Kentucky players unload on the West Virginia freshman who talked trash before 39-point loss
Andy Lyons/Getty Images
After the game, Kentucky players unloaded on Daxter Miles Jr., the West Virginia freshman who vowed to end UK's winning streak at 36 games before their Sweet 16 matchup.
"Salute them to getting to 36-0. But tomorrow they're gonna be 36-1," Miles said on Wednesday. "To me, they don't play hard. To me, they don't play as hard as we play."
It was a bit of light trash talk from a 20-year-old, and it's not like he was going to say WVU was going to lose.
But Kentucky players say it motivated them to obliterate the Mountaineers. Some of the postgame quotes were pretty fantastic/brutal.
"I feel like they should have just kept their mouths shut and it wouldn't have been like that," guard Tyler Ulis said. "We come out there flat sometimes but when guys are trash talking us we just come out and destroy them."
"Our whole plan was to crush their spirit. [To] beat them by 50 for disrespecting us," he told ESPN.
Dakari Johnson told Kentucky Sports Radio, "Everybody was juiced up. We wanted to come out and make a statement and after all the talking they were doing, we didn't really do that much talking. We just let our play do the talking. I think that made a statement."
Aaron Harrison told USA Today's Nancy Armour, "That's what happens when people try and trash talk to us."
"(The comments) kind of got us ready. We came out firing on all cylinders, and that just makes it look worse," Willie Cauley-Stein told USA Today.
Other Kentucky players took to Twitter to hit out at Miles' comments:
Lot of talkn lot of tweetin till they........play
- Andrew Harrison (@DrewRoc5) March 27, 2015
36 and won
- Devin Booker (@DevinBook) March 27, 2015
Played hard ??
- Andrew Harrison (@DrewRoc5) March 27, 2015
Miles scored zero points. But he seemed to take it well. He told ESPN after the game, "[Kentucky] played good - played great. We didn't play to our best, and they played great."
- I spent $2,000 for 7 nights in a 179-square-foot room on one of the world's largest cruise ships. Take a look inside my cabin.
- Saudi Arabia wants China to help fund its struggling $500 billion Neom megaproject. Investors may not be too excited.
- One of the world's only 5-star airlines seems to be considering asking business-class passengers to bring their own cutlery
- From terrace to table: 8 Edible plants you can grow in your home
- India fourth largest military spender globally in 2023: SIPRI report
- New study forecasts high chance of record-breaking heat and humidity in India in the coming months
- Gold plunges ₹1,450 to ₹72,200, silver prices dive by ₹2,300
- Strong domestic demand supporting India's growth: Morgan Stanley