Opening Statement

We turned this into a home game. A couple of the workers outside said that they felt like this was the best crowd they have seen and they've had some schools that really travel well at this event. So I want to show gratitude towards our fans. They did give us extra energy. Tonight was a little bit choppy, like it has been at times all year. I feel personally like, and the staff feels the same way, that we're learning a lot about ourselves through these experiences. Until you've been in these battles with guys, you don't really know how they're going to respond to certain things. But I do think we tightened up defensively the last 15 minutes. We were able to change our coverages up a few times and then our guys communicated and adapted well on the fly. And came up with some really big 50-50 loose basketballs in the last 5 or 10 minutes that I think gave us a little bit of a margin of breathing room on the offensive end when we weren't really clicking. We shoot a lot of threes. We play in space. We err on playing with freedom and confidence and sometimes with that, you want the game to loosen up in a certain way. And when teams don't allow it to be that way, you've got to meet the challenge with physicality, with aggression on the glass. And I thought our guys did that. Yes, there have been people who have implied that we're not the toughest team. And one of our sayings at house is the only difference in criticism and feedback is how it's received. That's how people feel. That doesn't change how we feel, but we are aware that there are some things we have to get better at and adjust through. We're so big, we shouldn't get out rebutted by these teams. We all know that. But sometimes we're in different positions than we've been. But overall, we have a group that wants to get better and they compete at a high level. So it's not bad for us to have that in our locker room as a little bit of a care for motivation.

On Roddy Gayle and Will Tschetter's performance

Roddy's stringing together some consistency. He's been awesome in practice and he's a great leader. He speaks, his teammates listen because he's about the team. And he deserves the success. He works hard. He's doing it in a lot of different ways. He's doing it as a creator. He's doing it as a shooter, as a driver. I thought his drive in the first half gave us a little bit of confidence that hey, maybe we can get through some contact on drives and get to the rim and finish. And I lost my train of thought after talking about Roddy. What was the other part of the question? Our bench was awesome. I thought even Justin Pippen, obviously Rubin Jones, Will was great. LJ Cason looked like LJ Cason again. Being back in Florida, he had a bounce of seven. He had a couple possessions that looked like they were going to go down for him. So yeah, Will started it. He had a couple shot fakes around the rim. Made a big three. But his communication, he's a guy that can connect his group because he's voice talking, he's loud, he's clear. So those things are very valuable when we're trying to change coverages and play different lineups. To have someone out there that can really be the voice behind our defense. Rubin figured a high-level line. We're guarding the three well.

On taking more threes in the first half

Well our staff, we're trying to make a decision. Do we control a little bit more? Do we stay in the flow? Long term, if we're able to really play and flow and find matchups and advantages and things like that without stopping, we like to do that. There were a lot of stoppages which allowed us to get a little bit more organized. And just maybe to remind our guys that we have an advantage here, an advantage there. If we do this, this might work. But our guys made plays. They were intentional about getting inside. I still don't think we converted as well as we're going to in the future around the rim. But credit our guards. Our bigs did a nice job of following the pressure around the box. Credit for that camaraderie and teamwork.

On the amount of turnovers being caused by a new roster

Probably you just get used to playing with guys where I know if my teammate's going to do this, I'm going to feel behind and I'm going to get to these spots. We're still not reacting and responding as well as we need to to penetration. Getting into the passing lanes where the ball can see and things like that. The crazy thing about our turnovers, they've been a little bit of everything. I've done a deep dive and we haven't turned it over much in transition. We've been pretty good in the open court for pretty sure. In the half court, it's just been a variety of things. So it's not as if, we do feel like we've cleaned up a few things as far as meeting our passes, hitting targets. And then it's just like the dam, you plug a hole and another one kind of pops out. So we'll keep working at it. We're not going to stress over one particular area. We're going to keep valuing meeting passes and ball fakes and shot fakes and the things that really fundamental teams do. And just trust that our guys are going to be a lot more cautious and aware of trying to get home runs.

On being back in the state of Florida

Well obviously all the guys from Florida on our roster are very important rotational players for us. And obviously being back home in front of friends and family, they want to play well. And obviously winning is the highest priority. But it's nice to be back. One of the guys said they saw a lot of FAU hats and shirts. And obviously with so many Michigan Maize and Blue here, that's nice that people in the area that root for our staff and our players like Vlad have come over to support. And any help, anyone that wants to jump on the bandwagon to support us all Wednesday and help us get over the hump. And against whoever we play, it's going to be a tough game, but we'll welcome them in with open arms. And hopefully turn this into a good environment Wednesday.

On having Vlad Goldin to help with familiarity

It's extremely important. I think more in the locker room when Vlad's not with us, he can echo messages. He can, I guess, let the players know what's really, really important to us is that everything can't be the utmost importance. And I think he does let the guys know what's really important when we need to really have our antennas up for certain things. But he's been invaluable just because he's such a great teammate. He's so unselfish, and he's always trying to do things for others. And those behaviors are contagious. So we're very, very grateful he came up north with us. Being from Russia, he's used to the cold winter. He always talked about how he missed it. And then yesterday we landed, or two days ago we landed, and he said, man, I didn't realize how much I enjoyed this. So it's been a nice homecoming for him as well. There are a lot of people in South Florida that he has a relationship with that are cheering for him as well.

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