hey, look, it's a lesson for us. It's a lesson for them. I think for your follow-up, I think BJ has done some nice things early this season. He's going to be a guy that's going to be in positions to where he's going to be asked to score the ball and he's going to be asked to create, and you know we've just got to go back and look at each one of his touches, his minutes and continue to get better. You know, everything at this time of year, win or lose, is a lesson.

Q. Do you all anticipate having Keion back for Tuesday, and if not, how do you find Olivier some more rest? It looks like he was noticeably tired in the second half.

JOEL JUSTUS: Our medical staff will update us on Keion if there's any changes. I think we are going at it, you know, with the same, I guess, pick-and-roll, that we've been going at. So I don't know that I can answer your question there other than guys that are ready, will play. Guys that are ready to practice tomorrow at one o'clock will practice. We'll see who is ready to play there on Tuesday night.

In terms of rest, yeah, I think Olivier is an experienced guy. So you trust him out there in a game like this. You kind of hopped on his back there for a little bit and we needed to ride him. But I think there's opportunity there for guys to play a couple more minutes. We ran into a little bit of foul trouble with Lance there early in the first half.

In terms of moving forward, we have got to be ready to have everybody active and we have got to have everybody ready to play. With it being such a young season, you never know. Sometimes it's one guy that is in foul trouble that gives opportunity for someone else to step up like you saw with Cam Fletcher. So I think all guys are ready and they are ready to contribute when their name is called.

Q. You talk about BJ is going to be called upon at times to score and to create offense. Is he the guy, does it feel like you've got to have a guy that when all else fails you can put it in his hands and he can get you buckets, efficiently create you offense is, does he need to have that mentality that he is going to be that guy for you?

JOEL JUSTUS: I think he has the mentality, and I think -- I'm obviously speaking for Coach Cal here and the rest of our staff is, that when you're coaching young guys like that, and they are in that position, you have to respect the position. Not saying that BJ doesn't is, I think he does. He's got to be a guy that takes extreme pride in being a guy that we call upon to get buckets, and it's our job to teach him that.

BJ is a competitor, he's a fighter and he wants to win, much like rest of the guys on this team, and hey, look, sometimes as Cal has said, it's great to have multiple guys be able to go and get 25 in a game because when you're in that NCAA Tournament, you know somebody is going to get it going, and I think you've seen the great teams here have had multiple guys get 25.

So while it might be BJ, we are training everybody to step up when that time is, as we try to get to March. It's a long ways away, but for us I think this is a lesson for us that we must learn from, and with a quick turnaround we'll see what we've learned this afternoon and be ready to go Tuesday night.