| Advertisement |
|
|
He helped lead a late surge that almost enable Kentucky to overcome a 17-point second-half deficit at Louisville Saturday, but that didn’t make freshman Archie Goodwin take the 80-77 loss any better.
“I just, I hate losing. Any loss, no matter who it’s against, is going to affect me,” said Goodwin, who had 22 points and five turnovers. “I want to win so bad. I know my teammates do as well. It’s just one of those things where we should’ve won the game, we know we could’ve won it, and that’s what makes it worse.”
Goodwin was 8-for-15 from the field, including 3-for-5 from 3-point range, and 3-for-4 at the foul line. He had five rebounds, two assists and one steal in 36 minutes.
“We’re trying to get him to play and attack for us. Like, if you can get to the rim, fine. But if you’re not getting to the rim, he still threw two or three balls – just threw his body into the guy and threw them,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said. “We’re trying to eliminate that play, but the other plays he made were outstanding.
“He missed one layup. Like, I don’t know if he was moving too fast, but he missed a layup. But short of that, he had two of those (ugly ones). Two weeks ago, he made that move, just throw his body and just throw it off the shot clock eight times a game. So he’s getting better.”
Here’s more of what Goodwin had to say after Saturday’s game.
Question: What changed after Kentucky got behind 51-34?
Goodwin: “We just had a grit about us. We knew that they were going to make a run and it was time for us to make a run and was time to get ourselves back in the game and we did that. We played lot more tougher than we were. All good teams make runs and we withstood that and made a run of our own.”
Question: Was this game still a step forward even though UK lost?
Goodwin: “I would say so because we fought hard the whole game and that is something Coach (John Calipari) has been preaching about for the last couple of weeks and something we have been improving in. But we didn’t get the ultimate goal, which we tried to. But we are still making strides forward. We’ve come a long way, especially just competing. That’s what we did today. We competed from the beginning to the end. We just didn’t get the win.”
Question: What did he learn about his team in the loss?
Goodwin: “We can play with anybody. That is something we can do. It’s just a matter of us doing it. We missed 12 free throws. I think if we made 10 of those, nine that was the game right there. But that was really one of those things that hurt us right there. It just showed that no matter what we do or how bad we shoot we can still stick with guys as long as we tough it out.”
Question: Were you surprised late in the game that Louisville center Gorgui Dieng was able to block your 3-point shot?
Goodwin: “I don’t know. I didn’t think it would be able to get to it, but he has great athleticism and length. That helped him get to the ball. I knew I was going to hit it. That’s what I think about every shot. I think I am going to hit it.”
Question: Did Louisville’s physical play bother the team and take time to adjust to?
Goodwin: “I would say that we came into the game ready for it, but at the same time we were sort of looking for calls a little bit that we thought we should have got but didn’t get. After a while, we just started to play through it and it started to work out for us. But we just didn’t get the win.”
Question: Did you realize when Louisville guards Russ Smith and Peyton Siva both got four fouls that you could penetrate and score a lot easier?
Goodwin: “No, I didn’t realize that. I was just trying to play off instinct. Coach really wants me to attack, and that’s what I tried to do. I tried to get us back in the game.”