Vicky Graff Photo
Kentucky’s 88-54 win over Brown Tuesday puts the Cats at 11-2 — with wins over Duke and Gonzaga — going into Southeastern Conference play that starts Saturday when UK hosts Florida.
Andrew Carr had a team-high 14 points on 4-for-6 shooting, five rebounds, three steals and two assists against Brown but he knows what lies ahead in conference play with as many as 12 SEC teams listed as possible NCAA Tournament teams.
“Just super excited about the gauntlet that we have in front of us. The league is super talented. For us to be as prepared as we possibly can to go out there and win a national championship, which is what this league will prepare us to do, I think,” Carr, who was joined in the postgame press conference by his fiancee, said.
“Being able to bring crazy intensity each and every game and you’re going to get looks from top to bottom of the league. Not everyone plays the same, so it’ll be super fun to see our team grow throughout that.”
Kentucky seemed to lack intensity in its previous game, a loss to Ohio State in New York, and was up only by 12 points at halftime against Brown Tuesday.
Carr said it was “super important” for UK to recover from that loss. He said the Cats took a couple of days to “digest” the loss and then moved on.
“We had some good, intense practices and looked better. I think for us in a couple of our games we came out a little slower in the first half, responded in the second half, so thinking about better ways to be on top of it,” Carr said. “Really looking forward to doing that in SEC play and seeing what this team has.”
Carr knows the Cats cannot afford slow starts consistently in SEC play and tried to remember that against Brown.
“Really trying to play with as much confidence and be as aggressive as possible early in the game, so I had it going in the first half and a lot of my teammates did a great job finding me and being able to make plays,” he said.
“I’m usually not as vocal and emotional, I try to stay as calm as possible. So there are moments that you’re able to spark something in the team and it’s really cool to be a part of that.”
Kentucky-Brown Basketball
Photos by Vicky Graff
2 Responses
The next 5 games will show if we are SEC contenders or pretenders.
I think I agree with you on the five games Barry