Jan. 17, 2011
College Station, Texas - Head coach Mark Turgeon and members of the 10th-ranked Texas A&M men's basketball team met with the media today to talk about the upcoming games against No. 11 Texas and No. 24 Kansas State.
The Aggies (16-1, 3-0 Big 12), winners of 13-straight, travel to Austin Wednesday to face the Longhorns before returning home Saturday to battle Kansas State at Reed Arena. Tickets to Saturday's game are available through the 12th Man Foundation ticket office.
Audio from today's press conference is available to the right in MP3 format. Selected quotes are listed below.
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HEAD COACH Mark Turgeon
On being ranked in the Top-10... "It's just a number. If you know anything about me, my wife does, numbers are overrated. The tenth anniversary for our wedding, I didn't do much, but I did on the 11th. I'm sure the players are excited about it, and the fans will be excited about it. I'm more excited about us being 3-0 in the league than being ranked tenth."
On the players getting over confident... "Our guys are pretty levelheaded, they realize that we've only played three league games, and only one road game. We had a good practice today, They'll keep fighting and try to get better."
On his expectations coming into the season... "Our expectations are always high. I just try and coach the team and try to get the most out of them. I don't get caught up in a lot of things. I was on the young kids today trying to get them to perform better before Wednesday."
On losing key players from last season... "We got used to playing without Derrick Roland, so we really lost two players. I was a little concerned about losing (Donald) Sloan, and Bryan (Davis) did a lot of things for us. Your expectations change, but we're still that same team that was picked sixth in the league and no votes. We're just trying to get better."
On what he's been pleased with this season... "I've been really pleased with my seniors. I think Nate and B.J. have had really good senior seasons. I think they're the difference right now. They're really defending. All of them do, Marshall (Carrell), Derrek (Lewis) and (Andrew) Darko, they all bring it to practice every day."
On whether he gets confident in the teams' play... "I don't. When you're a coach, you see all of the flaws. When I look in the mirror in the morning, I see all of the gray hairs and wrinkles. That's what I see with my team, so you're constantly trying to get better, constantly trying to make them better. I think we're pretty good, but I think we'll find out Wednesday how good we really are."
On Khris Middletons' role... "He's a reluctant `star', or `go-to' guy. I think it's just that he doesn't like the attention. It's nice to see Khris, when you challenge him right before overtime to step up and he does. We have a lot of guys we can go to late, and that's a luxury. Last year, it felt like we could only go to one guy, that was Sloan. This year, I can go to a lot of guys."
On playing in close games, and the team making big plays to win... "I've got some veterans. You think about Nate and B.J., they've played a lot of games for us. Khris has been a major part since he stepped on campus. We talk about that. We really work on execution. So far this group has had a toughness about them, that when we've had to get a stop or a rebound, this team does it. You have to be good and lucky to win close games, and we've been both."
On the team's rebounding success... "We work on it, talk about it a lot. I didn't think we rebounded well the last two games at home, we missed a lot of box outs. The good thing is, I have a veteran team for the most part. We had 21 `bad' or `no' box outs on Saturday. We rebounded better today in practice and got after it today. I think it's a mindset, guards box and rebound, and we have to. We're little. We're not very big.
On having confidence against Texas... "We'll see, this will be our first real road game. We played at A&M-Corpus Christi, where we had a lot of fans, and at Oklahoma, where we caught them when students were gone. This will be our first road test as far as fans in the building and students in the building."
On the rivalry between Texas and A&M... "Every year is different, every game is different. I have a lot of respect for Rick (Barnes), I always have. They recruit like crazy, get good players, have a lot of All-Americans, get a lot of pros. It's a battle for us when we go over there. When you have respect for someone, you usually get your team ready and go hard."
On Jordan Hamilton's play... "He can really score the ball, as far as for what he's done this year. Last year he was a perimeter shooter, this year he's really driving the ball and posting up. He's a tremendous challenge. He's good, it'll be a tough matchup for us."
On keeping his players focused when they're ranked in the top 10... "You know what, we never talk about numbers and all that kind of stuff, I just coach them. I went to practice today and said guys we didn't box out, we didn't guard very well. If I see them getting happy, I'll just practice them harder."
On A&M's bench being deeper than Texas' bench... "He's got the bench, and he can use it in certain games, I'm sure they'll use it against us. I think we have more bodies inside, I think they have a little more depth at the guard to be honest with you. He's done some different things, it all depends on foul trouble and how things are going. On paper, I wouldn't say our bench is necessarily deeper than theirs."
On bench players performing well... "I've been all over Ray (Turner), and I'm glad I was, because he's really grown up. He's really playing basketball seriously, playing defense every possession, really trying to learn the game, playing post defense before his man has the ball. He grew up, now we have to get Kourtney (Roberson) and Keith (Davis) to do the same in case we're in serious foul trouble somewhere down the road."
On Kourtney Roberson's growth... "It's up to him, it's how hard he's going to work in practice, how much film he's going to watch. I think Kourtney offensively is ready. Defensively, he's got to keep working. He's got the body, it's just teaching him all of the little things we have to teach him. If he does that, he could be there. It'd sure be nice to have another big body down low."
On Andrew Darko's play... "Andrew does it the way I want him to do it. He guards every play. He shot a little quick a few times on Saturday. I put him in at the end with a minute to go and again in overtime because I have a lot of faith in him. I think he played 10 minutes, those were 10 huge minutes for us. I think the pressure is off of him. Earlier in the year, he was in the rotation, now he just really has to play hard. Hopefully in the future, he'll make a few more jump shots, because he can really shoot the ball."
SENIOR F Nathan Walkup
On the Texas/A&M rivalry... "There's a lot of respect between both programs. Both (teams) have a lot of Texas kids, it should be a lot of fun. It's a good matchup every time we play. They haven't won here, and we haven't won there. Hopefully that can change."
On keeping teammates grounded after big games, like Khris Middleton had Saturday... "We're a real unselfish bunch. Coach preaches that every day. No matter how many points Khris scores, you know he's not a selfish player. You know he's not looking to just get his own. He creates for other people, we all do. Dash, B.J., Darko, all our guards. They look to create for other people. So when they do the other people have to be ready to make shots. But they're also all playmakers. They make big shots and they know the only thing that matters is winning, and that's what they want to do."
On getting the "big" stops defensively at the end of the game... "Those stops that you are talking about, we do drills like that every day. We have to get three stops in a row before you get off the court, we always say that we have to have this stop. This is the one stop. And we simulate that in practice the best we can. In those games when it comes down to it, we rely on each other and depend on each other, and we say that we're getting this one stop no matter what. We're going to get this stop or we're going to get this rebound. After guarding people for so long throughout the game, we know we wear them down, and when we need that stop we know we're going to make that shot the hardest possible for them so that they're exhausted."
On the team's offensive success over the last few weeks... "I think everyone's just becoming more confident, knowing what shots to shoot, what shots we can shoot, executing the plays and knowing what shots Coach wants. It's also people being ready to shoot and being ready to execute their part of the play. When you have five guys executing at the same level, it's almost impossible to stop. When you're ready to make shots and ready to execute, you're really hard to stop. I think we've really focused a lot on that over the Christmas holidays. Things like execution and timing are what win close games."
JUNIOR G Dash Harris
On being a top-10 team... "The only thing that's harder than climbing to the top is remaining there. It feels like very game we've gone out there, the team is trying to attack us like we had that top-10 ranking, and now we do. We're going to have to come out that much more focused every game and get off to a better start every game, because teams are coming after us now. They want that number in front of our name, and we're going to have to defend it. It's going to be tough but I think we're ready for it. With this conference we're in, we're going to have to show it every game."
On whether he wondered if this year's team could be good and whether he took people's doubts as a challenge... "I didn't wonder, but I did take it as a challenge. I know a lot of people thought this program would be down after guys like (Donald) Sloan, D-Ro (Derrick Roland) and BD (Bryan Davis) left, but I saw the talent in every single player we had that returned. And with the amount of work we put in, we had no choice but to be good. We stay here over summers and we put in work, and even over the winter break with the two-a-day practice. Everything just comes together. We're such a unit that losing individual players doesn't really hurt us much. We just have to come together as a team, come closer and establish roles for everybody. Players would have different roles this season, so once we got that straightened out we were able to work as a unit and it pretty much came together."
Are you guys to the point where defense is fun? "It is fun to us. Defense is like second (nature). We know where we are supposed to be on defense, where I'll watch a lot of teams and they rarely have guys on the help side, or the `invisible help line' which is what we call it. That's why we get to spots on the floor so much quicker than other teams because we're there already. We've been working on defense for so long, it's like second nature. We barely have to think about it. It's fun to play defense. Sometimes in huddles we say we're going to get three straight stops. Those are the drills we do in practice, that's why it's second nature. And I think everybody enjoys it."
SOPHOMORE F Khris Middleton
On the attention he's gotten after his game Saturday... "My phone has been blowing up a lot lately, but I really don't pay a lot of attention to that stuff. I just try and stay humble and keep my mind on the right things."
On the team picking up its offense of late... "Just sharing the ball, being unselfish. Those are the main things. Coach always tells us to share the ball and execute our plays, and that's going to give us a chance to win every game. I think that's definitely helped us late in clutch situations in games."