Rod Barnes Last Quotations

Last year, we had Tommy Eddie in the post, who was 6-7. Kendrick Fox started and was not really a post player.

He was good, not great. You could tell he had not had live action in the last two games. But I saw some aggressiveness.

He has really helped us and been a good backup point guard, but we have got to get him back playing well. I challenged him after the Mississippi State game. He has lost some of his aggressiveness. He was attacking, knocking down shots and running the team. The last few games he has not played as many minutes as we need him to play.

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.

We're going to play in the NCAA Tournament. So this is not their last go-around with me, OK ?

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.

They told us it could go either way. As of (Friday) I didn't know if he had the surgery or not. His father said they would contact us after the game and let us know how everything was going. Then we got a call last night about 9:30, maybe a little later than that.

They beat us up pretty bad. It's a tough draw for us, but after the game against LSU, I feel better about our team's state of mind. I think they're in a better state than the last game against Kentucky. That's when the uncertainty (about Barnes' future) started. Words have been spoken. A lot of those questions are behind us.

We changed our lineup in the last game. We turned the ball over way too much. I think we've played good teams that cause turnovers, but we've started to lack in confidence.