Opening statement…
“I am just excited about how the spring has gone so far. Our guys have really been working hard. They have a real sincere desire to get better individually and build a team we can be proud of. I am excited about what the future holds. We’ve had a good spring so far.”
On having any conversations with Oklahoma State…
“There are always a ton of rumors. Ever since I have been a head coach, we’ve probably over-achieved every single year. I think that there is always going to be people that start rumors about you as a coach. You can’t ever end speculation, so I haven’t ever tried. Hopefully we are always going to win at a very, very high level. You can’t control what someone might write. Who knows where some of those things come from or who the source actually is because there are so many outlets these days? There is no reason to address those things until they become real – and they never became real. It becomes real when the people that are making a decision contact a potential candidate. That’s my personal feeling about it. I see people all the time say ‘I’m not interested in that position’, but maybe that was a rumor to start with and that particular group never had any interest in that person to start with. When they ask for permission to talk with you, that’s when it becomes real to me. And that definitely never became real. A lot of time I find it a little comical. I think it would be a little disrespectful to say you weren’t interested. But at some point they may come back and say ‘well, we never had any interest in you.’ I don’t feel like addressing it until it becomes real. You don’t let it affect your day-to-day operations.”
On signing Kevin Galloway…
“I am really excited about Kevin. He is a multi-dimensional player. He is tall, long and athletic, and he has experience. His team was considered to be the best junior college team in the country last year, even though they suffered an upset in the regional. I think he is going to give us speed. He has the ability to pass the basketball and I think he will put stats up in a lot of different areas. He’s a good shooter. He’s probably not as confident as he needs to be, but that is one of the things he will continue to work on before he gets here. I think he will be a major addition to our team.”
On Derrick Jasper…
“He is a little homesick right now. He hasn’t made any kind of decision, but we definitely need him over here. He is a leader for our team. I think he is going to be an All-Southeastern Conference type player next year, if he can maintain his health. We definitely need him. He has battled homesickness since I got here. He decided he wanted to be here. I think he saw the difference in our team when he was somewhat healthy. I think he is a very, very good player. It is all about Derrick, we want all of the players back.”
On surgeries to Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson…
“Jodie had surgery last week in Philadelphia and they said it went fantastic. It was about an hour-long surgery and he started walking as part of rehab the next day. I think everything is going well for him. He is a little bit sore, but everything is going as scheduled. We are hoping for a shorter recovery time. I know he is eager to get back to 100% because he has had a frustrating year. Patrick had surgery about two to three weeks ago. Everything went well with his surgery and he is recovering nicely. He had stitches removed last week. They changed his cast and say things are going very well. The initial prognosis is that it will take longer for Patrick to return than Jodie.”
On the return of Mike Williams…
“It’s very likely that Mike will look to go somewhere else because he wants to have a greater opportunity for more playing time. I think he is going to be a really good player if he continues to improve like he did last season. But if he chooses to leave we will be happy for him.”
On the effect of moving the three-point line back from the goal…
“I don’t know yet. We put the new line out there on our court. We put it out there the day after our season was over. I think it’s going to change the game, but I am not really sure how yet. I don’t know if it will change how coaches approach the game. I don’t think people will totally neglect the line though. There will be a lot of preparation for it as we go forward. I think the intention may be to allow spacing under the basket. They may think it is a little congested in the lane, even though they didn’t change the lane. I would have thought they would have changed the lane to the international lane. There was some discussion about doing that. I think at some point we need to get a universal game.”
On the progress of Joe Crawford and Ramel Bradley in professional workouts…
“Joe got hurt (at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament). He played one game. He played very well in the first half. He wasn’t as good in the second half, but played well in the game. Overall his performance was rated as very good. Then he got hurt. He had an x-ray yesterday (Wednesday) morning. Everything is normal so there is no damage there on his ankle. For Joe it is going to depend on the next eight weeks and how well he maintains his conditioning and how well he does in the workouts. For Ramel, I think he played very well early. He had some games where he was outstanding. He had some games where he was above-average. They all talked about how hard he played and how much of a difference on the court he made spirit-wise. I think he helped himself. The next challenge for those guys is to be invited to Orlando to pre-draft camp.”
On recruiting the junior college level versus high school…
“I prefer to recruit all high school players, but I don’t think we are really in a situation to do that. I like the foundation of our team coming back next year. No matter how good your recruits are, they are only as good as your returning players. They understand what it is going to take. You can see the young guys working with a different desire then they might have been a year ago at this time. My expectation for the team is to improve year-round. There are some guys that have really evolved into good prospects in the junior college ranks. It may be a deeper junior college class than a high school class this year.”
On next season’s schedule…
“I think we are three or four games from finishing it up. We are trying to finish it up by May 1. We are playing in an exempt event. We’ll play two games here and then we’ll play two games in Las Vegas. The first game will be against Kansas State unless something changes and we will play either West Virginia or Iowa. We have the three games we always play against Indiana, North Carolina and Louisville. Most of the others are home games. We are working to secure an opponent for Freedom Hall in December but we haven’t finalized that yet. I like to play a really good schedule. I am excited about our team next year.”
On next year’s outlook…
“Next year, I see our team being a much more fast-paced team. I think we will have to create more stuff off of our defense. We should have the ability to do that. We should be much more wide open offensively. Our margin for error will be greater next year.”
