UNC Asheville coach (Nick McDevitt) comments after Kentucky game

UNC Asheville Head Coach Nick McDevitt

Opening Statement …
“First of all, congratulations to Kentucky, they have a fantastic ball club. As most of you saw and so did we, they have lots of big, long athletes and they are a load to handle. They are going to have a really good year. I thought we did a nice job, particularly in the first half of, I wouldn’t say controlling the pace, but playing the pace that we wanted to. I just told our guys in the locker room that for us to have a chance to play against world-class athletes, you have to be in world-class shape. This being game one, early November, we’re just not there yet. We aren’t in good enough shape yet to play against world-class athletes for 40 minutes. I thought we did a nice job for about 24 minutes. I think there was about 16 or 17 minutes left in the game we were down seven and I thought we looked a little tired. They had some real easy possessions midway through the second half where we just didn’t have anybody near the rim. Again, congratulations to them. They have a tremendous amount of talent. Julius Randle is a specimen, he is very, very good. Rarely do you see a guy with that kind of size and athleticism and skill level. Coach Cal(ipari) is going to have fun coaching him.”

On what kept his team in the game in the first half … 
“Again, I think we did a pretty decent job of having dead ball turnovers. We had ten turnovers at halftime, but I feel like we didn’t have a lot of live-ball turnovers. They thrive on it. When you turn the ball over on the open floor, they are going to run and gun and throw it at the rim. When you have guys like Willie Cauley-Stein, Julius Randle, Alex Poythress, and the twins, that’s a nightmare. I thought we did a pretty good job, I think there were 28 possessions for us in the first half I was told, and that’s about the pace we wanted to play. Because of the dead-ball turnovers, the shot-clock violation, I didn’t really mind that one. We ran our offense for 35 seconds and didn’t get anything and they had to take the ball out of bounds and face a set defense. That is one thing that we really keyed on, don’t have live-ball turnovers.”

On how the game reflected the new rules of taking contact out of the game … 
“I didn’t feel like we got an unfair shake. They are hard to guard, they are hard to guard. With the new points of emphasis, not new rules, just new points of emphasis, they are actually enforcing the rules that we’ve had, it’s just hard to contain guys that are that quick, that big, that athletic, that skilled. They are good. I felt like we did a pretty decent job for a while and we did see a lot of free throws, 69 free throws. I think we’ve got a lot of smart basketball players in the country, a lot of smart coaches, I’m sure we will all adjust.”

On how Kentucky’s depth will benefit them throughout the season … 

“I think there are a lot of good teams out there that are five deep. There are some teams that are eight deep, you need to be eight deep to be pretty good. These guys are 10, 11, 12 deep and that’s why they are really good. One thing we always talk about with our teams, our recruiting philosophy at the non-BCS level if you will, you need to have three all-conference players in order to win your league. To win the National Championship you need to have three first round draft picks. They’ve got more than three, and so they will obviously be one of the favorites to win it once again. When you’ve got four or five of the top 25 players predicted in the draft, that would be a fun team to coach.”