Bruce Pearl knew Auburn could lose by 40 to Kentucky | Post game press conference

Now, coaching the Screaming Eagles for nine years. The two or three teams that matter the most on our schedule are Kentucky, Westlinton, Owensboro, Northern Kentucky, just there in Covington, just across the bridge of Cincinnati, Bellarmine and Louisville. Because we took great pride in our basketball in Indiana and you all take great pride in your basketball in Kentucky. I've come in here before and gotten smacked like that and it's embarrassing. Because you know good basketball and you know really bad basketball. We were ready to play. You could tell early we had a good game plan.

And then with about three or four minutes after going to first half, things just unraveled a little bit. And then our guys just didn't, we just didn't stay together. You can't have one assistant in the first half and you gotta offensively try to work together to make each other better and we just didn't. And of course the same thing happened on the defensive end as well. So Auburn was not competitive at all tonight. Bruce, I wonder how much you saw Kentucky early in the year to be able to say how different they look now today over the last three or four weeks. Yeah well I mean they're obviously really comfortable in their roles.

Casey Wallace is a difference maker, running the point and his ability to defend and play make and finish shots. The Reeves kid is a great, obviously a great great shooter, older player gives him a. And those guys need to be able to be aggressive, to be able to make some mistakes. And when you're playing 35 minutes and they don't have quite the depth, guys are really comfortable in their roles. She-Way's playing dominant on the inside. We felt like we thought we could score with him a little bit and hurt him a little bit in the ball screen but he's did a nice job there. And they just hand-topping or physically just imposing out there.

And then the wings are so big. They're literally bigger and stronger at every position. And their physicality, we were no match for. So yeah, they're playing really well together. Bruce, when you said second half team, you guys didn't really stay together. Can you kind of expand on that and kind of want your own? Because that's something that we haven't seen from y'all this year, especially in these games on the road. Haven't seen it yet, but we saw it tonight.

And so nobody likes to come apart like that. This team's kind of scrapped and clawed and we've been in every game on the road in tough places. And tonight things came apart. If I had an explanation for why, it wouldn't have happened. Bruce, you mentioned Reeves, the shooter for Kentucky. You guys had him contained pretty well in the first half and then the second half. I think you had 18 points, three or five from three point range.

Just what changed? Was it you guys losing him, him just making shots? Just what happened in the second half? I think that for the first, again, 15 minutes, I thought we played pretty well defensively. And transition hurt us throughout the last four minutes and then the entire second half. I thought one of the keys was their guards being able to get downhill. Their guards were able to get downhill on us and drive past our guards. We couldn't stay in front of them. And I thought that was the difference. Which then led to drive to a dish and led to inside out.

Can't keep in front, can't guard them. Bruce, you talked earlier in the week about the lack of rebounding on your team. And if you didn't rebound, you'd get beat by 40. You got out rebounded pretty significantly. John, on the other hand, is always talking about physicality and toughness of his team. Where do you think that played into that final outcome? Huge, it was huge. I was off by eight points.

I hate when I'm right. But the physicality were much more physical than we were and played that way on both ends of the floor. She was the most physical player in the game. And topping his big, strong, bouncy physical. Their wings are big. I mean, just don't, you know, living since toughening up a little bit and doesn't play like a young player. Again, Reeves really helps them.

All of us is, I don't know many, fresher than are built like that. Great player, great size, great tempo. So it was physically a mismatch. A couple more on here. Bruce, Jani had a fast start to start the game. What did Kentucky do to kind of take them out to end the game? I think when you only have one assist in the first half, it's really hard to, you know, score many more buckets. You got to get your big ball.

And we did not do a very good job getting in the ball. And like we did early in the game, went away from it. Anyone else? Any questions? Not thank you very much. Thanks for watching.

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