Q: You got the question about basketball and obviously, it's something that because they're in season with (Payne) and the men's team. They're getting better, still not winning yet. How do you approach that? What do you feel like your role is with Kenny as far as support?
A: I can promise you, I don't go home satisfied with we're getting better and Kenny even more so than me. We don't want to go home and say we're getting better. We're making progress. So we understand the expectations in this program, and the expectation is to win a lot of basketball games and compete at an extremely high level.
Do I think we're headed in the right direction? That's not just wins and losses. That's everything around the program, you know, are we setting ourselves up to be successful? Yes. Now, but obviously, more so in the future and creating a foundation that's going to last more than you catch lightning in a bottle and you had a good year. How do we create a program that's going to be sustainable and be really good year after year, because that's the expectation around here.
And as far as supporting Kenny, I mean, that's, extremely important to me. Until he does something that says, 'Hey, I don't think he should be our basketball coach,' I'm going to support him 110%. But I can promise you he hasn't done one thing that has shown me that he shouldn't be our basketball coach. Now, does that mean that any of us are satisfied with two wins? Absolutely not. Like I said, it is extremely frustrating. And I can assure you, it's frustrating. I know it's frustrating to Kenny. It's frustrating to staff, and it's frustrating to our student-athletes. But if you take a step back, and this is really hard to do, it's really hard for fans to do, it's really hard for me to do, it's really hard for Kenny to do and say, 'Hey, what were we dealing with when we made that coaching transition?' Look at who was on this team. Look at the track record they had previously. Look who's not on that team now based on the personnel there.
A: I can promise you, I don't go home satisfied with we're getting better and Kenny even more so than me. We don't want to go home and say we're getting better. We're making progress. So we understand the expectations in this program, and the expectation is to win a lot of basketball games and compete at an extremely high level.
Do I think we're headed in the right direction? That's not just wins and losses. That's everything around the program, you know, are we setting ourselves up to be successful? Yes. Now, but obviously, more so in the future and creating a foundation that's going to last more than you catch lightning in a bottle and you had a good year. How do we create a program that's going to be sustainable and be really good year after year, because that's the expectation around here.
And as far as supporting Kenny, I mean, that's, extremely important to me. Until he does something that says, 'Hey, I don't think he should be our basketball coach,' I'm going to support him 110%. But I can promise you he hasn't done one thing that has shown me that he shouldn't be our basketball coach. Now, does that mean that any of us are satisfied with two wins? Absolutely not. Like I said, it is extremely frustrating. And I can assure you, it's frustrating. I know it's frustrating to Kenny. It's frustrating to staff, and it's frustrating to our student-athletes. But if you take a step back, and this is really hard to do, it's really hard for fans to do, it's really hard for me to do, it's really hard for Kenny to do and say, 'Hey, what were we dealing with when we made that coaching transition?' Look at who was on this team. Look at the track record they had previously. Look who's not on that team now based on the personnel there.
