Billy Kennedy on beating LSU, Trocha-Morelos situation, Jones' play

Key quotes from Billy Kennedy interview

"Well I wish I could tell you it's more fun, but we've got a lot of games left. I'm really excited for our guys and for our fans and for those who believed in me and what we were doing because it was a challenge getting it going. We've got a good group now and we've got a good group coming in next year. I feel really confident on where our program is now, it's on solid ground and we've got a lot more to get done this season."

"It was an electric crowd against LSU, we had a sell out. We had energy and enthusiasm in the building and when you have that it's a big difference. I've said all along, in basketball for sure, you look at the "basketball" schools, Kentucky, Carolina, Kansas and how hard of a place it is to play there and the championships they've had by winning all of their homes games, not just some of them. They usually win all of their home games, it makes a big difference. I'm excited that our students came back with some enthusiasm and helped us win the game the other day, and our local fans too."

"The main thing is we were in foul trouble against LSU, the worse foul trouble we've been in maybe all year, and our guys just kept sawing wood. That's the approach we want to take with our team. We didn't get frustrate. We had two fives in, Tyler and Tavario, in the last the last two and a half minutes of the first half and we went from being down to up four. I'm just so just proud of our guys for staying the course. We went to the locker room up four and LSU came out again on fire and assertive. The next time we hit them in the mouth, we basically gave ourselves the victory."

"That was a matchup we knew we had an advantage of as well, Craig Victor is a good player, but he's 6'7, 6'8  and 220 and  they don't want to put Simmons on anybody because they don't want him to get in foul trouble. Anthony Collins and Alex Caruso did a really good job on getting Tyler the ball and he gets himself open as well as any big guy I've ever coached. It doesn't hurt that he's about 270. He gets himself open and we do a good job of getting the ball."

"(The Trocha-Morelos situation) was a stupid, stupid bad decision. He's being penalized, punished, disciplined as we speak, like I said, internally. It's not just miss a game or miss a half a game or whatever, there are other consequences that come with that that we have imposed in the athletic department that aren't for release. You've got to consider the individual. It's my responsibility to take these young men and treat them as my own. I may be a nice guy in a lot of ways, but our program is disciplined. We're not just playing it all for the game, we're doing what's in the best interest for this kid first and then we're going to what's in the best interest for our university and program second. Some people may not like that order but when you take a kid from Colombia from his family, they trust him with me and our program so we're going to do the right thing. What was done is what we believe is the right thing. There's a lot of stuff that is still unknown in this situation that will take some time. There may be more coming, there may be more discipline coming but we don't know that. He has an attorney representing him in the situation who has been helpful with information so we'll go from there."

"Tonny has our highest GPA on the roster. He's a student athlete and yes you're held to a higher standard, like it or not. We'll let the process take it's course and go from there. I've been here for five years and we've never had a situation like this and that's totally unusual. Not that our guys have been perfect, but we're not just letting things go wild just for the sake of athletics and trying to win games."

"I think (Jalen Jones has been the best player in the league so far). A lot of it goes unnoticed and unwarranted. I think we've got three guys capable of that, Daniel House is about to break out. People don't realize he hasn't played as well as he's capable of playing, but he's working hard. He's grown up a lot in some other areas. But Jalen is playing extremely well. We just quietly continue to do what we need to do, and he keeps going to work. There's not a better player in the country than Alex Caruso when you look at the intangibles in a program. He's first team All-American in that stand point. But Jalen is having a great year with other good players all around him. They were doubling and tripling teaming House and Jalen was getting layups and he's making them. It's a credit to all of our guys, but Jalen is playing extremely well."

"Missouri is a dangerous team. Wes Clark is one of the better guards in the league and he's given us problems before. They've been competitive and beat Auburn not too long ago, but it's a team with a lot of young guys, I'm hoping we can come out ready with a good crowd like we expect and get good energy from our players. When we're not live on ESPN and it's not the Ben Simmons show coming to town, you've got to be able to be good because that's who we are. It'll be a good test for us."