By Sam Federman (@Sam_Federman)
“Yeah. We kind of—coming off Saint Francis, I don’t think we played very good defensively, so we wanted to come out and make a statement right away defensively. I thought our intensity, right from the start, just set the tone and kind of got them on their heels a little bit.”
On Selton Miguel settling in and Jakobi Gillespie’s ball handling:
“Yeah, I would agree. Kobi’s been solid all year. Again, I think Marquette, he was really good. I think Purdue was the only time I probably played him too many minutes, but they’re both really, really high quality players. They’re playing off each other now. I think Jakobi’s starting to realize, as a point guard, who’s hot and what he’s doing. I think he’s doing a phenomenal job of finding guys.”
On setting the tone defensively:
“Again, if you’ve never seen our pressure and gone against our pressure, I just wanted to make sure we didn’t come out passive. I wanted to come out and make sure we got after them, and sometimes our pressure’s not about turnovers, sometimes it’s just about making teams really work, and I give (Jaquan) Carlos a lot of credit. He’s the only guard they really have right now, so just make him work, make him work, get them out of rhythm, and I thought that’s kind of what we did a great job of. I mean, I give a lot of credit, to play 40 minutes against him, that’s a tall task.”
On creating live-ball turnovers:
“Anytime you get easy buckets, it just kind of feeds you, and I thought Selton got us off to a good start with a three, but again, whenever you can create easy fast-break layups against big, physical teams, it’s gonna help you.”
On making Syracuse work the shot clock:
“Yeah, I mean, I think we’re seventh in the country in making teams work to get a shot off, so that’s kind of—one of the things we’re trying to improve on is we didn’t do a good job against Purdue and Marquette, as you make teams work, get them to take really tough twos. And I think these guys are starting to understand more—they work really hard on the press—but to reward themselves, and I thought we did a good job in the pick-and-roll making them take a lot of tough twos. And again, when you get teams out of rhythm, (Eddie) Lampkin was a non-factor just because now they can’t run their stuff. I think we’re getting better at understanding, transitioning from our press into our half-court defense, and what we want to do in our half-court defense.”
On Gillespie balancing when to score and when to distribute:
“I think he’s figured it out. He’s got the ball in his hands most of the time, so he knows he can go anytime he wants to. There’s times I have to call things because you have to get him shots, because he’s such a good shooter, but I think he’s really starting to figure out—he’s out there with Rodney and Selton—if you get in the lane and you find one of those two guys, more than likely, you’re getting an assist. And I think you’re seeing the evolution of a guy that was not so much a point guard—played point—but now I think you’re starting to see the evolution of a point guard, where he’s understanding who to get the ball and when to get the ball. It’s fun to watch, and as a coach, you kind of just let him go and just let him play.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.