On what he likes about the team defensively
And what do you think you still have to improve on? A lot to improve on, but we've made significant progress from the time we got here, and a lot of it is just continuity, and guys getting reps with each other. Understanding each other's strengths, understanding where we can help where some guys have weaknesses. But overall, two games, been pretty pleased with our effort on the defensive end. Obviously, we had some turnovers that led to some easy baskets, but for the most part on Sunday against Wake, our defense sort of held the line for the most part. We had some offensive issues, particularly late, that we need to clean up. But our defense got a long way to go, but I like the progress we've made since June.
On defensive rebounding
Yeah, that's an area we gotta continue to emphasize. Certainly, I think I looked it up today, we have the sixth tallest team in terms of average height in the country, according to Kempom. And so, not that height necessarily correlates with rebounding always, right? Cuz sometimes smaller guys just have a better knack for finding the ball, but it should be a strength of this team with the composite size we have. When you talk about even guys like Roddy Gayle, who can be a better rebounder for us than he's been so far. Sam Walters can stick his nose in there, he's not the strongest kid, but he can stick his nose in there a little bit more, and Nimari, guys like that. So obviously, everybody points to our bigs. But a lot of times, what happens, honestly, is teams put one or two guys on them, and they're in a battle, right, with another body. And don't always have the freedom to release and go get the ball. That's where our guards have to continue to be better in that area, of course.
On the required ingredients to have a good defensive team
Well, first is effort, right? There's a will, defensively, that you have to have. If you don't have a desire to be good defensively, you won't. And so you gotta be committed. You have to understand that your teammates need you. Obviously, there's some things intangibly that can make a defense better or not as good. Length helps, because you can be more disruptive without necessarily pressuring or pressing, so to speak. Rebound is always a big, big part of your ability to be a good defensive team, because if you can't finish the possession, it really kind of moves the effort that you put to stop a team from getting a great shot. But then, obviously, you gotta have guys who understand the concepts that you're trying to implement, whether it be how you're gonna defend ball screens, how you're gonna defend in the post, how you're gonna defend a team that's gonna go to five out, which sometimes I think we'll see, especially to counter our size. So just effort, concepts, and then just a will to be good on that end. And it's a desire to understand that that's a part of being a good team, is having a good defense to counter what we think will be a really good offense.
On whether he feels the team has the makings of a top 25-30 defense
Yeah, it's too early to say, kind of. What I have a hard time with now in college basketball is just there's so much turnover everywhere, right? It used to be just a few teams took transfers, and so it took a while for you to figure out, but everybody, I mean, us, we're obviously an example of it. We won't know a lot about a lot of teams for probably another month, probably getting to probably mid-December before you can say, okay, their identity's taking shape here. But what I do like is that from a length and from a philosophical standpoint, there's a path to being a really good defensive team. So if we were really small and thought we had to press, then I'd be concerned, because it's not necessarily gonna go well with how we wanna play offensively. We can tire ourselves out on defense, but we can be really good in the half court defensively as we're built.
On Dusty May being concerned with defensive rebounding during camp
Well, just watch us in practice every day. I think you just take the information that you're receiving from what you're seeing on a day-to-day basis in practice, and rebounding, honestly, a lot of times is kind of a, you really kind of do it well and you don't. Don't really teach guys to become good rebounders. I mean, think about the best rebounders, a lot of them, like Dennis Rodman, obviously, been around this area. One of the biggest guy here, the unbelievable will to just go find a ball. And we don't necessarily have a bunch of guys who have that. And so you gotta teach him how to conceptually rebound. Where the ball may bounce, obviously, a shot taken from one side of the floor, usually, is gonna bounce the other way. So we're teaching those guys that. But our offensive practice puts us into some pretty compromising positions. And so it exposes some of those things earlier than maybe what we would have found out before.
On how the offensive style of play impacts the way he schemes defense
Yeah, I mean, obviously, you have to coach one side of the ball to continue to have a positive impact on the other side. And so we won't necessarily press as much if we don't need to. We'll play much more half-court control of the game. With our size, we think we can be disruptive in the half-court well enough not to have to extend the floor a ton. But at the same time, our offense is gonna be one that's more free-flowing. And because of that, we're gonna have guys probably cross-matched in transition because a lot of guys can handle the ball for us. You'll see Danny Wolf pushing the break. So maybe he may get cross-matched because he's taking a three or maybe he's cutting to the basket or him and Vlad are playing in a two-man game. But now our guards are getting back after the guard breaker guy. So at that point, it's just a matter of communication. And so we switch a lot because we have positional size. We think that teams won't be able to really hurt us in switching. But again, we don't know how good we can be until we get five, six, seven games under our belt and have some real data against other opponents. Because one of the things that we don't see a lot in practice is pressure defense. And so I think even in the weight game, they got a little more aggressive. Midway through the first half, kind of put us on our heels a little bit there to end the half. We didn't have a great finish to the half or great start to the second half. Because it took us some time to adapt to their physicality. Because we do, again, in our practices, we don't see that on a day-to-day basis. So getting these reps in our conference will help us move forward.
On playing TCU
Well, just Jamie Dixon, proven coach, proven winner. He's had success everywhere he's been. Even as time as an assistant at Pitt, then he took over and they were really, really good. And then obviously, it took a little while to get TCU going, but he's been to the tournament, I think, three years in a row now, maybe. And unfortunately, had to face Gonzaga in the second round, two of those years. Otherwise, he may have had a better chance to get to the Sweet 16. But his teams have always been really, really physical, really tough. The last few years, they've been really, really fast. I think they've led the nation the last two years in transition points. And so the way they wanna play the way we wanna play could be led to a very entertaining game, a lot of points scored. Not for the defensive coach won't be so happy. But they're gonna be well prepared. They're gonna be disciplined. They're gonna be tough and physical, and they'll play fast, so.
On the ways to beat a trap
Yeah, spacing, right? You gotta have outlets. We won't see, I don't think we'll see a whole lot of trapping. Just because we have so many different guys who can handle the ball, pass it, shoot it. So it'll put us in an advantage situation somewhere. They put two on the ball a lot. So then it's a matter of cutting and finding the right guy. But to do that, we gotta be willing to know that it's okay to get off of it. Sometimes it's harder for guys earlier to trust that because they're used to. And Wolf is probably the best example we have. He was so prominently featured in their offense that he's starting to figure out that Trey Donaldson can handle the ball and make plays for him. Trey doesn't necessarily need him to make plays for himself all the time. And so just getting that chemistry in these games will really help us long term. But in terms of trapping us, I mean, we got guys like Sam Walters out there. And you're making the choice to maybe leave him open by chance or being in a late rotation to him. I think teams will second guess whether they'll actually trap us a lot, maybe in the post some. Cuz our bigs are usually not as good passers out of double teams, but our guards will be handling the ball most of the time in those pick and roll situations. Coach, right in the middle with Anthony.
On whether the staff mostly operates as data-driven or gut feel
I'd say it's probably 75 to 80% data-driven. But there's an element of knowing your team that you kind of have to throw the numbers out with. We're learning some of that because we have so many new guys. We're new to each other, some of us. Known Dusty for a long time, which I never worked with him. So I'll give you a great example. I was helping him with substitutions in, I think it was maybe our second exhibition game, and Rubin picked up a second foul in the first half. Well, my philosophy, we hadn't talked about that. So in the game, I didn't sub him in, but I asked him about it afterwards. And he's like, you know what? I would probably have been okay with it. So those are some of the things that we'll learn as a staff. Because some people are trying to do two fouls in the first half, you sit, right? Some people are less restrictive on that. And so those things will evolve as we learn our guys, how they handle those situations. As you saw the other day, we played Rubin and Nimari with two fouls in the first half on Sunday, right? So those are things that we'll continue to learn about ourselves as a staff, but also about our team, what they can handle.
On whether it'll take a month to figure out this team
Yeah, I mean, just to give a kind of ballpark, it won't be exactly, right? November, I mean, November was our first game, November 3rd or 4th? What was it, 4th, right? It won't necessarily be December 4th. But I think around that time, we would have played enough games, home, neutral, high major, mid major, different styles. We saw some zone against Oakland. We saw some pressure defense against Wake. I'm sure we'll see something a little bit different from TCU in terms of maybe how they guard ball screens. Typically, they kind of ice them or try to keep us on the side of a floor when our coach hits it before. We haven't seen that yet. So I think we'll have enough at least entry points of beta where we can say, okay, this is how this team needs to become good over the next month, right? And so then December's a month about fine-tuning those things before you really get to the grind of conference play.
On the defensive vision playing Vlad Goldin and Danny Wolf together
Yeah, it's interesting you say that. So when I first told Dusty back in the spring that I would come with him and we knew we were gonna pursue both of those guys, that was the first thing he said. He said, I need you to study the film on if this can work defensively. He felt pretty confident about it working offensively. But in terms of how I thought I could help us build a system with the rest of the staff on, can we be a switching team with two bigs, can one of them good enough to guard on the perimeter and switching, which we do a lot. And the truth is college basketball helps you a little bit with that because you can play zone, you can stand in the lane a little bit more, you can help off certain guys. This with the NBA may be a little bit more difficult to do that because of the spacing rules and the defensive three seconds. But those guys have embraced the challenge because it has been different for them. We have asked them to do things that they haven't done as much in the past. But they're really coachable guys. And I think their teammates are learning how to help them when they are in those situations on the perimeter. But we had a possession the other day when there was some confusion, black got caught on the perimeter. We gave up a three-two at the end of the first half. But again, it's getting through those kinks and figuring out how to get those rotations down that actually excites me. Those are the challenges that I look forward to solving during the season with our guys. And then looking back and saying, man, we did a really good job addressing that. Hopefully we won't have those situations hurt us as much and more important.
On how he rates a team having a good defensive performance
Yeah, I mean, there are a few things. We talk a lot about challenge shots, challenging shots. We want a high, high percentage of the shots to be challenged. We obviously don't want to give up as many threes. You want to take away from the other team what you want to do, right, to win on offense. So we want to make a lot of threes and we don't want to let the other team make a lot of threes. Defensive three-point percentage is a big one for us. We've defended the three pretty well so far in the first couple games. Contested shots, rebounding is always a big number for us. And then another one is assisted baskets by our team, how well they're playing within their offense. Teams are playing a lot of one-on-one. It's usually good for us because it means we can build help and make them take tougher shots. We did that with some success, more than we'd like the other day. But those are three of the things that we were pretty consistent about.
On Justin Pippen's status
Yeah, so I have to kind of be a little careful how much I speak. Dustin's the head coach still, so he's practicing. I think he's trending toward playing, but it's obviously the conversation's gonna come from him.
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