December 13, 2004
Here are excerpts from Billy Gillispie's Weekly Media Luncheon on Monday at Cain Hall:
What did you bring out of Saturday's close win against Alabama A&M?
"We have to do better at everything. I thought we were really making a lot of progress and then on Saturday I was really disappointed. We didn't execute the fundamentals at all. I would expect Joseph Jones and Dominique Kirk to make mistakes because it's their first go-round, but when we're not playing better with the guys that have been here, when you have as little experience as we have, that's not good. We have to depend on Joe (Joseph Jones) and Dominique (Kirk) to win the game, and that's not a good sign."
Any excuses, such as holidays or finals?
"No, they've been playing basketball since they were in the seventh or eighth grade. Every single year is the same. I don't believe in those sort of things. These days, everybody thinks that they're going to have a professional life after college. If you're going to have a professional life after college, you're going to have to deal with a multitude of things. You should be tough enough mentally to focus for two or two and a half hours a day and be able to execute in pressure game situations. We definitely did not do that on Saturday."
Would you rather have more practice time or more games?
"I could go all year long without playing a game. I like practice, because that's where you get to teach to most, but players could play day after day as far as the games. I think when you get a really good team they learn to embrace practice situations and know that they need to get better and have a strong desire to get better."
How long will it take you as far as recruiting?
"It takes time. We've always done well in relationship recruiting and that's what we'll always try to do. It's easy to convince a player that Texas A&M has a great deal to offer which it does. You can see that there's going to be playing time. You can see that we're a program on the rise and that we're going to be competitive in the Big 12 in the very near future. When comparing that to putting a team together, recruiting is a little bit easier. Recruiting is very, very difficult, but when you talk about putting a team together, you're talking about dealing with 13 to 15 different people. You have to make sure that they're all healthy, that they have the same mindset as you do, that they understand exactly what you want them to do. Our guys have been great. They've tried really hard. They're trying with blind faith right now basically, because I don't think they understand the purpose that you're trying to achieve every time. We're trying to achieve success."
How was the team after Saturday's game?
"They were totally disappointed. Was that good? I think that you should never take winning for granted, but I do believe we're making progress because we knew we didn't perform in a successful way. We were just lucky to win on the scoreboard. I give a lot of credit to Alabama A&M. They played very well and they played very smart. They played exactly how they needed to have a chance to win. They put themselves in a situation where they could be successful. That shot goes in at the end and they have a great chance to win. I guess that means you're making progress when you win and you're not totally excited about it, but we'll never take winning for granted. We're very fortunate to win, but the way we went about it wasn't the way that's going to be successful in the future."
Are you surprised your freshmen have had so much success?
"There's no surprise knowing that Dominique Kirk is going to play well. He practices the same way every single day. I don't believe there's any magic when the lights come on. I believe that you're going to repeat what you've been doing day after day in practice. Dominique doesn't surprise me at all. He'll have ups and downs and Joe (Joseph Jones), too, as every freshman does, but those guys play admirably for freshmen. They took over the leadership of the team. That's what's scary -- the guys that should have been doing that weren't."
Talk more about Kirk...
"He was way under-recruited in my opinion. If you watch him play, he's not going to score 17 points and get 9 rebounds every game and be the star of the game, but his motor never stops and those are the kind of guys I really like. If you want to turn around a program you have to have very high character, and he has unbelievably high character, as many of our players do. I really think he'll help our turn around."
Are you finding it difficult to be patient?
"I'm bad about being patient. I'm worse than the fans are. I'm very impatient. Fans go from game to game, I go from possession to possession. I just expect them to listen. I expect them to play extremely hard. If they do that and they value the understanding of how you play the game fundamentally and we're not successful, then that's fine. My expectations are play hard, play smart, play together. If we do that, then if we're good enough to win, we'll win. If we're not good enough, then we still did as good as we can. We move on and try to get better guys."