Opening statement
Needless to say the score doesn’t tell the story of the game. I thought we had lack of execution, a lack of effort and toughness out there early and they had all those things we didn’t have. We were fortunate. We were up 11 and they hit a 3 to cut it to 8 at the half. That gave them a little bit of emotional lift and I challenged out guys to come out and play better. It was a weird game. We couldn’t catch the ball. A couple of times with turnovers the ball would bounce right to us and we’d fumble it, step on it, those kind of things. I think you don’t do those things if you’re into it more mentally. I think we needed to be into it alot more mentally than we were. Struggled with Brice early. Had Brice and Justin and somebody else, had three guys with 2 fouls. The last 3 or 4 minutes, I always try to get those guys out if I can get em down to the 3 minute mark. Nate came off the bench and made some really big shots for us. Career high of 17 points. I loved Theo’s 8 assists and 0 turnovers. Did a pretty good job on the backboards at times, but gave them all the long rebounds. It seemed like every time we would do a good job defensively, the ball would bounce out, a long rebound and they’d get that one. So we gotta do a better job there. Gotta win some when you don’t play your best, but give them the credit. Marcus Gilbert I thought was really good. He was hard for us to handle. Their zone gave us problems. We’ve gotta do a better job with our big guys moving, so we don’t have to rely on just the three point shot all the time. Gotta get Brice, Kennedy, Isaiah and Joel to do a better job of moving inside. They did some things that hurt us and hopefully it will help us down the line.
On did you think the guys were settling for the three’s early in the game
A little bit, because a couple of them because the shot clock was winding down because our big guys were standing still. I told two of the coaches that I wouldn’t throw it into them either because you’re not moving. We’ve gotta get much better movement with our big guys and guards need to do a better job of penetrating too. I think you can draw people and then dish it off better. We made some weird turnovers trying to throw it inside too.
On why you think there was such a lack of spark and effort
I really don’t know. It was a surprise to me because of it being the home opener; we all so excited about the football win yesterday, maybe we were still had that glory in our heads, instead of going out there playing. I was wondered if our guys were gonna score as much as the football team scores.
On playing against the zone
I expect we’ll see it a lot unless it’s a team that’s got a stubborn coach like me that just believes in man-to-man so much and believes in accountability. We’ll see some of those guys. We’re a much better shooting team than we were last year. The guys have got more confidence. I still think Justin Jackson is going to be a really good shooter for us. Hadn’t had em go in yet, but I think we’ll see some zone. I haven’t seen any Wofford tape yet to know what Mike (Young’s) going to do. I coached Mike when he was at basketball camp in North Carolina 100 years ago, so that’s really something.
On why was Gilbert wide open on so many of those 3's
I think we didn’t a very good job of guarding the dribbler, so there was dribble penetration and now we gotta help and one time we went down and nobody knew who was guarding him. That’s not very smart. He’s the leading scorer and the best player and he’s made 300 against us. You ought to find who he is. I think their little guard Segura, he really caused you a problem because he penetrates so deep and he’s still looking for shooters when he does that. Some guys that penetrate deep they’re also looking for the drop off or their own shot. But when he was penetrating deeply, he was looking for the shooters outside.
On why is Nate being so effective
Shooting the ball in the basket always makes everybody feel better. I think he had a good assist to error ratio. I think he’s comfortable and confident. Confidence does a lot of things for ya. He’s gone through some major changes from left hand to right hand and had some good things happen for him last year. I think its more his work and time he’s put in.
On having an experienced team, are you surprised to see some of these issues come up
Not really. I think teams at this time of the year that are really clicking are playing 5 or 6 guys and we’re playing 9 or 10 guys. It doesn’t bother me to have three guys with two fouls in the first half. I thought at the end of the game our depth was more important because we ran better at the end of the game than we did early in the game. We’re gonna play 9 or 10 guys. When you change combinations so much like that, human nature is, you want more playing time. Human nature is you want more shots. You need to continue to get used to the role you’re gonna play and the time you’re gonna get. You’re always searching a little bit more. To me, if you have 5 guys coming back that’s played all the minutes and nobody else that’s ready, then you can be really clicking a lot more early. I’m concerned about the way we’ve played today, but I’m not worried about our team.
On Theo’s performance and how high is his ceiling
Well I think he needs to get a lot better and I think he can possibly do that too. Not only did he miss a lot of last season, guys, from the Wisconsin game until our 2nd or 3rd week of practice, he never played a full court pick-up game. I mean, so you’re talking about from the end of March, until November 1st and that’s just guessing. He never played one single pick-up game full court or anything. He didn’t play half court until a couple of weeks before practice started, so he was out a long time. Trying to get his legs back underneath him. He’s done a nice job working on his shot. He’s gotta do a lot of other things for us and I think he’s getting better every day.
On were you anticipating seeing Brice and Kennedy being double teamed so much and do you expect that to continue
I think so. A lot of team do that. Virginia is probably better at it than anybody else. We split with them last year. The first time we didn’t handle it well and the second time we handled it pretty well. The guys know their gonna be doubled, so you need to make a quick move and throw it out. Then if you’ve got good spacing, you gotta chance to get a good shot.
On your back court rotation
Theo got 30 minutes, Joel Berry got 29 and Nate got 27. It’s just what it is. We gotta keep fresh people in there. When the other little fellow gets back out there, then we’ll still have the same kinda rotation, but he’s gotta get a lot of minutes.
Needless to say the score doesn’t tell the story of the game. I thought we had lack of execution, a lack of effort and toughness out there early and they had all those things we didn’t have. We were fortunate. We were up 11 and they hit a 3 to cut it to 8 at the half. That gave them a little bit of emotional lift and I challenged out guys to come out and play better. It was a weird game. We couldn’t catch the ball. A couple of times with turnovers the ball would bounce right to us and we’d fumble it, step on it, those kind of things. I think you don’t do those things if you’re into it more mentally. I think we needed to be into it alot more mentally than we were. Struggled with Brice early. Had Brice and Justin and somebody else, had three guys with 2 fouls. The last 3 or 4 minutes, I always try to get those guys out if I can get em down to the 3 minute mark. Nate came off the bench and made some really big shots for us. Career high of 17 points. I loved Theo’s 8 assists and 0 turnovers. Did a pretty good job on the backboards at times, but gave them all the long rebounds. It seemed like every time we would do a good job defensively, the ball would bounce out, a long rebound and they’d get that one. So we gotta do a better job there. Gotta win some when you don’t play your best, but give them the credit. Marcus Gilbert I thought was really good. He was hard for us to handle. Their zone gave us problems. We’ve gotta do a better job with our big guys moving, so we don’t have to rely on just the three point shot all the time. Gotta get Brice, Kennedy, Isaiah and Joel to do a better job of moving inside. They did some things that hurt us and hopefully it will help us down the line.
On did you think the guys were settling for the three’s early in the game
A little bit, because a couple of them because the shot clock was winding down because our big guys were standing still. I told two of the coaches that I wouldn’t throw it into them either because you’re not moving. We’ve gotta get much better movement with our big guys and guards need to do a better job of penetrating too. I think you can draw people and then dish it off better. We made some weird turnovers trying to throw it inside too.
On why you think there was such a lack of spark and effort
I really don’t know. It was a surprise to me because of it being the home opener; we all so excited about the football win yesterday, maybe we were still had that glory in our heads, instead of going out there playing. I was wondered if our guys were gonna score as much as the football team scores.
On playing against the zone
I expect we’ll see it a lot unless it’s a team that’s got a stubborn coach like me that just believes in man-to-man so much and believes in accountability. We’ll see some of those guys. We’re a much better shooting team than we were last year. The guys have got more confidence. I still think Justin Jackson is going to be a really good shooter for us. Hadn’t had em go in yet, but I think we’ll see some zone. I haven’t seen any Wofford tape yet to know what Mike (Young’s) going to do. I coached Mike when he was at basketball camp in North Carolina 100 years ago, so that’s really something.
On why was Gilbert wide open on so many of those 3's
I think we didn’t a very good job of guarding the dribbler, so there was dribble penetration and now we gotta help and one time we went down and nobody knew who was guarding him. That’s not very smart. He’s the leading scorer and the best player and he’s made 300 against us. You ought to find who he is. I think their little guard Segura, he really caused you a problem because he penetrates so deep and he’s still looking for shooters when he does that. Some guys that penetrate deep they’re also looking for the drop off or their own shot. But when he was penetrating deeply, he was looking for the shooters outside.
On why is Nate being so effective
Shooting the ball in the basket always makes everybody feel better. I think he had a good assist to error ratio. I think he’s comfortable and confident. Confidence does a lot of things for ya. He’s gone through some major changes from left hand to right hand and had some good things happen for him last year. I think its more his work and time he’s put in.
On having an experienced team, are you surprised to see some of these issues come up
Not really. I think teams at this time of the year that are really clicking are playing 5 or 6 guys and we’re playing 9 or 10 guys. It doesn’t bother me to have three guys with two fouls in the first half. I thought at the end of the game our depth was more important because we ran better at the end of the game than we did early in the game. We’re gonna play 9 or 10 guys. When you change combinations so much like that, human nature is, you want more playing time. Human nature is you want more shots. You need to continue to get used to the role you’re gonna play and the time you’re gonna get. You’re always searching a little bit more. To me, if you have 5 guys coming back that’s played all the minutes and nobody else that’s ready, then you can be really clicking a lot more early. I’m concerned about the way we’ve played today, but I’m not worried about our team.
On Theo’s performance and how high is his ceiling
Well I think he needs to get a lot better and I think he can possibly do that too. Not only did he miss a lot of last season, guys, from the Wisconsin game until our 2nd or 3rd week of practice, he never played a full court pick-up game. I mean, so you’re talking about from the end of March, until November 1st and that’s just guessing. He never played one single pick-up game full court or anything. He didn’t play half court until a couple of weeks before practice started, so he was out a long time. Trying to get his legs back underneath him. He’s done a nice job working on his shot. He’s gotta do a lot of other things for us and I think he’s getting better every day.
On were you anticipating seeing Brice and Kennedy being double teamed so much and do you expect that to continue
I think so. A lot of team do that. Virginia is probably better at it than anybody else. We split with them last year. The first time we didn’t handle it well and the second time we handled it pretty well. The guys know their gonna be doubled, so you need to make a quick move and throw it out. Then if you’ve got good spacing, you gotta chance to get a good shot.
On your back court rotation
Theo got 30 minutes, Joel Berry got 29 and Nate got 27. It’s just what it is. We gotta keep fresh people in there. When the other little fellow gets back out there, then we’ll still have the same kinda rotation, but he’s gotta get a lot of minutes.
