Pete Boone Quotations

We're going to be watching a few games. We're trying to get a little more familiar.

We did not do one thing that was unethical. Not one. This is one of those things that you have to work through. As long as you know that every card you're playing is on top of the table, then you smile and go on about your business and let the chips fall, because you know they're going to fall right at the end of the day.

When you come to a decision and all parties concerned, it's best to go ahead and talk with whoever you need to talk to and make that decision. Why not try to keep it quiet? ... Nothing's ever quiet. Any time a final decision is made on anything, if it's going to be public knowledge, try to get it out.

Because Rod means so much to the Ole Miss family, this was a difficult decision. However, due to our lack of success in the Southeastern Conference, I felt a change needed to be made.

From a recruiting and academic standpoint, trying to practice on the same court poses some problems. They are not monumental problems, and we've been able to overcome them for some time.

He won't be our coach next year. I'm not sure how all of that works out, the terminology of that. I just don't know. We hadn't spent a whole lot of time talking about that.

He had three or four years of experience in his one year. If you go and look at the things he had to do ... he had to dismiss players, had to dismiss a coach. So many of the things he had to do, a lot of coaches go two or three years without having to do. I think he has done an admirable job in growing at such a fast rate.

We're in the process of starting that. I would think that this week, we will have made contact with athletic directors.

He wanted to be here. He knows that he can be a success here. He's been a success before. He knows what it takes.

I was looking for a bright spot. But looking at everything (Thursday), I kind of came to a conclusion.

I talked to him right before tip-off and told him that he was our man. I told him that you're the guy that we want to lead Ole Miss basketball for 10 years and he said, 'I really appreciate that.' I told him, why don't we talk after the game and he said that would be great.

I think you weigh all of the issues together, including the interview. It still may be close, but you've got to have all of the components.

I think all you can really do (attending games) is see how they conduct themselves, their mannerisms, how the players respond to them and how they talk to the other coaches on the bench. I don't know if any of those in particular are earth-shattering pieces of information, but it's another piece to the puzzle.

I think that, when it all boiled down, production of the offense was a major factor.

Rod Barnes has been a very positive and important part of Ole Miss basketball history throughout his playing and coaching career. He has always represented the University with the utmost class and integrity. Because Rod means so much to the Ole Miss family, this was a difficult decision. However, due to our lack of success in the Southeastern Conference, I felt a change needed to be made.

With all of our background, and all of the things we were looking at, we put all the pieces together and it seemed like he was the one who would lead us the next decade.

We have some season left to play, and, as I do with every coach, we will take the season at the end of the year, then discuss my evaluation of it. I do that with every sport that I am directly responsible for.

We've kind of been waiting around a little bit for these conference tournaments to get through.

We were kind of hoping things would work out until the end, and they just didn't.

Those folks we've been able to make contact with, we'll start scheduling a time to meet with them and we will probably go to where they are. There's not a need (to bring them to Oxford) from my part. But they may in fact want to and they may want to bring their family. I'm not exactly sure what they'll want to do.

The only thing I really want to say about it is that certainly this has been a disappointing year.

Fans, being what they are, sent names and stuff in, but we're not even focused on that right now. When the season's going good, or bad, there are always coaches that you're watching, because you never know. But I wouldn't want that to be an indication we're doing that this season. ADs always do that.

We've got a list, and it's becoming shorter. We've probably talked about 20 or 30 people, some for five seconds and some we're still talking about. It's becoming obvious that the list is narrowing down fairly quickly.

You have to look at the whole season, if not a couple of seasons, and see what history is there.

You have to start narrowing it down to interviews, and that's pretty much been done. If you feel pretty good about your group, it can't be continuously open-ended.

Andy was passionately talking about being at Ole Miss, and John Hartwell handed him my compensation list, and he said, 'I'm not interested in that,' and turned it over. I liked that.

The scholarship penalty is not going to be near as harmful to us as the bad publicity for not achieving what we're supposed to achieve. Even though your major sports and all your others are good, we still didn't do what we should have in one.

Coach Vaught took Ole Miss football, and to a certain extent the University of Mississippi, into the national spotlight.

You never know until you interview how mutual the interest is. We think they're very interested or else they wouldn't interview.

You read newspapers and you read that people think you can't win at Ole Miss. You can.

It's really hard to articulate the measure of success Mike's had, because you really have to consider where (the program was) when he started. We had had several years of poor performance and it's hard to get that turned around. But he's done it pretty quickly by being consistent and getting progressively better each year.

That's 10-12 that we were really interested in. Of course, then we had to find who was interested in us.

Once Ed decides who he wants, then he and I will sit down and I'll ask him why. He and I have already talked about (several issues). Getting the right person that fits what he needs. Chemistry and personality matches up and stuff like that.

Not only did these remarkable student-athletes excel on the playing field, all of the former athletes also graduated from Ole Miss. That's a true testament to their character.

I'm really not going to give it a whole lot more thought than what I've already said.

If you're going to be successful in any venture, no matter what it is, you better hire the best people possible. Whatever it takes to hire them, you're either going to be a player or not. And we intend to be players in it.

If there is a significant pattern that develops, the NCAA has the right to look at it as a major issue. But that's not what they've done here. It's just one of those things you just always have to have your antennas up.

I didn't know Andy Kennedy. There are a lot of folks who just like their names in the newspaper and want to be perceived as being part of the search for their own reasons. We wanted to see how wide a net we could cast, then start filtering out the ones who didn't fit.

If I'm any good at Ole Miss, I might not be worth a flip at Michigan because I might not fit the environment.

I do think that he's got several folks he's talking to. I talked to Ed (Saturday) morning. I think he's still looking for the best fit for Ole Miss.

The list is still fluid in the sense that we may pick up another candidate, and we may not. It's much more narrow.