On how the acclimation process to Michigan has been like

Well, thanks for asking. I'm doing great. It's starting to feel normal now that the basketball season's here. For the first time, we're able to fall into a routine and see our guys regularly, have more time to spend with them on the court, in the film room, in the weight room. So it's been great. We still have some catching up to do as far as the relationship piece with this all being a new group and figuring each other out and how to coach these guys better and whatnot. But it's been pretty smooth so far.

On how his family and wife been acclimating to Michigan

Well, this extended summer and it feels like spring now and almost November, she's acclimating well because of that. But no, the city's been amazing. The campus has been so welcoming. So I don't think we could have had a smoother transition. Now, the home improvement projects are still ongoing. But other than that, yeah, things are smooth.

On his son Jack being with the Miami Heat

He's been in the Miami Heat video room. And anyone that knows anything about the Miami Heat video room, there's, they don't get out of the video room very often. He's extremely busy. Luckily, the sport connects us. So, and I know their coaches, so we'll ask them, you know, how'd you guys defend this? Or what do you guys do in this situation? And he follows college basketball closely and watches our games. So we still talk probably more about basketball than life. But yeah, things are going really well for him. He's learning a lot. It's challenging. He went from being a college student where he was on the team at Florida and played golf every day, and school's relatively easy for him, and now he's grinding it out. So it's been great.

On the new locker rooms and maximizing resources at Michigan

I don't think we've learned to maximize it yet. We've been displaced since the first week on the job. But because of COVID and because of where we came from, it wasn't out of the ordinary for us. We weren't accustomed to having a practice facility and a gym and being able to go whenever we need to go and things like that. So it's been fine. But now that the locker room's open, it's just a lot easier and more convenient to interact with our guys. They're around more, they're spending more time together because of the spaces. So there's video games, there's a recovery room, the locker room's spacious. It's just a great work environment for the guys. So it's just in the last week, we feel like we're starting to kind of settle into how we do things. Even yesterday's the first day we watched film after practice in the locker room. So we're still determined what the best way for our environment to be conducive to their learning. But some of it's gonna be trial and error as well.

On sudden change

Terry, I read Coach Schembechler's book, a book on Coach Schembechler, and I learned where the sudden change originated from and we've certainly used it in our practices as well.

On how the new staff have acclimated to the program

A lot like our players. They're all uniquely talented and they've really used their strengths for the staff. The cohesiveness of the group has been the thing that's most impressive. In our business, a lot of us coaches are alphas, we're go-getters, we're driven. And so just like players who wanna be great, you have to have some self-awareness to really sit back and evaluate where you fit in, what this group needs me to do, and then live in my strengths. But they've been great, they've helped me. We wouldn't be here where we are recruiting-wise from a tactical standpoint if it wasn't for how well they've worked together and the preparation that they've put into everything.

On how he was able to put the program together so quickly

Well, we were fortunate that there were some pre-established relationships where it wasn't as much speed dating. We had a good feeling Vlad was gonna join us. Danny Wolf obviously had some connections to Michigan. Keeping Nimari, Will, and Jace gave us a real sound foundation of guys with institutional knowledge. And then we targeted the right guys. Rubin Jones, we were obviously familiar with. Sam Walters, we had known him a little bit since he was young, and our relationship with the Alabama program helped there. They didn't want him to leave, but they did tell him, if you're gonna go play in the Big 10, you need to go to Michigan. So we had some built-in advantages. Trey Donaldson, we had followed for years. Roddy Gayle, staff had a pre-existing relationship to the people around him that really trusted the staff. So it all kind of fell into place. But we also were looking for qualities, individual qualities outside of basketball to fit us. The unselfishness, the hardworking, just the overall quality of people you need to have here at Michigan.

On Nate Oats

Nate was a high school coach at Romulus when I was at Eastern Michigan. So he and I spent a lot of time together, and we've shared a lot of basketball conversations. And like I said, his entire staff we have connections with. So they did sign off, Sam left on the right terms. And fortunately for us, he's been great.

On LJ Cason

Yeah, Kyle did a wonderful job with LJ's family, earning their trust. And at FAU, he had a couple high majors, a couple of biggie schools recruiting him fairly aggressively. But he fit, from a personnel standpoint, how we wanted to play. He really identified with the characteristics of our guys at FAU, with the spirit and the passion and the competitive fire they played with. And so he was always attracted to that. And then he's just such a wonderful human being that the relationship was easy because he was so sincere. He was about all the right stuff. And we knew we had a good player. I don't know if we knew we had a guy that could step in as a freshman. And granted, it's two exhibition games, but it's very difficult to be a college freshman. But LJ's a different type of kid too. When he was in high school, he worked a part-time job. He had a group around him that really, really poured into him. So in one side of it, I'm surprised just because I know how tough it is for freshmen. But the other side of it is he's a confident, tough young man that's had to weather some storms, and he's special.

On what has stood out about LJ Cason and being able to get playing time

Typically, the freshmen that can get anywhere they need to with the ball have a chance to play because they're not overwhelmed. They can get to their spots, and they're not overpressured, and they're not sped up. But for LJ to come in and create offense like he has, for him to have the physical strength that he has as a freshman, and being able to hold his ground and fight tougher, bigger guys, bigger, stronger guys, it's been impressive. But more than anything else, just his poise and him being unafraid of anything. I think you go back to saying if you see LJ in a fight with a bear, you probably need to help the bear. He's a tough kid.

On how he's seen Cason's defensive game develop this summer

He's still learning the nuances of off-ball defense. He's extremely competitive on the ball, and probably his most valuable quality defensively is his quickness and anticipation to get loose basketballs. He's around the ball a lot, and 50-50 basketballs aren't 50-50 balls when he's around. He gets his fair share of them. He gets more than his fair share of them, and those are extra possessions. Those are, you know, if you're five of eight from the field, and you go get three extra possessions on loose basketballs, you're really batting 100%, and that's what he does. But yeah, just the, when you're a freshman, you haven't seen all the patterns and the schemes, and you don't have quite the same level of awareness that you have just by naturally getting those reps as a veteran. When he has some reps under his belt and a few more scouting reports, I think his anticipation off the ball is gonna get even better, and we'll see his still numbers go up. We'll see him drawing more off-ball charges and making plays like that.

On the steals against Toledo

We were very, very active in the gaps. Rubin Jones, Phat Brooks came in, and I thought he made a, he changed the complexion of the game with his energy and his effort. But the second half, they started spreading us out and just, they got away from their system and drove us and isolated us a lot more, and we needed to guard the ball better and have more gap help in the second half. But yeah, those guys are, those quick aggressive guards we have, Trey Donaldson and Rubin and Roddy, like they're very, very capable of getting in the gaps and the passing lanes while also not giving up catch to shoot threes.

On Rubin Jones' play

I don't think Rubin's happy with the way he's played in the two exhibitions, but he's brought a lot of winning plays to both games. He's gonna get better. He has missed a lot of practices because of minor injuries, and I think he's gonna have a really sound year for us We just have so many capable scorers that there might be a night when he gets 19, and the next night, he might get three, just because of the way we're wired, and he's okay with that. He's gotta be an all-league defender for us, and just a connector of making it all work, but he was a thorn in our side for a couple years, and there were two guys at North Texas who we thought, those are two guys that impact winning as much as anyone in our conference, and coincidentally, we're really close with their staff as well, so when Reuben went in the portal and he wasn't going back to North Texas, we didn't think he would leave. We didn't think he would go far. We thought he might end up at Houston or one of the Texas schools, and we got on a Zoom, and it went really, really well, and then the North Texas staff, they thought the same thing we did, that he'd be a good fit for us, and especially in year one, having someone that is already, he brings so many different winning qualities to the table that he could help us as much as we could help him, and he will. He's somebody that we're very, very grateful that he chose us, and he hasn't shown how good of a player he is quite yet. He's been in foul trouble. Our rotations haven't been as crisp as they will be once we get to know our team, because we haven't had the group together near as much as we need to to really start humming.

On pace of play and Vlad Goldin getting touches

Well, yes, absolutely, and we don't have our quick hitters in for him. When you evaluate our pace, it's a lot different. It would be even faster if it wasn't for Vlad, but there are times when Vlad has that matchup that we have to slow down, get organized, and get him the ball, and each game's a little bit different. If there's a big physical center, we're probably just gonna stay in flow and get that big guy away from the hoop and get him moving around, but if there's a guy we feel like he can score on and the game slows down at all, we feel very confident that we can throw it into Vlad, and he's such an unselfish passer. He's hitting fan out three, so sometimes getting him a post touch, we end up getting a better three because of it, but if you look at what Will Tschetter's doing, I don't know if there's a guy changing ends with any more urgency in college basketball than he is, and for him to steal eight or 10 points a game right now simply by beating the other team down the floor, and I wanna give Trey Donaldson a lot of credit. He's been rebounding the ball well, and he's been putting it right in the bread basket, Will, running deep, and so those two things have been a real bright spot for us because when you put that type of pressure on the defense, they usually wear down.

On correcting missed shots around the basket

Well, we put a major emphasis on it yesterday. Typically, we don't practice on Sundays, and typically, we don't practice very long. These guys, they're real students. They go to class, they have weights, they have tutors, and so we decided yesterday we needed to have a real, real practice, and majority of it was simply playing with more explosion, more power, finishing through contact, and so to be honest, we made a significant improvement yesterday. We've missed probably eight or 10 dunks in the two games, and maybe that is just the early season conditioning aspect where game conditioning is a lot different than practice conditioning, and so we hope that's part of it, but there's gonna be, I thought Roddy Gale adjusted during the game. His first couple finishes, he didn't have the same power that he had. He was determined in the second half, and when he drives and he puts on his brakes like he did a few times, that he's gonna be a guy that lives at the free throw line. I think he drew eight or nine fouls against Toledo, and so we've gotta emphasize that we've gotta teach a few things a little bit better, and we've gotta spend more time finishing through contact, but that's one thing about these preseason exhibition games. You never really know what your weakness is going to be because of the way you play in practice, and there were some things that we were exposed on, and we're very grateful for it because now we have time to work on it when we still have ample practice hours.

On how he structures the week before the season-opener

The first few days after the game, we're gonna spend on us. There's gonna be no, we're not talking about Cleveland State, we're not talking about any of our opponents. If there's a team that presses or a team that plays a tricky zone or anything out of the ordinary, then we'll start sprinkling that in and practice. But for the most part, it's all about us fixing what we think are gonna be issues and fixing what has already proved to be issues. Like you said, the finishing around the basket. Those things we're working on now. We'll take, we're off today, we'll go aggressively the next two days, take another day off and then a full speed ahead on Cleveland State. But this has gotta be a time when we improve as a group. And when I said that, Brian, it was more of I wish we had a scrimmage earlier so you're not practicing the first, you'd love to learn more about yourself from an opponent and then have some more practice time. And then so this game actually, I think is the perfect timing. The Oakland scrimmage in a perfect world would be a little bit earlier. Or I should have done it earlier. I

On whether there's limitations to how early you can scrimmage

If we choose to do a close scrimmage against a ACC school or an SEC school, then yes, you can pretty much pick. Most coaches don't like to do it that early. So it's tough to find one. We just felt like we learned so much about our team through the scrimmages because we play a little bit differently and we think it's unique. So we love to do it earlier. The timing doesn't always work out. So we're not obsessed with it, but in a perfect world, we would have learned more about ourselves earlier.

On whether he tries to get into sets during scrimmages

Well, we put in a couple entries just to get the ball moving. I think late in the game against Toledo, we ran a couple ATOs that were just designed to get the ball in the right guy's hands. But for the most part, we may not even run that same set ever again. We do something different out of every time out, but we have enough sets in now where if the game became a little bit clunky, but we just right now, we refuse to stop and slow down so we can get organized. We feel like we went all summer teaching the play after the play and our motion, our flow offense, why would we stop that now when we've gotten pretty good at it and it's much more difficult to defend?

On trying to win the exhibition games

Yeah, if there's a close scrimmage, sometimes losing, it really teaches humility and refocuses you. You never know what your team needs or it could cause a little bit of confidence issues. You never really know, but once it became, we got up 16, we're on our transition break. I was gonna call timeout immediately and I thought, you know what? Let's see how we can play through this. Let's see if we can figure this out. We didn't very well. We ended up calling, and then Toledo made some really, really difficult plays where we were happy with our performance, but I thought the last four minutes, a lot of times the power five schools can get a little bit tight in that situation where they look a little different, they look a little hesitant. I thought our guys rose to the challenge. They looked even better as the game got tighter. And man, it's nice to see your guys step up and make free throws when they really, really mattered down the stretch. And so the last four minutes, we couldn't have created a better end of game situation for practice against somebody else and someone who was in a pretty good rhythm.

On getting to know Kim Barnes Arico

Well, I met Kim the first night we were in town at the dinner, the welcome dinner with the trustees and Ward. And so it was nice to get to know her. And their program is extremely successful. So just like Sherrone and the football program, we wanna learn from them. We wanna take the things that they've done that have worked. And I mean, we cross paths with them in the weight room and on the court. So it has to be a great working relationship. And we both have to be very, very empathetic towards the needs of each other and work well together. And we do, there hasn't been an issue. We're cheering for them hard every single game. Their success helps us and hopefully our success will help them. But they're great coaches. And I've enjoyed watching them work because they get after it.

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