Rod Barnes Great Quotations

It has been difficult the last few years to beat Mississippi State. And it will be difficult (today). The great thing about it, a lot of our guys have not been a part of those losses. A lot of our new guys, they've never played Mississippi State.

I think Coach Pearl has done a great job. There's a lot of excitement at Tennessee and their kids are playing hard and playing well. It's become one of the toughest places to go and play.

I thought Kentucky played a great second half.

We've just gone to two places and got beat pretty badly. We go back home, the last time we were at home we played a great game. We're one game away from a regular-season winning season, and that's something we haven't done (since 2002). We get the opportunity to do that Saturday.

We missed some easy shots and had great opportunities and came up short. Obviously, we're lacking some confidence.

Bruce Pearl has done a great job of getting those guys to buy into what he is doing. If we had responded with some intensity and aggressiveness early on, it would have been a much better basketball game. After we got into the flow of understanding how hard they play, we were just too far down.