January 27, 1998
Your only senior, Larry Thompson, has been one of your more consistent players this season. Talk about him.
"Larry made a real commitment this summer to get things done. He gained weight, he did a good job of working on his game individually and he came in with great conditioning. He was excellent at getting himself into shape. I wish we had another year with him in terms of working with him. He's totally cooperative and has been as tough a kid, in terms of coming to practice everyday with a great work ethic, as anybody who has been on our team. I don't think he gets any credit. When we are losing like we are, it's tough to get any credit. But Larry has been a guy who has been very staunch in his effort on the court and in his effort off the court to get himself a degree. He's had a change from last year in that he has a more serious approach now. It's tough to be the only senior on the team. As the only senior, it's tough to generate the kind of leadership you would like from a senior simply because you are the only one. But Larry has given us enthusiastic effort every day and that effort itself is part of leadership, as is his enthusiasm. I just wish we had a couple more guys with him who could help direct us."
What about Colorado on Wednesday?
"They had tremendous losses from last year with Chauncey Billups and Martice Moore, who were both All-Big 12 players. When you lose those guys, you lose a presence with the ball. Obviously, Billups, who has been a pretty impact player in the pros, was a fine defensive player. His loss created a huge void in their lineup. It's tough to replace guy like that. We have to handle their press. They are going to pressure us. They are very aggressive and physically very up- tempo in terms of how they guard you. They get after you. We'll have to handle that and we'll have to try to play 40 minutes. That's been the issue for us. We've got to get 40 minutes out of our team and hopefully we'll start that tomorrow."
You have started a different lineup in every conference game. Have you started to settle into a lineup yet?
"We are just trying to find five guys who can give us a jump start. Michael Schmidt has done well in practice, he's practiced hard. He's a freshman and makes freshman mistakes and freshman decisions. Usually, freshmen don't make great decisions and he has been doing that better recently. We are just trying to find somebody with enthusiasm in that starting five who might get us off to a good start. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't."