Opening Statement

We would like to be excited for the next couple of weeks as our health is rounding back in form. Players have an opportunity to see someone other than their teammates at practice every day. Typically, this time of year, guys get tired of practicing against each other. They want to bang against another team. So we're excited for that to be the case here in the next week or so.

On how recruiting is going

We like where we are. I don't know whether we're allowed to comment on that or not. We have a staff that's very connected, and they work really, really well together. And then you factor in how aggressive our players are in recruiting and wanting good players to join this program. It's been fun to be in the recruiting voxel with this group.

On how Michigan Football helps with recruiting

Obviously, the Big House, our football team, provides such a great environment. There's energy on campus. People are out. You're meeting a lot of people. As we all know, it's awesome. It's such a great game-day environment. It does so much for this university, and all the recruits we've had in have enjoyed that experience.

On what Pro Day consists of

It's actually very similar to a normal practice for us. We'll do some shooting drills, competition shooting drills. We've added a few that are similar to NBA-type combine workouts. They'll lift, get a lighter lift than usual so they're a little fresher. Then we'll play one-on-one. We'll play three-on-three. We'll play five-on-five. The beautiful thing about the NBA now, they like to see your guys play. They enjoy watching them play against competition and bodies. It will be very, very normal as far as the structure of it. Obviously, the players will have a little hop in their step, just like they will with their fans.

On how many scouts he expects

I don't have an exact toll. They communicate with different people, but probably a lot.

On his vision for the identity of the team

We'll certainly find out more along the season. You don't know your warts. For example, if we have a great practice and we're shooting it well, your first inclination as a coach is maybe not contesting shots or giving up too many threes, whatever the case. You never really know. I think the staple of our program will be what type of pace we're playing with, how are we moving the basketball, do we look like we enjoy sharing it, and then defensively, are we playing with great force and energy and passion? I think those things we'll be able to look on a court and see if that's the case. Then the last thing is how long can we sustain those things if we are to a point where we're doing them. When you bring in this many guys, we're going to be a work in progress until probably January, February, because if we show that we can do something well, then the other team's going to try to take that away. Can we continue to improve and add and layer and counter? Those are the things that to be seen. We have a group that they enjoy each other. They seem to have great relationships amongst themselves in the locker room. Hopefully that carries over to enjoying playing with each other.

On why visibility for him around campus is important

Obviously the visibility piece, but any time we can get in front of large groups. We had a philosophy before that we had to build a program one fan at a time, brick by brick. Here I think some of those might be cinder walls. We can build it with a wall at a time. There's so much tradition and history here that if we put a good product on court, we play it the right way, we think we'll be able to attract the fans back in droves.

On how deep he thinks the team will be

I think today probably nine would get sustained minutes, would be considered in the rotation. They've all played at a level that you would consider them starters to an extent. We're still tweaking with combinations because of health reasons. We haven't seen Vlad with Will enough or Danny with Will or whatever the case. There's still a lot we have to figure out. I would say right now we would go nine deep. Typically we're eight or nine deep and we've even gone as deep as ten because of the pace, the number of possessions. We still have to find ways to speed the game up defensively. We've found ways to get up and down offensively and push tempo. Defensively, the last few years we haven't been able to find ways to get teams to shoot it quicker. We're still tweaking a little bit defensively, trying to find ways to squeeze a few more possessions out.

On taking over a new program from scratch and the constant turnover in college basketball

Well, Tom, obviously we lost a titan today in coaching. We didn't lose them, lose them, but we have someone, Tony Bennett is someone in our game that I don't know many young coaches that didn't look up to the way they were as people, the way they carried themselves, especially for a former mid-major, low-major player, whatever Wisconsin Green Bay was at the time, to make the NBA as a first-round pick, to have a successful career, and then restarted as a graduate assistant, I think he was, first father of Washington State. Just a testament to all that's good with college basketball, the way he handled the 16 loss and bounced back to win the national championship. So that's a great question on Coach Bennett. As far as myself, I'm someone that I take pride on always planning pretty far in advance. Security is important to me. You just kind of have to shift the way you think and realize you're not going to have as much control a year, two years, three years, in advance like you did in the past. You simply have to try to enjoy things you can't control. We're going to have to recruit more.

On whether it's a one year at a time mentality in coaching

We're not approaching it that way. I think at times you probably have to, but for us we were aggressively recruiting a lot of high school players because we believe in what Michigan has to offer. We believe in our ability to develop relationships, help players get better, and we think those things will play a part in retention. Obviously then you factor in the NIL dollars and the opportunities off the court. So I guess it might be, I don't know what the word would be, but we might be a little bit naive, but we think we can continue to help guys get better and retain talent. So for us it's not just one year, but obviously we always have to be one eye looking towards the future while the other eye looking towards the very near future.

On what a successful week looks like with preparing for exhibition games

The first thing with Oakland is we know that they're going to play extremely aggressive and hard against us. That game made sense for a lot of reasons. To get into a tournament-type environment, we're playing several neutral site games too where we're not going to be on campuses in NBA-type arenas. So logistically it made sense. It's close. Also with the Big Ten travel, we didn't really want to get on an airplane to go play an exhibition game or a scrimmage. The last thing is their zone. I think if we weren't playing Oakland right now, we probably wouldn't have any zone concepts in. We probably wouldn't be familiar or comfortable with zone. We would be so focused on all the other things that you see 90% to 95% of the time. So it allows you to get a segment of the game in early, and then I guess the reps will cause comfort. Typically you want to play this game in a closed scrimmage so you can play longer than 40 minutes and you can get more reps, and you're more focused on just development. But obviously in front of our fans, we never want to lose. There would be more of a competitive spirit, I think, than there would be in a closed scrimmage.

On how to balance short-term goals with long-term having to rebuild a roster

You definitely have to. There's give and take. And so until we've seen our young guys do it in games, you never really know. You're simply projecting the future. You're making bets based on this or that. So it's tough. But we just feel like we continue to add really good players who have great character and have the basketball attributes that we appreciate, the toughness, the skill, the shooting, the selfishness, then it's our job to figure it out. There's going to be problems. We're going to have some bad performances, but it's going to be our job as coaches, probably number one job, find solutions to those problems. Right now we don't know what – we can anticipate what several of them will be. We think we know what is going to give us problems this year, but you never know for sure. You never know how your guys are going to respond. But it's a whole different dynamic. Once again, it's one of those things where it's all new, so we don't know. There's not like there's five or ten years of market research and data on how to do it the best way. There's literally a few months of this team's taken seven transfers, this team took nine, these guys were successful, but there's not really any cause or effect. It's just taking all the information they have. We just want the same profile player in our program if they happen to be in the first year, third year, fourth year, whatever the case, then we feel like we can adapt. I hope that answers your question.

On addressing short-term solutions that impact long-term

Well, we're anticipating that the scholarship limit going to 15, and so it allows you to take maybe a developmental guy or two, which keeps guys in your program, hopefully. But you try to recruit as many guys as you can that you feel like are good enough, and then the guys that have proven they've done it in the games before, you've got to give them a little bit of an upper hand and then, you know, hopefully hold a couple spots for the spring in case you're not injuries or you're incorrect with some assessments, and then you do the best you can.

On what he expects the starting

I have to check the health of practice today. You know, obviously, I think three or four guys we expect to be in that lineup, and there's still a couple more based on practice and health and lineup combinations. I do think this team is, I think we have a group that we might see a number of different combinations. Like I said, I look at eight or nine guys as starting quality players, and there's not much separation between one and nine, one and ten, when we're completely healthy. And so it's, you know, we may look at these two guys play better together, and the best way for that to happen is them off the bench. Or we may just rotate game by game, depending on the matchup, depending on, you know, what that game calls for.

On how he's seen the new players acclimate to the system

I can't compliment those guys enough for how important they've been in recruiting, how important they've been just helping the staff get acclimated, as Tom and Lisa and everyone has tried to help us avoid spending the time on things we don't need to be spending time on. But, well, more than even the intangibles of what they've helped with in recruiting and logistically, those guys have played well. And Will and Nimari, they've performed at a high level in practice. They bring a different element to our team that we probably didn't have if those guys didn't stay with us. So we're very, very fortunate that they chose to stay here, and they love Michigan, and that's another thing that is contagious. Until you see the pride in a program and feel it, you don't know, and those guys have both talked about it extensively, how much it means to where that ends. So we're extremely excited to go through the season with those guys still being a part of Michigan.

On whether he's like how the team has come together

You know, and I'm not avoiding the question, but we have a really small sample size. In that sample size, the groups that we thought would click well together have clicked well together. They've found ways this summer to stand up, the big guys have found ways to stand up each other's space and play off of each other. Defensively, I feel like in the last week we've taken a step forward with the level of intensity that's required. There's a different level of pace in the summer than there is in the fall, and you forget how difficult it is to win a possession in the summertime. You forget how tough it is to win a game, a four-minute period, let alone a Big Ten game. So we haven't had any, there hasn't been any instances where we thought, man, this would work, and it hasn't, but we also don't have a very big sample size. But no, I guess, immediate fires as of now.

On what the defensive philosophy is

Contain the bounce and stay on balance, and therefore you're a good rebounding team if you can do those things. If you have five guys pushing a rebound every session, then that starts our break, and that's another reason we need multiple handlers because we don't want to have to outlet it. Now our centers have, of course, been poor defensive rebounders, but it's more just the emphasis on our guards and forwards to go get it. So you have a guard with a running start who can see the ball fighting, and the bigs usually fight another big. And so it's just kind of a byproduct of how we play. But defensively, I mean, it's intense, but we've got to be able to guard the basketball. With the way we play schematically, guarding the basketball is paramount.

On revenue sharing within the basketball program

We've discussed it, but before there's a concrete answer, and even all my questions are usually prefaced with, I'm not going to hold you to this, but what do you think as of today it's going to look like? And most of the answers are it's still too early to tell. There's people working on that because you don't really know. There's a couple different directions it could go. What are we looking for? We'd like to have one of the top budgets in the Big Ten and in the country and have the ability to retain our roster and help attract other high-performing players and driven players. But, no, there's nothing concrete, but we've had several discussions.

On his expectations for the team in year one

I do think this team, we have the individual pieces where we could have a really good basketball team. Obviously, as we all know, once you get to the tournament, the matchups, the breaks, the health, all those things play a factor. But we're a confident group. These guys, like I said, most of them come from programs that they won a lot of games and won championships and things like that. So I don't think they came here to take a step back and not compete for those same championships. But once again, the talk is the talk and the play is the play.

On whether there's been growing pains so far in practice

Yeah, absolutely. There's been clunkiness on both sides of the basketball. There will be as new problems come up in game situations. But our guys have bought in and embraced the play and the style of play that we want to play. That word's a little bit old, the style of play. It's guys sharing a basketball, cutting for each other, moving for each other, screening for each other, taking what the game gives them, all those things. We do feel like our guys have embraced playing that way and staying away from the individual side as much as young players can.

On who the tone setters are on defense

Obviously, usually your bigs, your red protector, and your guards can really impact the energy of possessions and games. Just out front, guarding the basketball and being disruptive. Rubin Jones was the lead defender. Vlad Goldin was the lead red protector. Trey Donaldson has a big, big upside defensively. Those are the guys that jump out. But Roddy Gayle and Nimari, they've been great positionally. Danny Wolf, solid. Will Tschetter, if we can keep him from the unnecessary fouls, he's been a good defender. We need him to be really good this year. Those are the ones that jump out.

On what it means for him personally to lead the program

It's an honor just to be the coach of Michigan. Personally, I don't look at it as it's my responsibility. There's a great team of coaches and staffers around me, and we've brought in guys that have a lot of pride in this program. So I feel like it's a cumulative effort. It's a responsibility of us all. Yeah, it's on me to set the tone and go in the right direction at all times. But we all, it's a joint effort to get this program back to where it needs to be. Coach, we're going to go back to the back with Brian here.

On whether he views this year as solving a puzzle and whether that's invigorating

Yeah, it's fun. It's new. And we have. We've discovered some things about players that maybe they just weren't in the right situation to do certain things that their last program wouldn't have been the case. It's been fun just to get to know new guys. I mean, obviously we've been very busy recruiting and traveling, so we haven't been with them as much as we typically would be as you build a program. But we're excited to go on road trips with our guys and spend 48 hours extensively with them and things like that. But as far as energized, yeah, to see these guys really, really go out of their way to support each other and try to share the ball and help each other, it's been fun to watch.

On what metrics he sees as applicable to the team

Well, we shoot the ball well and we're big. I don't want to say we're a really good rebounding team yet. We're not. We probably made some errors this summer and some things we were focused on that probably aren't going to work out as well as I'd hoped. So turning to basketball, you can shoot it well and you can rebound it. The Achilles heel is turning over. We have been a little bit loose with the basketball, but that's to be expected when we play at the pace we are every day. I mean, I don't think we've ever implemented this style and didn't turn it over a lot earlier just because everything's moving. It's like listening to a podcast in 2X. It's just going a lot faster, so you're obviously not going to retain the same amount of information you would in 1X. And so we're not overreacting to that. If it's still an issue five or ten games, then we might have to change some things schematically. But for the most part, that's to be expected. And so we have to be patient with that and make sure that they're learning through film and learning from those mistakes.

On the shooting numbers

Yeah, we've shot well. Not quite as well as I thought we would. Actually, I got a report last night, and we take out late shot clock threes in the last three seconds of the clock. We don't really evaluate that right now in the scheme of our team building. But we've shot it well, catch and shoot threes. We've generated good shots. A good percentage of them have been open threes on contested threes, which is what we take pride in. But then, like I said, the flip side of it is then you're wondering if you're just not guarding or if you're not closing out well. So that's always the dilemma in preseason. But, yeah, we've shot the ball well. We have a good shooting group.

On whether he's identified any alphas on the team

I do think that was a little bit misconstrued about our teams before we had some guys that weren't our most productive players that were the leaders of our team and had the locker room. Yeah, we have a few. I mean, I think Will Tschetter, I don't think anyone in this room expects him to lead us in scoring. But he's had as big of a role as far as leadership, modeling behavior, being a voice, sharing his experiences in this conference. A lot of us are new to this conference. I haven't been to this conference in a while. So he and Nimari and Jace and a few of the other guys have really helped just, you know, we don't call fouls in practice. Roddy Gayle's another one. We just remind the guys that we don't know how the game's going to be called, but the Big Ten's notoriously physical. And the Big Ten and Big East, they call less fouls. So we've got to be prepared to play through that. But yeah, Will's the one that steps out as a guy that's really had a strong voice.

On what he knows about Michigan now that he didn't know then when he took the job and how has he leaned on John Beilein for advice

What I didn't know now, or what I know now that I didn't know then, man, that's a great question. Because I held this place in such high regard. And so I'll get back with you on that one. I've learned a lot about Michigan and the people that associated with it. But there's not one thing that jumps out, because like I said, I revered this place from afar. And as far as Coach Beilein, I mean, I lean on him for advice. I mean, even as much as he shared where I should get my hair cut and things like that, just to try to help make my life simpler. We have a very cluttered lifestyle as coaches, especially taking over a new program with the work that we need to put in. But I spoke with him yesterday, and it's leaning on him for, you know, what was your thought process here? How did you respond to this? Why did you do this? What was your thought process here? And obviously the game's changed and the profession's changed. But I don't think he's given me an answer where I didn't think, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I can see why you're going to be in the Hall of Fame before you're done.

On what he's seen from the freshmen

Yeah, they have. I'll start with Pip, and Pip probably got off to the best start. The first couple weeks that he was able to work out, he looked like a seasoned vet. He was tough. He was poised. You would think he's a fifth-year. You'd think he's a sixth-year senior that's had a couple medical redshirts as far as his pace and the way he plays. And he hasn't practiced much since. He had a medical procedure. He'll be back very soon. And so we haven't seen a lot of him. Brooks had an injury this summer. He came in with a knee issue. And so he didn't practice, I would say, the first five or six weeks. Lately he's really coming into his own. He's getting more confident in his jump shot. Extremely disruptive defensively. His ability, and I don't want to say this too loud, but he could be playing out in front of 111,000 fans on a Saturday as far as his ball instincts. He just brings a lot to the table. I think he's intangible. He's a great teammate. I don't think there's been one minute of a practice where I haven't thought, man, I love coaching Phat Phat. He's that type of guy. And he's started to play much better recently, as I said. Cason has been a real bright spot. His durability, I don't know if he's missed a practice yet or how many workouts we've had practices. He's performed at a high level. And to be honest, his ability to create one-on-one opportunities is what he does best. And even though we don't play like that a lot as a group, when teams switch and ball you down, you need somebody that can create that advantage on their own. And he's been as good as anyone on our roster at creating offense. I think he's shooting almost 50% off the bounce from three over whatever it is now, 30 to 50 practices on a pretty big sample size. So you never know if they can do it in a game. But he's a guy that's very confident. He won state championships in high school. He's in big-time games in the AAU circuit. And so past performance, I guess we'll predict that he's going to be ready to help us as a freshman.

On the thought process behind the non-conference schedule

It's more of a confidence in our group. I think we inherited the Fort Myers tournament. The MTEs are usually planned well in advance. Other than that, I think we scheduled every other game. We had a blank canvas. To be honest, we have confidence in our guys. We felt like an older group like this, they want to play in big games. We wanted Michigan to be back on national television playing in historic environments like MSG and then playing quality programs. Wake Forest is picked in the top three of the ACC. TCU is, if anyone knows anything about Jamie Dixon, the guy just finds a way to win almost every single year at a high level. And just going back to what we changed our philosophy three or four years ago, where we just felt like the teams are really scheduled aggressively early. They improved. They were challenged. They were exposed. Their warts were out in the open. And they stayed the course, and they improved because of all that. And you might take some hits early. I've seen several of the metrics where we're top five scheduled in the country. Did we intend to be one of the best, toughest schedules in the country? No, but we definitely wanted to play Arkansas and Wake Forest and those guys. It's going to be fun. It's going to be challenging. It's going to test our resolve because some of those teams are physical. They're tough, but like I said, it's more with having confidence in the guys in our locker room.

On whether there's a go-to guy offensively

Roddy could definitely. He's definitely capable of being that guy on any given night. He's performed incredibly well the last few weeks. He's playing in the high level. Danny Wolf is another guy. And a lot of it with us is the matchups, is creating the advantage and playing off of each other. We don't really want to get into a lot of situations where we just throw it to a guy and expect him to go get us a basket because usually he's playing with four other guys, and we just think that's the least efficient way to play. But without a doubt, we could throw it to Roddy on an elbow, and we feel like he can go get us a basket, and we will do that some. But, yeah, that's a great question. Vlad down low, if we can find a way to get him one-on-one coverage in the post, he's a go-to guy. But, yeah, Roddy's been someone that if we can get him the ball in space, he's been able to convert. He gets to the foul line. He's shooting the basketball well. But that would be very realistic to say that Roddy's that guy in the last two minutes of the game to get the ball. He can get us a basket, a late shot clock, or whatever.

On whether he feels the need to adapt to the Big Ten

Yeah, I do think it would be a little bit different because there would be a West Coast group of officials officiating. That league was a little bit different. But we're going to adjust to how the game's being played. Obviously, the size, strength of the Big Ten is part of the culture of the league. And justified or not, it doesn't matter. But, yeah, we do feel like we're going to have to. And you play with great physicality. We do feel like you can always pull it back a little bit and play with less physicality if you need to. But we don't feel like we're one of the more physical teams in the Big Ten. That's one area of concern is physicality. So we're addressing that. And without a doubt, we can always pull it back if we're fouling too often. Yeah, I mean, everything we do, we'd like to be a little bit different from the norm. We want to play a little bit faster. We probably want to shoot a few more threes. We want to switch a little bit more. Whatever the case, do something different that teams don't see every day. But as far as playing without physicality defensively, I think if we didn't play with physicality, we wouldn't get enough stops to be able to push Temple and score the way we want to. So they go hand-in-hand. We do feel like we have a group that we can adjust. And that's part of the NCAA tournament, preseason games. These tournaments, you have to be able to play slow. You have to be able to play fast. You have to be able to win when you don't shoot well. It's just that's the game of basketball that makes it so unique. You play so many games against so many different types of opponents. If you're going to have a great season or a really good season, you have to be able to adapt and play different styles. So we would much rather play with great physicality right now and be able to pull it back than to be playing powder puff and try to pick it up later.

On whether he feels like the team can play different styles

I think so. The staff, we were very intentional to build a roster. We had positional versatility. We had good size. We had enough speed and quickness. So we do think so.

On having the team playing together

A little bit of both. We want guys to take what the game gives us. If there's two on the basketball, we expect that guy to pass it, even if he's our leading scorer. But we also believe that because we're putting good shooters over there and over there, that he's got a lot of trust and faith that he's going to make the right play as well. I do think it's a product of how we're built. We didn't go sign anyone that got 25 a game at a lower level because we do value the team beat. We enjoy coaching it when everyone's doing it together and everyone's involved. We don't really have guys stand in quarters for 20 to 25 seconds because we do think these young guys want to be involved. Not necessarily shooter, but they want to be involved in the game. But also because we have a lot of guys who think they're double-digit quality scorers, and on that given night, maybe it's a matchup, maybe it didn't begin, the ball just finds them a little more often, and they take advantage of it.

On picking spots to be tough with players and making mistakes

I think the personality of the player is very important. If it's a player that's aloof and maybe they're selfish, in whatever case, maybe you remind them that their actions can cost the group in that particular moment. To be honest, I'd forgotten about it until Vlad brought it up. I think Vlad actually tipped the ball in for the other team, wasn't physical enough on a rebound. It happens as a young big. The message was that we're obviously not going to go back and change it, but we need to learn from it and make sure this never happens again. You have three more years of college basketball. There's no other way to change a habit than to feel the way you feel right now because you have character. I don't think he's just missed a play like that since. To be honest, I felt like there was a game last year where I made an error, a judgment error, maybe it was a substitution or whatever. You never know. We're making a bet. He reminded me of that moment that we win together, we lose together. It was a very similar situation from a few years prior. We all show up and we're very accountable to each other. If I make a mistake or if our players make a mistake, I want them to feel the guilt towards their teammates and really try to fix it versus the backlash or the losing or whatever. It's just accountability that we're all in this doing our absolute best every single day. I do think the accountability, because they're doing it together, because they're accountable to each other, because they bring other guys with them to the gym, it means a little bit more than it would otherwise.

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