SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE BASEBALL TOURNAMENT

May 26, 2021

Luke Hancock

Hoover Metropolitan Stadium

Mississippi State Bulldogs

Postgame Press Conference

Florida 13, Mississippi State 1

THE MODERATOR: Luke, if you can, open it up with a game recap, and then we'll have questions for you.

LUKE HANCOCK: It was a tough game. They beat us in every facet of the game today -- pitching, hitting, defense. That's how baseball goes. Baseball is a tough game, and it always beats us -- no matter the team you're playing, if you're playing somebody that's in a different conference, it doesn't matter. Baseball is a tough game, and anybody can be beat any day, and that's what happened today. They beat us in every facet of the game.

Q. I know that you played a lot of baseball in your life. How quickly can you put this behind you, especially those younger guys who haven't had something like this happen to them at this level? How quickly can you get the team focused and ready for tomorrow?

LUKE HANCOCK: I know this is going to sound cliche, but it's got to be out of our mind right now. I know we just got done, but the game's over. We have to focus on tomorrow and just coming out here and playing a good game of baseball, which we played all year.

We just have to come out tomorrow and get ready for another tough game because whoever we're playing here in the SEC tournament is going to be good, but we just have to come out and play good in every facet of the game.

Q. Obviously, you aren't going to make excuses, but how tough is it to wake up and play this 9:30 game? How much does that factor into the intensity level and all that? Is it a little bit more difficult than maybe an afternoon or nighttime start?

LUKE HANCOCK: It's a little more difficult, but we have to come out with energy. Florida showed this morning and yesterday morning that they can come out and play with energy all nine innings. We can too. We had good energy, I thought, all morning. We just -- things didn't fall our way. That's the game of baseball, like I said a minute ago, and that's just how things are.

But we have to come back ready in the morning and be prepared to play a great game.