Opening Statement
First of all, I want to continue the tradition of thanking our fans. They’re loud, they’re into the game and they still stay until the very end. We’re very grateful for that. I want to compliment our guys, to play the way they did against a real quality McNeese team and program is a good sign going forward. I thought we were incredibly unselfish on both sides of the ball. Our ability to guard one-on-one, how active we were in the gaps to support each other, and then how well we covered each other’s back as far as flying around, and when there were mistakes made, there was multiple efforts to get it fixed.
In an offense, when there’s a margin like there was in the second half, there aren’t very many teams that can put aside their own personal stat line and things like that for the better of the team. I thought we played really, really good basketball for 32 minutes against, like I said, a team that we really respect.
On how his team can have quick scoring streaks while up big
I just think our spurtability, when you defend the way we defend, and you stay with it, and then you’re going to turn some of those stops into baskets when you’re as lethal, and you have the passing ability that we have, the lethal passing and whatnot in transition. We didn’t shoot the ball well. I thought we missed a lot of really good looks that we typically make, and so we’ve got to bang in shots if we want to play at our highest level.
Even that last group, we weren’t happy with the way the game finished, and the main reason is because we think those guys are good and they have a bright future to play in this game. So when you have a chance to play, and they’re playing against McNeese’s top 10 guys, I mean their 1 through 10 is about the same, so they’re playing against starters that are going to be an NCAA tournament team, and so you want those guys to show their work that they put in on a daily basis because they battle our starters and do a good job. The rotation guys, I want to tip my cap to them, to play with the unselfishness that they do. It’s a lot of fun to watch.
On whether non-conference play exceeded his wildest dreams with the way the team played
Yeah, I’d be lying if I said that we, as a group, felt like we would have this margin, just because we know how difficult that is and we have such respect for the teams we played. We can come at you in waves. There’s not much drop-off with any rotation, and I think our guys’ commitment to defending and rebounding is why we’ve been able to separate and make the spurts that we have, because we were seventh for the first few games. We’re good…