By Jason Guerette (@JPGuerette)
“I think Jared played like a guy who understands what time of year it is and where we are. For him having to play 40 minutes this time of year, the intensity that he played at was really impressive.”
On surviving foul trouble:
“I think it’s a little bit of, we had a lot more guys before now, so if guys got in foul trouble, I would take them out and not put them back in. I just don’t have that luxury anymore, so we’re kind of really a four-guard rotation and if one of them gets fouls, I’ve got to put them back in. So I think it’s a little bit more of we were rotating five guards before, now we’re only rotating four, so we lost five fouls.”
On leaving Alexis Yetna in with four fouls:
“Lex was playing good, and at that point, it was such a close game. Tray had been on the bench for almost seven minutes, so I’d just rather roll with the guys out there playing the way he’s playing than have to put Tray in, instead of taking him out and something going on that you’ve got to put him back in, you just wasted minutes. So at that point in the game, I was just rolling with him.”
On Rhoden’s performance:
“We need everybody to play at an A-game right now. We’re getting a lot of looks at the rim, we’re just not finishing at the rim. That’s something that hurt us against ’Nova, it really hurt us against UConn in the second half because we’re getting to the rim. We’re just not finishing. We’ve gotta do a little better job when we get to the rim from getting in there, but we’re missing a lot of easy layups and we just need everybody to kind of finish them because it killed us against ’Nova, and it takes a lot of momentum away from us.”
On defending without Myles Cale:
“It was tough, and again, I thought the way he started the game on Javon was a big reason why they got off to such a tough start. I thought he was great. We didn’t take advantage of our opportunity on defense that we started, but we start the second half with him on the bench and it’s a different intensity without him out there.”
On grinding out an ugly win:
“It’s the end of February in the Big East. It’s gonna be what it is.”
On what he needs from Cale moving forward:
“Myles Cale has been playing great, he’s playing really good. He just got in foul trouble and it’s tough to play well when you’re sitting for long stretches of time, jumping in, jumping out, but he’s probably been our most dependable guy that we’ve had.”
On defending Javon Freeman-Liberty without Cale:
“Pray. Sometimes you gotta hope the big man’s on your side and he misses a shot. We trapped the first possession, then when he shot the air-ball on the three, we switched our pick-and-roll coverage and we were just going to trap him, we were going to just make him pass it, and I thought we did a really good job. The second time, after we missed the free throw — that’s why I don’t like calling timeouts, but it was just — we switched the pick-and-rolls just to get him, he made a good move and just missed a tough shot. I would say that praying had a little bit to do with it when the ball was up in the air.”
On Kadary Richmond:
“I’ll tell you what: Kadary Richmond didn’t practice on Thursday, he didn’t practice on Friday, he has a 102 fever, he didn’t even go to walkthrough today. What that kid did today was exceptional. He wasn’t even supposed to be here, he came to me right before the game, he was getting an IV all the way up until warmups, he came up to me and he goes, ‘just don’t take me out, I’m fine.’ That’s what I love about him, his toughness. That’s also why I gave him the ball without calling a timeout at the end of the game, because I think he’s developing into a really, really good player. I’ve got a lot of confidence with him with the ball in his hands. I just think he’s growing every day, he’s shooting the basketball better, he’s getting guys involved, he’s being aggressive. He defended great at the end of the game, he’s developing into exactly what I thought he was going to.”
On Richmond’s fever:
“We didn’t get back from UConn until like, 3:00 in the morning Thursday. He woke up not feeling good, so he got a test for COVID, went through all that BS, didn’t have COVID, stayed in and got IVs on Thursday, woke up Friday and felt worse Friday. He didn’t come to practice and this morning, he woke up feeling a little bit better, tests again for COVID, he doesn’t have COVID. He just came up to me before the game and said, ‘I’m playing’ at 7:15. We practiced for two days with Jamir at point guard. That’s one reason why we were all kind of standing around out there, because Jamir didn’t know what to do out there, because we didn’t practice with him running one play that we could run with him in the game, so it’s really hard. And I know people are thinking it can’t be that hard to remember a play you’ve been running, but when you go two days and you just focus on what you have to do offensively and defensively at one position, and then all of a sudden, you get thrown into another one, it just takes your natural feel away, and that’s kind of what happened with Jamir today. We just spent two days working with him.”
(Kadary) loves to hoop. Like, his leg would have to fall off for him not to hoop, and that’s what I love about Kadary more than anything. He wants to play. He loves games, he loves when we get up and down in practice, he’s a hooper and that’s what I love about him.”
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