Courtesy of @C. Level's conversation with the head coach on Double T 97.3 Here we go...
81-70, wins on the road are very difficult, they’re never easy. And you start out this one 20-4, you’re down, what are you thinking at that point?
“Honestly just been around enough games and know the heart of these guys, there wasn’t any sort of panic. It’s almost, it’s like you have a smirk in your brain, you just know like ‘Okay, this is how we’re gonna win.’ I mean honestly, that’s my heart and that’s the way I feel about this group, that it doesn’t matter what the scenario is that we’ll find a way. This is a wild version to start this with. I really do have a lot of hope when I look at these guys on the bench."
Take me through Joe Toussaint, you know, he comes out, scores 21 points, seven assists, three steals, whatever you could tell he was really into this and very aggressive.
“Give him credit because I did think he was really composed, though. He kind of had some moments where he’s come out of games that mean a lot to him and tried to create and I felt like he was in rhythm. The game was in the flow, I didn’t think he took any bad shots, I thought he took rhythm shots. I thought he moved the ball where he wanted to go. And every timeout and every huddle, he was really disappointed in our defensive effort early but it wasn’t like he came to the huddles and was degrading. It was really inspirational the way he was lifting up his teammates and inspiring them to play hard. Just love his competitiveness.”
Robert and EY do a great job at the end of just hanging in there, combined for 11 and eight. It’s a tough ask trying to guard Jesse Edwards, he’s long and athletic. Take me through that dynamic as you guys had to adjust some things.
“Yeah and obviously the way they started giving us four fouls on those two guys too. I mean those guys were at the first media timeout and we’re already racking them up. I did sense that our team understood it was going to take five guys to guard (Edwards). You can’t guard him with one, so what’s this going to be and how can we do it consistently? I wasn’t disappointed with the fact the ball went in there a few times, we just blew our coverage of how we were going to defend it. And to start the game, (Kobe Johnson) made a couple to expose us on it. But over the course of 40 minutes, I told them let’s be consistent with what the game plan is and let’s just fight every possession to try to do our best ability to make it work. In the first half they made them and the second half they were 11 percent and made one three as opposed to eight threes. I thought that just said a lot about this group, how competitive they are and how they bought in to what we needed to do to win the game.”
81-70, wins on the road are very difficult, they’re never easy. And you start out this one 20-4, you’re down, what are you thinking at that point?
“Honestly just been around enough games and know the heart of these guys, there wasn’t any sort of panic. It’s almost, it’s like you have a smirk in your brain, you just know like ‘Okay, this is how we’re gonna win.’ I mean honestly, that’s my heart and that’s the way I feel about this group, that it doesn’t matter what the scenario is that we’ll find a way. This is a wild version to start this with. I really do have a lot of hope when I look at these guys on the bench."
Take me through Joe Toussaint, you know, he comes out, scores 21 points, seven assists, three steals, whatever you could tell he was really into this and very aggressive.
“Give him credit because I did think he was really composed, though. He kind of had some moments where he’s come out of games that mean a lot to him and tried to create and I felt like he was in rhythm. The game was in the flow, I didn’t think he took any bad shots, I thought he took rhythm shots. I thought he moved the ball where he wanted to go. And every timeout and every huddle, he was really disappointed in our defensive effort early but it wasn’t like he came to the huddles and was degrading. It was really inspirational the way he was lifting up his teammates and inspiring them to play hard. Just love his competitiveness.”
Robert and EY do a great job at the end of just hanging in there, combined for 11 and eight. It’s a tough ask trying to guard Jesse Edwards, he’s long and athletic. Take me through that dynamic as you guys had to adjust some things.
“Yeah and obviously the way they started giving us four fouls on those two guys too. I mean those guys were at the first media timeout and we’re already racking them up. I did sense that our team understood it was going to take five guys to guard (Edwards). You can’t guard him with one, so what’s this going to be and how can we do it consistently? I wasn’t disappointed with the fact the ball went in there a few times, we just blew our coverage of how we were going to defend it. And to start the game, (Kobe Johnson) made a couple to expose us on it. But over the course of 40 minutes, I told them let’s be consistent with what the game plan is and let’s just fight every possession to try to do our best ability to make it work. In the first half they made them and the second half they were 11 percent and made one three as opposed to eight threes. I thought that just said a lot about this group, how competitive they are and how they bought in to what we needed to do to win the game.”
