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Dec. 29, 2008

Recap |  Box Score

Auburn Head Coach Jeff Lebo

Opening Statement... "I thought defensively for probably 30 minutes of the game, I thought we were pretty good. We rebounded the ball pretty well. We finally shot the ball well from the perimeter. We really shot the ball well in the first half. Tay Waller was outstanding shooting the ball. "We have another injury with Rasheem Barett again with his hamstring, but we don't know how long he is going to be out. I didn't know he wasn't going to be able to play tonight until right before the game, he just couldn't get loose. That was frustrating more than anything. Just when they say we're going to be healthy, we lose another one. Hopefully it won't be for long and he'll be ready to come back. "Korvotney Barber was outstanding tonight for 22 minutes. We were able to give everybody a chance to play. Offensively it was the best we have shot all year." On overall performance... "We did a lot of nice things out there. We're always worried about these games. I thought we did a nice job out of the gate early in the game and I thought that was a key. In the second half, we did a much better job with defending Trant Simpson. He kept Alabama A&M in the game the first half. We got a lot of points in the paint. We got the ball inside a lot inside in the post or the triple drive and they were pretty effective off of the dribble." On holding Alabama A & M to 12 points in the second half... "Every shot was contested. We didn't make any shot easy for them. Trant Simpson was the one guy that hurt us in the first half. He had half of their main field goals first half. They are not a particularly good outside shooting team. We did a good job in the post defense. They didn't get anything easy around the basket. We made them shoot jump shots for the most part outside and they were contested jump shots. They missed a lot of shots so they didn't really hurt us on the offensive glass. We did a pretty good job with defensive rebounding in the game. We have been better the last two weeks defensively and that has been good to see." On getting up before the half... "That was big. We were up by 16 and then we had two bad plays and they cut it down to 10 midway through the first half. Then we did a nice job going in with a comfortable lead at the half."

On team performance... "We didn't do a very good job of shooting the basketball. I guess with the layoff, they're still thinking about being at home. Certainly our minds were not here. We didn't shoot the ball well or execute offensively or defensively. "We were a step slow tonight. Every time we got the ball in there, we got more turnovers than anything else. You have to give Auburn credit for that. We knew coming into the game they would double our post. We worked on our post play but it didn't work. "Auburn just played with more energy than we did. When you play with more energy, 90 percent of the time, you're going to come out on top."

Alabama A&M Guard Trant Simpson

Thoughts on the team's performance... "In the first half we showed some spurts of good defense and good teamwork. On the whole game, I'm disappointed along with the rest of the team and our coaches. We can play way better than that, so I just don't understand tonight." Thoughts on his performance... "I got off to a good start early and my team did a good job of setting screens and getting me open. I was able to knock down some shots. In the second half, they focused on me more and my teammates as a whole weren't doing as well shooting. It made it harder. We just fell in a big hole and couldn't get out." On improvements for next game... "We need to play 40 minutes, play harder, play together and talk more on defense."

Auburn Player Quotes

Frankie Sullivan, G On tonight's game... "Just working on defense and execution - that's what we learned from it. A&M is a great team to play. I think it was just mostly working on execution, that was a big part of it. On how far the team has come since the start of the season... "We have come a long way. We have never had a whole healthy team. As you can see Rasheem Barrett was out today with an injury. Once you get the whole team together it's amazing to see what we can do. On getting more playing time... "Playing more really does help get in the flow because the last game I didn't really place so well. I have had a lot on my mind and coach knew it. He has been bearing with me. Playing a lot tonight helped me out a lot." On purposely pushing the ball down the court... "I was trying to push it and run the play close and pulling a couple of plays. We were just trying to execute the plays."

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