Nov. 7, 2008
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Auburn Head Basketball Coach Jeff Lebo
Opening Statement...
"The guys were real excited about playing tonight. They were pretty juiced today during our walk through and shoot around. They are tired of beating on each other in practice. We were excited to finally be able to play, turn on the lights and put some fans in the stands. We did some good things. The best thing about the exhibition game is that it gives us a good chance to watch the film, devour it, break it down, and show the guys our strengths and weaknesses. We can focus on five guys, whereas in practice we focus on ten. We did some good things, we didn't turn the ball over very much, we had the extra pass for the most part and we shot the ball pretty well from the three. Tay Waller will help our shooting percentages from the three point zone with his ability to make shots on the perimeter."
On shot selection...
"For the most part our shot selection was good. We live with Tay Waller taking an occasional one, he took one tonight that was impressive. When you are a shooter like that you have got to be confident. Tay Waller is confident; he made eight threes and he has the ability to make some tough ones. When he makes a couple, I give him a little more of a green light, but if he misses six and he took the one he did over in the right corner, we'll have to talk about it a little bit. For the most part, I thought our shot selection was pretty good."
On DeWayne Reed and Quantez Robertson's performance...
"They played well. They are experienced players. Quantex Robertson is a warrior on the court; he does so many things for the game. Quantez Robertson is also stronger this year; his athleticism has gotten better with his strength. DeWayne Reed made some extra passes and didn't turn the ball over as much as he did last year. We've made an emphasis on DeWayne Reed to get better in that area; however, our competition is going to get better. Korvotney Barber was a little rusty in the air, catching it early. Our post offense needs to get a lot better. I thought Brendan Knox showed some signs, at least rebounding the basketball. Lucas Hargrove I didn't think was as good. Lucas Hargrove will not have very much statistics this game. He can still help us, even without any statistics, but defensively he didn't do what we asked him to do. We have got to get a little bit better in our inside game."
On looking forward to Missouri State...
"I think that we have to put some other things in and keep building. We only had one defense in and we have to be able to change defenses because we only had our man-to-man in there tonight. Offensively, we have a few things that we need to play with, but we have to put together all the things that we are capable of playing with."
Tay Waller, G
On first game performance...
"For the most part, offensively I played pretty good. Like the coaches said, I had a few mistakes on defense. Most of my shots were hitting today and so my teammates kept telling me tot keep sotting so that's what I did."
On starting slow and picking up the momentum...
"After the first two shots, I thought I was going to have an off game, but after the timeout, Coach Lebo told me to play within the offense. So after I came out and hit my third shot, I got my confidence back and it went on from there."
On improvements made since last week's scrimmage...
"I think we got better on offense on execution. Coach was saying that we want to execute on offense as good as the other team. We worked hard all week through practice on our execution and it paid off a little bit today."
On starting the season...
"It was very exciting. Everyone was pumped up before the game and happy to see people in the stands. It felt good to be out there playing for Auburn for the first time."
