Nov. 17, 2008
On the passing of Pete Newell:
I knew Pete fairly well. Pete was a great ambassador for basketball in general, a very gracious man. He was good to everybody, had time for everybody and has had a tremendous influence on the game of basketball, so basically I think the game of basketball has lost a great friend. The '59 team (NCAA champions), all those guys are still very active and have stuck together, which you tend to do when you win. That's a great catalyst for a university.
On his memories of USF coach Rex Walters as a young player:
I recruited Rex out of high school, really liked him, but it didn't work out, which was really unfortunate because Rex was a very good player.
On the Dons' style under Rex Walters:
They're playing well. They've chosen a style that's a bit unorthodox and it's been paying dividends for them. They're very active. Walters has got pretty good athletes and pretty good numbers, so he's picked a style that's disruptive, trying to get you out of flow. It's kind of a matchup - first they'll pester-press after made [baskets] or dead balls, and go back to some kind of a match-up zone, switching man-to-man, however you want to characterize it, with the theory that you won't be able to run your stuff, that you'll get out of sorts and that you'll break down, which they've had some success with. They're looking to turn you over, get you confused and run out of that.
On USF's junior forward Dior Lowhorn:
Lowhorn's a very good player. He can really shoot the ball and causes matchup problems. He's strong at the four; he'd be a strong player at the five. He's a quicker, smaller player, but he shoots it really well.
On USF's other weapons:
They can go big with [Hyman] Taylor or [James] Morgan, or they can go small with [Manny] Quezada and some of these new players and play some 4-out, 1-in; they'll play some 5-out, pass, cut, move the ball. They're very confident right now. They're really hustling, they're working very hard, they're chasing the ball, they're getting a lot of mileage out of their defense to create for their offense.
On the status of Harper Kamp (knee) :
He felt good [at yesterday's practice]. There's no way we expected him to get the minutes he did Saturday, but he kept saying that he felt good, so we kept using him. I wouldn't have probably used him that much had Jamal been able to play more than 10 minutes, but I didn't have a lot of choices. We're not going risk injuring his knee further so there's any long-term issues, but we need him. At some point we're going to have to make a decision - either in or out - but we've got some time.
On the progress of freshman D.J. Seeley, who did not play Saturday vs. Pacific:
Like most freshmen, he just needs to play harder. I didn't really want to lose to Pacific. It wasn't a time when we could run the risk of giving up an open three or a guy getting screened or something that freshmen do. We're trying to change the way we think about the game here. D.J. can help us, and he needs to help us, he just needs to continue to work hard, to learn the offense so he's very comfortable with all the things that he needs to do.
On the backup point-guard situation, with Nikola Knezevic and Nican Robinson among the options:
Nican is a real floor leader. He's talking, he's confident, he knows what's suppose to be done. Nikola is a better defender against a bigger player. We're still trying to figure that out. At some point, we had anticipated that Jorge might play over there, but we didn't want to put Jorge in a position where he didn't know either position very well. We wanted him to know one thing first and then try to move him to the other. If we limited his package, Jorge could play the one. But I think there's enough stuff going on that in a full time basis, we needed him to play the two position and let him get comfortable there before we tried to play him at the one. It's something that's up for grabs frankly. The whole rotation situation is not clear cut, it's not black and white. There's a lot of gray there and we agonize a lot over who gives us the best chance to win in any given situation and it could change from game to game. Not that that's what any of us want, but it's not a perfect world.
On the importance of Jerome Randle and how often he will be played:
Jerome is pretty important to us right now. He is a guy that can make plays. I don't want to wear somebody down to the extent that they're so worn out by the end of the season. I think right now we need to win some games. So, we are going to keep the people on the floor that we need to in order to try to win games. I think it's important that we win the games we're capable of. I don't know how many that's going to be yet, but if there's a game we feel like we can win, I think we need to win. We can't give up games. There might be some people on our schedule that for whatever reason, we are going to struggle beating, no matter how well we play. You get up and play a really, really good team close and you lose and then you get a team that you have a chance to win and you don't play well and you lose. That just doesn't make sense to me.
On coaching undersized players:
They have to be a little smarter because they have to learn how to position themselves a little better. If they get trapped, they have a hard time passing out of a trap. They have to reverse dribble out or reverse pivot out and find an open man quicker. If they're on a pick and roll, and we're showing or hedging on the pick and roll, sometimes they have to position themselves differently because the offensive player can pass out of that or over the top of them. That hurts us because the ball is turned more quickly out of the hedge than it would be with a bigger guard amd that makes it more difficult for us defensively. But, you hope to offset that with quickness. I think that Jerome needs to use his quickness more on defense to disrupt, to be a factor defensively in terms of shooting and anticipating passes and using his quickness a little bit more. But he is playing a lot of minutes and probably would look at resting occasionally on defense.
