“We got a lot accomplished this summer, which was great, really with our schedule, it’s what we needed to do. We did less individual work and we asked our players to do it on their own so we could try to work as a team on a loose style of play for us. It is going to take a little bit of time to get used to. But the guys have done a fantastic job. I have had absolutely zero complaints. I’ve said this many times, but last year’s team reminded me of my 87’ providence team in terms of attitude, and this year is even better. I don’t think I have had as much fun coaching any period of my life than these last two years, mainly because of the attitudes of the young men we are coaching. We are really pumped up and we are excited to see what tomorrow will bring and we are going to try to balance the teams so that they are fairly equal. Mangok has not practiced, but he is working out and doing agility. We are moving very slow with him to make sure that he feels confidence and that he feels good about playing mentally, when you come off an injury like that. But sometime next week he will probably start participating and practice and it will probably take him two to three weeks to get back in the grove and then he’ll be at full strength.”
(On style of play) “It isn’t a new style it is just that we’ve confused a lot of people with our defense and playing our matchup zone and we have probably scrapped that and we are playing 95 percent man-to-man. It is much more the pressure that we are putting on ourselves right now is much more up-tempo in terms of the defensive pressure. We feel we have a deep bench, good shot blocking, so we are utilizing that more and the tempo is much more up-tempo, and even though we have always been an up-tempo team.”
(On Deng Adel) “He has to be one of the scorers on the team. We only have one person average nine points per game and we don’t have any double figures returning, so he has to give us a lot of points, get us Damion Lees’, along with VJ King, to make up for Damion Lees’ points.”
(On switching to man-to-man) “I just think we are inexperienced. There are a lot of strengths of this ball club, one of the weaknesses is their inexperienced in a lot of areas. You have many players that had a role to play last year trying to fit in as young players and now they have to be in the starring role. Tather than try to teach that, and hopefully be better by sometime around Christmas, we want to be ready. We did something last year that we have not done, we took all our non-conference opponents, and I’m not talking about Purdue or Kentucky or Indiana. I’m talking about William and Mary and Evansville and Long Beach State. They have three starters back, top 75-80 RPI, so we realize that we play Evansville, one that won 25 games last year and we have to be ready right away. So the less you have to teach about the defense, the better off we will be.”
(On the big men) “Anas and Matz have been a toss-up. The only thing that concerns me is that our bench is that deep. One day, Matz looks better, one day Anas looks better, another day VJ looks better, another day Deng looks better. Ray and Jaylen. Jaylen looks better, one day then Ray looks better the next day. I’m hoping that that is just good depth, but nobody really stuck out except for Donovan Mitchell at his position and Quentin Snider at his position.”
(On Donovan’s weight loss) “Donovan took off and you won’t recognize him. I realized it last year, I couldn’t figure out why he was getting beat so much defensively, even though he is a low body fat guy. I just felt that 213 lbs for a 6’2” guard is way too heavy. And I didn’t realize that he was 213 because he was low body fat but now he is at 195, and when you take off 18 lbs, that is going to make you much quicker and much more athletic and he looks terrific.”
(On the height and length of this team) “Our man defense is a lot different. We have two man defenses that we are working on. I think what you will see tomorrow is a lot of turnovers, not because of poor offense but because we are really in the mode and everything we do is about steals. I think we will see a lot of steals but a lot of turnovers because it has been happening at practice from good defense.”
(On VJ King) “He does like Deng. He puts it on the floor, he shoots it, scores, quick, jumps well, good athlete, 6’6, 6’7, him and Deng it is really close in practice. We toyed with playing VJ a little bit at the 2 and Deng a little bit at 2 and then letting them play together, we won’t do that tomorrow but we have toyed with that as well.”
(On how competitive practices are) “It is very competitive. When we make the teams even, tomorrow the red team would be, opposite Quentin, and I would be very surprised if the red team didn’t beat the white team.”
(On Quentin Snider) “Very steady, very crafty, shooting the ball much better, I think that is the one thing that sticks out is how much better we shoot the basketball, and Q is part of that equation. He shoots it much better than he did last year.”
(If he thought Quentin Snider would be a shooter) “Like all the guys, Donovan, Deng, Q, they all came in with line-drive shots and then needed strength, repetition, repeating good shots with arc, and right now we are working on that with Tony Hicks. He is the only line drive shooter we have right now so we are working on getting his arc up as well, it just takes time.”
(On Tony Hicks) “He is probably the first sub off the bench, but he is probably the most athletic guard that we have in terms of speed. He has Russ Smith type of speed.”
(On the team leadership) “I think Quentin. I think he leads a different way, he’s a quiet leader, but everybody has great confidence in him.”
(On Ryan McMahon) “He’s stronger, a good scorer, he shoots it real well, again David Levitch has been terrific. We need to play against someone other than ourselves to really judge but I think tomorrow, our competition will be very strong playing against each other. We are very deep.”
(On Matz Stockman) “I haven’t noticed a weight loss with him. I think there are two or three things that are concerning for me. One, where are our points going to come from. That doesn’t bother me a whole lot but the schedule bothers me. The schedule is the toughest schedule that I have faced as a basketball coach since being in this business and not to make any excuses, but we thought Chinanu Onuaku was coming back, but that’s not a big deal to us because we have three centers and potentially four, because Ray can definitely play there as well.”
(On getting ready for the season) “It’s just a matter of getting the guys to know it right away. We’ve never been a great team in November, and we can lose to any of those three or four first opponents if we’re not really good in that point of time.”
(On style of play) “It isn’t a new style it is just that we’ve confused a lot of people with our defense and playing our matchup zone and we have probably scrapped that and we are playing 95 percent man-to-man. It is much more the pressure that we are putting on ourselves right now is much more up-tempo in terms of the defensive pressure. We feel we have a deep bench, good shot blocking, so we are utilizing that more and the tempo is much more up-tempo, and even though we have always been an up-tempo team.”
(On Deng Adel) “He has to be one of the scorers on the team. We only have one person average nine points per game and we don’t have any double figures returning, so he has to give us a lot of points, get us Damion Lees’, along with VJ King, to make up for Damion Lees’ points.”
(On switching to man-to-man) “I just think we are inexperienced. There are a lot of strengths of this ball club, one of the weaknesses is their inexperienced in a lot of areas. You have many players that had a role to play last year trying to fit in as young players and now they have to be in the starring role. Tather than try to teach that, and hopefully be better by sometime around Christmas, we want to be ready. We did something last year that we have not done, we took all our non-conference opponents, and I’m not talking about Purdue or Kentucky or Indiana. I’m talking about William and Mary and Evansville and Long Beach State. They have three starters back, top 75-80 RPI, so we realize that we play Evansville, one that won 25 games last year and we have to be ready right away. So the less you have to teach about the defense, the better off we will be.”
(On the big men) “Anas and Matz have been a toss-up. The only thing that concerns me is that our bench is that deep. One day, Matz looks better, one day Anas looks better, another day VJ looks better, another day Deng looks better. Ray and Jaylen. Jaylen looks better, one day then Ray looks better the next day. I’m hoping that that is just good depth, but nobody really stuck out except for Donovan Mitchell at his position and Quentin Snider at his position.”
(On Donovan’s weight loss) “Donovan took off and you won’t recognize him. I realized it last year, I couldn’t figure out why he was getting beat so much defensively, even though he is a low body fat guy. I just felt that 213 lbs for a 6’2” guard is way too heavy. And I didn’t realize that he was 213 because he was low body fat but now he is at 195, and when you take off 18 lbs, that is going to make you much quicker and much more athletic and he looks terrific.”
(On the height and length of this team) “Our man defense is a lot different. We have two man defenses that we are working on. I think what you will see tomorrow is a lot of turnovers, not because of poor offense but because we are really in the mode and everything we do is about steals. I think we will see a lot of steals but a lot of turnovers because it has been happening at practice from good defense.”
(On VJ King) “He does like Deng. He puts it on the floor, he shoots it, scores, quick, jumps well, good athlete, 6’6, 6’7, him and Deng it is really close in practice. We toyed with playing VJ a little bit at the 2 and Deng a little bit at 2 and then letting them play together, we won’t do that tomorrow but we have toyed with that as well.”
(On how competitive practices are) “It is very competitive. When we make the teams even, tomorrow the red team would be, opposite Quentin, and I would be very surprised if the red team didn’t beat the white team.”
(On Quentin Snider) “Very steady, very crafty, shooting the ball much better, I think that is the one thing that sticks out is how much better we shoot the basketball, and Q is part of that equation. He shoots it much better than he did last year.”
(If he thought Quentin Snider would be a shooter) “Like all the guys, Donovan, Deng, Q, they all came in with line-drive shots and then needed strength, repetition, repeating good shots with arc, and right now we are working on that with Tony Hicks. He is the only line drive shooter we have right now so we are working on getting his arc up as well, it just takes time.”
(On Tony Hicks) “He is probably the first sub off the bench, but he is probably the most athletic guard that we have in terms of speed. He has Russ Smith type of speed.”
(On the team leadership) “I think Quentin. I think he leads a different way, he’s a quiet leader, but everybody has great confidence in him.”
(On Ryan McMahon) “He’s stronger, a good scorer, he shoots it real well, again David Levitch has been terrific. We need to play against someone other than ourselves to really judge but I think tomorrow, our competition will be very strong playing against each other. We are very deep.”
(On Matz Stockman) “I haven’t noticed a weight loss with him. I think there are two or three things that are concerning for me. One, where are our points going to come from. That doesn’t bother me a whole lot but the schedule bothers me. The schedule is the toughest schedule that I have faced as a basketball coach since being in this business and not to make any excuses, but we thought Chinanu Onuaku was coming back, but that’s not a big deal to us because we have three centers and potentially four, because Ray can definitely play there as well.”
(On getting ready for the season) “It’s just a matter of getting the guys to know it right away. We’ve never been a great team in November, and we can lose to any of those three or four first opponents if we’re not really good in that point of time.”
