by Bill Seals
Opening comments:
“It’s finals week. Thursday night wasn’t our best performance and I’m disappointed about that. Friday we were off, Saturday we did some individual workouts and I went recruiting Friday and Saturday. I was back yesterday and they had another day off yesterday. Now we’ll get back on the floor today. We’ll go today, tomorrow, take Wednesday off to do a team activity, come back Thursday and Friday to get ready for Drake, and play them on Saturday.”
On if finals interferes with routine:
“Not really, just the way the finals fall. We can practice at our normal time every day. That’s not a big issue.”
On where he stands with the team’s pace of play offensively:
“It’s got to be a lot better. I actually watched the whole game yesterday afternoon. Me and Monte just watched the whole game in the office, which was good. Sometimes you show kids clips and film and all that. Sometimes you can see things, but when you watch the whole game you can really see the whole flow of the game and it enlightens you on things.
“First and foremost, we’ve got to start playing in transition and get some easy baskets by playing in transition. By pushing the tempo, the point guard, wings running and bigs running to the rim. When we run our offense and execute, we get good shots. You could chart the Iowa game and could see eight or nine missed threes and six, seven or eight missed layups. The pace of play has to get a lot better. That’s just the strength of our team. I’ve got to demand it more and make sure we’re staying to that.”
On how they chart the pace of play and if it’s where it needs to be?
“I think that the strength of the teams that I’ve had when we’ve been good in transition is how fast you’re able to convert off of missed shots. How fast you’re able to convert in transition from defense to offense off of turnover. And people not looking back, but just totally sold out to running. The other thing, too…so what they score let’s get that thing out and go right back at them again. We’ve got to get that mentality.”
On his thoughts on the half-court offense:
“When we run, I think there’s two ways to look at it. When we freelance, not very good. When we break things off. When we actually chart execution of whether we ran play one, play two, play three, play four, or underneath out of bounds action against Iowa zone, I think our percentages are really high. When we run offense, our numbers are very good. When we let people take us out of our offense, go to freelance and take quick shots, I don’t think we’re very good at all.”
On where Solomon Young is at in his comeback from injury:
“Getting hurt for him wasn’t great. They’ve done a great job of getting him back. He missed that practice time. I think we missed him against Gonzaga and Cincinnati, especially Cincinnati here we missed him around the basket. I thought in the Iowa game he did some good things for us, just kind of some activity around the rim. The thing as a freshman when you really break the game down, he got caught in a lot of ball-screen action with (Peter) Jok and we’ve got to make sure we know how we’re playing that each possession. His growth has been good. The injuries set him back a little bit. This week will really help him, this full week of practice. He’s a guy that we’ve got to look to down the road.”
On what he’d like to see from Young in the short-term:
“The biggest thing is try to be a rim-run guy, to post up and create space down there, and then we’ve got to throw it in there some. Whether we score or go inside-out. We did a great job of rebounding until these last couple games, now we’ve been hurt on the boards. Iowa, it wasn’t as much with like seven offensive rebounds, but Cincinnati and Gonzaga it was just way too many. We’ve got to get back and need him to help, because he’s one of the guys that can rebound.”
On the struggles Naz Mitrou-Long has had this season:
“Everything is relative on whether you’re making shots. The thing about Naz is he’s going to stay the course and was in the gym working yesterday when I was in the office. I talked to him a long time Friday when I was on the road recruiting. I think his mindset is really good. He’s just a senior that wants to win and go out the right way. We’ve got a couple guys like that. That’s my main focus is to make sure I can do whatever I can to make sure these guys max out and go out the right way. He’s going to eventually start making shots and then everything is going to change. He’s got to stay the course. I’ve got a lot of trust and believe in him.”
On if Mitrou-Long’s struggles stem from something fundamental in his shot:
“You watch him in the gym and at practice – he rattles them off like 20 in a row. He can really shoot at a high level. You’ve just got to stay the course with him. He’s going to be just fine, because his character is really high and work ethic is very good. If you’ve got both of those, you get through this.”
On the importance of getting more contributions from those inside:
“We’ve got to get more production up there. I know people joke about us spending so much time in defense that now the offense isn’t very good. Our defensive stats are very good. We had a bad 10 minutes at Iowa. We got outscored out of the 10 media timeouts by three. Only three. We got outscored in two sessions in the first half, 10-0 and 10-4. It was a lot of transition.
Offensively, everybody wants to play on the perimeter these days. We’ve got to get some scoring inside, finish around the rim and get to the free-throw line more. We didn’t get to the free-throw line a lot last year and I don’t think that’s one thing we’ve ever really done here.
“We’ve got to have a post presence down there…at least to get the defense sinking some. When you do get it in there, we’ve got to finish those six, seven, eight plays around the rim. It’s a different rim. Whether it’s Darrell (Bowie), Merrill (Holden), Solomon, posting Deonte (Burton) more, we’ve got to get more production around the paint.”
Opening comments:
“It’s finals week. Thursday night wasn’t our best performance and I’m disappointed about that. Friday we were off, Saturday we did some individual workouts and I went recruiting Friday and Saturday. I was back yesterday and they had another day off yesterday. Now we’ll get back on the floor today. We’ll go today, tomorrow, take Wednesday off to do a team activity, come back Thursday and Friday to get ready for Drake, and play them on Saturday.”
On if finals interferes with routine:
“Not really, just the way the finals fall. We can practice at our normal time every day. That’s not a big issue.”
On where he stands with the team’s pace of play offensively:
“It’s got to be a lot better. I actually watched the whole game yesterday afternoon. Me and Monte just watched the whole game in the office, which was good. Sometimes you show kids clips and film and all that. Sometimes you can see things, but when you watch the whole game you can really see the whole flow of the game and it enlightens you on things.
“First and foremost, we’ve got to start playing in transition and get some easy baskets by playing in transition. By pushing the tempo, the point guard, wings running and bigs running to the rim. When we run our offense and execute, we get good shots. You could chart the Iowa game and could see eight or nine missed threes and six, seven or eight missed layups. The pace of play has to get a lot better. That’s just the strength of our team. I’ve got to demand it more and make sure we’re staying to that.”
On how they chart the pace of play and if it’s where it needs to be?
“I think that the strength of the teams that I’ve had when we’ve been good in transition is how fast you’re able to convert off of missed shots. How fast you’re able to convert in transition from defense to offense off of turnover. And people not looking back, but just totally sold out to running. The other thing, too…so what they score let’s get that thing out and go right back at them again. We’ve got to get that mentality.”
On his thoughts on the half-court offense:
“When we run, I think there’s two ways to look at it. When we freelance, not very good. When we break things off. When we actually chart execution of whether we ran play one, play two, play three, play four, or underneath out of bounds action against Iowa zone, I think our percentages are really high. When we run offense, our numbers are very good. When we let people take us out of our offense, go to freelance and take quick shots, I don’t think we’re very good at all.”
On where Solomon Young is at in his comeback from injury:
“Getting hurt for him wasn’t great. They’ve done a great job of getting him back. He missed that practice time. I think we missed him against Gonzaga and Cincinnati, especially Cincinnati here we missed him around the basket. I thought in the Iowa game he did some good things for us, just kind of some activity around the rim. The thing as a freshman when you really break the game down, he got caught in a lot of ball-screen action with (Peter) Jok and we’ve got to make sure we know how we’re playing that each possession. His growth has been good. The injuries set him back a little bit. This week will really help him, this full week of practice. He’s a guy that we’ve got to look to down the road.”
On what he’d like to see from Young in the short-term:
“The biggest thing is try to be a rim-run guy, to post up and create space down there, and then we’ve got to throw it in there some. Whether we score or go inside-out. We did a great job of rebounding until these last couple games, now we’ve been hurt on the boards. Iowa, it wasn’t as much with like seven offensive rebounds, but Cincinnati and Gonzaga it was just way too many. We’ve got to get back and need him to help, because he’s one of the guys that can rebound.”
On the struggles Naz Mitrou-Long has had this season:
“Everything is relative on whether you’re making shots. The thing about Naz is he’s going to stay the course and was in the gym working yesterday when I was in the office. I talked to him a long time Friday when I was on the road recruiting. I think his mindset is really good. He’s just a senior that wants to win and go out the right way. We’ve got a couple guys like that. That’s my main focus is to make sure I can do whatever I can to make sure these guys max out and go out the right way. He’s going to eventually start making shots and then everything is going to change. He’s got to stay the course. I’ve got a lot of trust and believe in him.”
On if Mitrou-Long’s struggles stem from something fundamental in his shot:
“You watch him in the gym and at practice – he rattles them off like 20 in a row. He can really shoot at a high level. You’ve just got to stay the course with him. He’s going to be just fine, because his character is really high and work ethic is very good. If you’ve got both of those, you get through this.”
On the importance of getting more contributions from those inside:
“We’ve got to get more production up there. I know people joke about us spending so much time in defense that now the offense isn’t very good. Our defensive stats are very good. We had a bad 10 minutes at Iowa. We got outscored out of the 10 media timeouts by three. Only three. We got outscored in two sessions in the first half, 10-0 and 10-4. It was a lot of transition.
Offensively, everybody wants to play on the perimeter these days. We’ve got to get some scoring inside, finish around the rim and get to the free-throw line more. We didn’t get to the free-throw line a lot last year and I don’t think that’s one thing we’ve ever really done here.
“We’ve got to have a post presence down there…at least to get the defense sinking some. When you do get it in there, we’ve got to finish those six, seven, eight plays around the rim. It’s a different rim. Whether it’s Darrell (Bowie), Merrill (Holden), Solomon, posting Deonte (Burton) more, we’ve got to get more production around the paint.”
