Q&A With UAB’s KENNEDY Ahead of Conference Tournament

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - March 10, 2026

UAB men’s basketball head coach Andy Kennedy met with the media on Tuesday afternoon to talk about his team as they prepare to play in the American Conference Tournament at Legacy Arena at the BJCC.

The Blazers know that they will begin postseason play as the No. 4 seed on Friday at noon but will not know the opponent until Thursday night. Memphis and Tulane will play on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the game between the eighth and ninth seeds and No. 5 seed Charlotte will play the winner of that game on Thursday night. UAB will play the winner of Thursday’s game in the tournament quarterfinals.

There was also some news on Tuesday with Chance Westry being selected to the All-American Conference second team and all-newcomer team and Ahmad Robinson ready to return to practice without contact after being out since breaking his hand on Feb. 11 in the first half of a win at Tulsa.

On the conference tournament: “This is March Madness. We don't have to travel far to be right in the throes of it. I know our guys are excited. Us securing (No. 4) seed means we don't have to play until Friday. I'm not as dumb as I look, I realize winning three in three days is easier than winning five in five days. So mission one accomplished in the fact that we put ourselves in a position to make a run.”

On whether road success helps with the pressure of a one-and-done tournament: “I think our guys are playing with a lot of confidence. We've won 10 straight on the road. We've won 12 away from Bartow. We're 12-2 away from Bartow, which ties a UAB record for most wins away. Got a chance to eclipse that on Friday and get number 13. Our guys are comfortable in environments that they're not comfortable in, not so much in the ones that they are comfortable in. So it's been certainly an obscure year.

I’ve never had a season (like this). I said this going into the year, it's probably the last 12 months, even though it's my 19th year as a coach, it's probably been the most hectic of my career. Just for everything, with revshare and NIL and transfers and a complete new team. How are you going to figure it out? We've also had about 40 some-odd man games missed due to injury. It's a point that really hasn't been brought up much with our team. We have the 351st smallest team in college basketball. There's only 365 for those that don't know. And one of the reasons is we lost our biggest kid (Joao Das Chagas) in the preseason at 6'10. That changed the way in which we need to play. And then we've had periods in conference play of losing Jacob Meyer for a number of games as our second leading scorer, losing KyeRon Lindsay-Martin for a number of games as one of our most effective front court guys. And then our starting point guard Ahmad Robinson went down. He's been out about three weeks. We're expecting to have him back for conference (tournament) play. So it feels like I've coached about three or four different teams in this one season. I hope that we've still got enough run left in us so that we can do something down the stretch.”

On avoiding foul trouble: “Yeah, I don't want to jinx it and talk about it, but for us, if you look at us statistically, and I know you guys do, but obviously not to the depth that I do. But when you look at us statistically and you look at all of the areas that we have been less than the standard, just the national average, it would be easy on a blind resume to say that team's 11-20, it’s not 20 -11. Just because we're so deficient in a number of areas. The areas that we've been consistently good all season are we don't turn it over very much, knock on wood, we don't foul very much, knock on wood, and then we do a good job off our defensive glass. Those are the three things that we've been the most stable at throughout the course of the season and that's going to have to remain to be consistent in order for us to have any chance to extend our year.”

On making four consecutive conference tournament championship games coming into this tournament: “I'm going to remind them when we meet, because none of these guys have experienced that, I'm going to say ‘Hey guys, by the way, you know, we've done this four straight times. We'd like for you to be the fifth.’ Every year's different. I remember year one, Jelly Walker, 43, I mean 42 points, 41 points, whatever he had in double overtime (actually 40 points in triple overtime) against Middle Tennessee State to push us to the finals. We were able to knock off Eric Konkol, who's now done a tremendous job at Tulsa. He was at Louisiana Tech at the time. And we had a trouble when I first got here beating Louisiana Tech. We had never won in Ruston and we broke through that year. So we finished the trifecta by beating them three straight times to win the championship in 2022. Then in (2024) if you remember, we beat SMU on a Sunday to secure the four seed. And then we made the run three games in three days, capped by us winning in our first year in the American and being able to cut down the nets as the champ. Every year is different. I was a part of a 2013 SEC championship run (while coaching Ole Miss) where we were kind of the unlikeliest of unlikely and we trailed at half all three games but found a way to get over the hump. You got to believe.

One thing that this group has done is it has proven it can persevere. It's proven that it can play from behind. We're 11-7 in league play and I've done this study as well. We have trailed for almost 60 percent of the time in our 18 league games and yet we've won 11 of them. We're going to consider this (a road game). We may drive the long way around. We may go up through Gadsen and back down through Bessemer before we get to the BJCC to make them feel a little more of a road trip. We're good on the bus. And hopefully we can make a run. The one thing that's crazy about the dynamic of this tournament is the men and women are playing in conjunction with one another. So we won't even go on the court (before Friday). We don't have any practice time, so we won't go on the court until we play the game, which I think is good for us. We don't want to have any feelings of comfort. Let's just go into a strange environment and see what we can do.

We play at noon. I probably wouldn’t have (stayed in a hotel) if we played late. If we were the five seed, we would have played at night. But we play at noon and I'm not going to ask those guys to meet me down here at 8.30. That probably wouldn't go well.

On Salim London winning three high school state championships for Hoover at Legacy Arena: “That's a good point. You know, he has won down there three straight years. I watched, ironically enough, just channel surfing, and I saw Hoover was back and they came up a little short in the state championship. What a great job Scott (Ware) has done. Yeah, maybe he can give us the guidance that we need. I'm glad you brought that up. At least he'll know where the locker rooms are.”

On Chance Westry’s progression this season: “It's incredible speech, really. I've said this before, and I think, again, people don't remember, I do. Yaxel (Lendeborg’s) first year, he reminds me so much of Yax. Completely different players, completely different background, completely different temperaments. By the way, Yax was just voted Big Ten Player of the Year, so congrats to him. Well-deserved. Everything's different but their journey has been pretty similar. Basketball people knew who Chance was because of what he'd done in the past. People that follow the grassroots of junior college basketball knew who Yax was, but not really. He had to find his way. The early struggles, the inconsistencies, figuring out, finding his voice, so to speak. And then we had to change him like we did, Yax, and not only do we need you to be a good player, we need you to be a leader. We need you to be the guy, the most consistent guy, the guy carrying the load. We did the same thing to Chance and it took a little while for him to figure that out as well. But as he has, you can see his confidence has really increased. He's really, really flourishing and playing his best basketball at the time that we need him to. That season, Yax's first year, we had to win on the Sunday to get the four seed, the double bye, and that team finished 20-11 as well in the regular season. So there's a lot of similarities. My hope is that it can finish the same way in us walking up that ladder with those scissors. Parents tell you not to do that when you're a child, but a boy sure is fun when you're an adult.”

On Chance Westry being on the All-American Conference second team instead of the first team: “You know, probably (could have been on first team), but a lot of it's just dependent upon how your team finishes. I looked at the first team, and it would be hard to argue with any of those guys. I think Chance has had a tremendous season. I think it's one of the most undersold stories in college basketball. I remember when we first got Jelly going back to 2022 and Jelly had this tremendous run and then he became really a national name over the conference tournament. Really, it started with that game that I just referenced in the double overtime or triple overtime, whatever it was, that he scored a lot of points in propelling us to the championship game. This was his jump-off moment. My hope is that Chance can take advantage of it as well.”

On Daniel Rivera’s improved free throw shooting: “I don’t want to take any credit because I don't want any of that blame either. Danny's really just worked at it and he makes them. I remember vividly the two he had to make in order to send it to overtime against South Florida early in the season, which we were able to go in there and win. He's made big ones for us. The other night when I think Evan (Chatman) threw him the ball and ECU was trying to foul and we all cringed, I'm sure you did as well. Why'd you do that? And then he stepped up and he made two big free throws. Danny's just worked at it all year. It's really just a credit to him.”

On Ahmad Robinson’s effectiveness after missing the final six games of the season: “You never know how these things will work. Obviously, life is better with options. He's just another option. He hasn't done anything. He's not even going to be cleared for contact today. He’s just taking some reps. I'll throw him out there and maybe he has a spurt, maybe he makes a play. Maybe it's great for him because I think he was feeling a lot of pressure. He wasn't performing great and he's probably putting a lot of pressure on himself. I assume that this kind of gives him a different perspective, which sometimes is good and it may revitalize him. He should have fresh legs. You know, he hasn't played and so you never know. He may come out and be a catalyst for us, he might not.

Chance will continue to be the point. But I've tried to be smart and one thing that you get when you get to the quarterfinals, which fortunately we do, these are on linear TV. When you get to linear TV, those timeouts are longer. I've been trying to be strategic in getting Chance out around media (timeouts) so that you can get an extra 90 seconds to two minutes of real time (rest). He needs it. You know, I made the joke, and again, sometimes these things take on a life of their own. That's not my intention. But, you know, he does when he runs up (and down) two or three times, doesn't he look like he's laboring? He looks like he's laboring to me. So I'd like to give him as much rest as I can, but I don't like him out of the game because he's our best player.”

On earning the double bye and playing at home: “Yeah, let's don't say anything about home. We're still in Jefferson County, but our guys won't even know that. Yeah, it's really important because winning three games in three days is better than the alternative. We don't really get caught up in it, we're not going to even be able to prepare for anyone because there's three teams that we could potentially play on Friday at noon and we won't know that until Thursday night at about 10 o'clock. So we'll take this week to get fresh legs, clear minds, be excited about being a part of this, playing with some momentum. That's why winning against East Carolina was so vitally important, just to continue the momentum that we created by our road victories and hopefully go play well.”

On confidence of beating some of the best teams in the conference: “You know, I'm a fairly confident guy, but it really doesn't matter what I think. I think our guys are confident because there's nobody, on our side of the bracket, we're just thinking about the first day is, you know, we split with Memphis, we split with Tulane, and we beat Charlotte. And they're familiar with them all because we've played (them recently). The ECU thing was a little strange in that we played them really early and we played them really late. Teams change so much over the course of goodness eight weeks. We've played all these teams within the last couple of weeks. So I think familiarity, even with a quick turn for both teams, is not going to be an issue.”

On KyeRon Lindsay-Martin coming off a strong game after missing some time with a shoulder injury: “We need him desperately. He's our best offensive rebounder. He's our best back-to-the-basket scorer. I think he's got a really good basketball IQ too. He's really good when we break down offensively after the initial actions of initiating the play with his ability to pressure release. Usually if you have a five-man, because the other defender typically likes to hang in that lane so he can pressure release for us and he also is really smart in his angles and helping get Chance off some ball screen actions. He's vitally important. And because of the shoulder, he's a little bit like Ahmad, not only was he not able to practice, but he couldn't do any contact. So it was no live bullets, so to speak. When he got back for the first time against North Texas, you could really see it. He was really struggling with his timing because you can't replicate that without live reps. Then he comes back and he's had two really good games. He played really good at Charlotte, he played really good in our last outing. I know from a confidence standpoint, from a health standpoint, he's probably as good as he's been all year.”

On the need for everyone to be physical to be a good rebounding team: “Trey (Jemison) was probably the best we've ever had here in KJ Buffen could probably attest to that. Trey is so big and he plays with such force that he would force the other team, even though he might not get it. It's almost like an offensive lineman, they're going to commit to making sure that Ray Lewis doesn't get to the quarterback. So the other guy has got to come in there and get it. We don't really have that from a size standpoint. So we've just got to be really persistent and consistent in our pursuit of the ball.”

On what six consecutive 20-win seasons means to recruiting: “It's not as significant as I wish it was. The 20, if you've got a lot of $20 bills, that's more significant than the history of our proof of concept, just being quite frank. The game has changed, and we're going to have to change along with it.”