November 29, 2001
How pleased are you overall?
"I'm pleased with the effort thus far. I'm real pleased that we can go to the bench and with the contribution that our kids coming off the bench have been making for us. I am pleased with that. But I'm still smart enough to know that we still have a lot of work to do and our challenges are going to get a lot greater. This team is not ready to win a national championship yet."
When you see Bernard shooting over 50%, is that some of the residual effect you are looking for when you reduce his minutes? A lot of times in games he didn't have his legs in the second half. Is this the bounce you thought you were going to see?
"I think so. I think he's now able to take better shots. The quality of his shots have gotten better. That's a by-product of his shooting percentage being better. If he can continue to take good shots, he's definitely capable of putting the ball in the basket more. Having more depth has allowed him to not have to force it so much and so he's taking better shots."
Could you talk about the long home stand coming up and how important it is to start off with a big win?
"It's really important. Once again, this team is still in the infant stages of trying to develop the chemistry and get to where we have a lot of confidence every time we step out on the floor. When we have these home games, we need to try and protect our home court. It will be very important that we can get some wins in these games. Long Beach is going to challenge us and give us all we want. And that would be a big win for us."
Now that you have some of your kids back from the last couple of years and they have seen some of these opponents before, do you see your kids having a different type of focus with these teams when they are playing them the second or maybe the third time around, in comparison to their focus on Big 12 games?
"I would not say to the degree that I want it to be. But our focus is definitely a lot better than it has been and still I think in the Lamar game and our last game against Kingsville, we came out a little flat thinking that it might be an easy game for us. We're still learning that we have to come in and play with intensity for 40 minutes. But I can also tell you that last year, we might not have been able to turn that around. This year during the course of a game we can make some adjustments and turn some things around. That's the way I look at that. But we're still learning how to win."
Can you comment on the Big 12 as a whole right now?
"It's scary. I think that's been printed quite a bit about the Big 12 this year and I think I heard Dick Vitale talking about it the other night on TV, about how good the conference can be and of course you still have to go out and prove that. But surely, the potential for this year being one of the best years in the Big 12 is there. We will definitely have our plate full when we get into Big 12 play."
Tomas Ress keeps starting, but he's only taken five shots so far. Will we see an increase in that or is he still recovering?
"I think what you are going to see in Tomas is a change in his position a little bit. He's been playing a little bit more on the perimeter. We're going to bring him closer to the basket. He's already beginning to wear down a little bit, due to the fact that he's still not 100% physically. He's lost a little confidence as well. We want to get him back inside and let him build up that confidence. We know, as this year progresses, we need Tomas to be an integral part of what we're trying to do. We need to get him going again and we're going to try to do that by moving him inside more."
Has Brian Brookhart been one of the most pleasant surprises this year so far?
"Yes. I have the advantage of seeing him everyday in practice. And what I see is that he brings a basketball IQ to the court that we like to talk about. He may not be athletic enough or the fastest guy, but he surely uses his brain. So, it's not totally surprising to me to see what he's doing in games. But, it's a luxury to go to the bench and call on him and know that we're going to get some quality minutes from Brian."
Did you put him on scholarship?
"Yes we sure did. We put him on scholarship before the season started."
You put such on emphasis on free-throw shooting. Is that really the one thing that you've seen so far that hasn't been at the level that you would've expected?
"That's definitely an area that we have to improve on. We've already been addressing that. And we're going to get better at that. When you practice, there are so many other things that you try to focus on. So free throws can be something easily overlooked by not giving it enough practice time. We've asked some of our guys to come in and get some more free-throw shooting in."
How important is it to get points off the bench the way you have through the first three games?
"I think you can look at any good team and know that they will have to have contributions off the bench because some nights the so-called 'stars' might not be having a good night. And to go to the bench and get some positive contributions the way we have is huge for us. We've gotten it thus far and hopefully we can continue to nurture that throughout the season. That's what we've preached and talked about for some time now. Being able to have that luxury of going to your bench is something that is finally happening for us and hopefully we can keep it hanging around."
Against Kingsville, you had twelve players play in the first twelve minutes of the game. Are you still trying to find the right combination?
"We're still searching a little bit because of the way we're trying to play. To be quite honest, if I get a little upset at someone I can go to the bench and use that bench as a teaching factor that we haven't been able to do. There are a lot of things probably going on in that aspect that hasn't been going on in the past."
How important is it when you do some of that teaching, to show your players that they can be able to come back and do some things right away that shed a positive influence to the rest of the team?
"That was something that we weren't able to do last year. Now, we can say 'OK, these are the things we expect you to do and if you're not doing your job, then there are some consequences.' The consequences are that you have to come sit and talk to me for a while. We'll use the bench for that. But hopefully we won't have to use it a whole lot as the season progresses. I prefer to use it just because a man is tired and not that he's not doing his job, but sometimes that might be the case. You would like to think that when you do have some options like that and you can put another player in and if he's scoring, he's going to get the minutes. We've talked about that and I think some of our players thought 'Well, that sounds pretty good coach. But I want to get all the minutes.' So we had to show that we are interested in those that get the job done and winning ball games."
Is there more of an emphasis on avoiding early fouls, especially with Keith Bean and Nick Anderson?
"We try to watch that. That's still a concern of ours. We're a little undersized with Keith and Nick at the 4 and the 5 position, especially as we get into Big 12 play. So, that's another reason that we are trying to bring along some of our bigger kids so we can match up better with some of the bigger bodies. But it's still a concern that they [Bean and Anderson] will have a tendency to foul a little big more and early. If you look at our first three games, we've fouled a little bit more than we'd like to anyway and some of that is because we are trying to play aggressive and I can handle that. But we surely have to clean it up a little bit."