Q: Now that Nevada is on the schedule, what's your reaction?
A: I think it's a good game. They've won five in a row I believe. Is that right, Chris? Five in a row. And we've coached against Steve quite a bit over the time, coached against his top assistant noodles. Known him a long time as well. And so, it'll be a good game. They're big. They're really big. They play two seven-footers at the same time a lot and have big wings. And so it'll be a little different than what we had most of our games that we played where we played against small all and basically fours that played fives, and threes that played fours, and twos that played threes. This is going to be legitimate sizes for the respected positions.
Q: Does that mean Dave faces a tough test?
A: Well, think anybody. All are bigs. They're going to play two legitimate 6'11", 7-foot guys. And then they got other tall guys that have been kind of the five-man size that we've been playing against playing the four. So yeah, Dave will be important, so will Mitch and Zach and KJ. To this point, we haven't played two bigs, and I'm hoping we don't have to, because if they do play two bigs, one of them be on the perimeter the majority of the time. So maybe we can play up under that guy, but it'll be a challenge for our bigs
Q: You have two wings that are really, really good and their shooting percentage is just crazy. And I see CB at 62 or 63%. Ochai is high. You never say the word best when it comes to your teams, but do they remind you of any other wings that you've had that played at the high level? And then also you have two guys that are playing like point guards for you. Does that help get them a better shot?
A: CB's a little different. One reason why CB is shooting a very high percentage is because he's not shooting enough threes. Naturally if, if Christian was shooting... Christian is attempting the same number of that we had hoped he would make a game. So it's right around 2.7, 2.8. So if he was doing that, his percentages would come down because obviously you're probably not going to shoot 50% from free, but no, they're both having great years. I think Juan and Remy have done a good job of getting them shots, but I don't know if it's as much them from a number standpoint, because collectively they're averaging about seven assists a game, I think. Isn't that about right? About 3-9 and 3-1 or something like that? Isn't that about right Chris? That's not a ton for 50 minutes or 55 minutes. So I think the ball movement has been a big reason why they've been getting shots, not just off of their penetration, even though it's helped, don't get me wrong. But I actually think that that's something that we can improve on. I believe Remy and Juan should get more assists a game. Sometimes it's hard to get as many assists a game when you don't throw it to a big guy. That's the easiest way to get an assist, throw it to a big guy and have him bounce it once and get a basket. And we haven't scored as much inside this year, but I think that they certainly contributed to their success on shot selection. But I think ball movement by everybody's probably helped just as much as anything.
Q: As far as that duo of wings, is another duo of wings that you've had at your time at KU that you think kind of rivals how good those two have been so far?
A: Well, it's a little bit different. Yeah, there's been others. I don't know that we've had two play at the same time that's off to a better start, but we used to play two bigs. So when you play two bigs, there's one less wing that you can have out there, so to speak. So since we started playing four guards, these guys are really good, but Josh and Svi were pretty good too. There's been some more that were really good also, but it's a little bit harder to make a comparison because we usually play two little guards, a wing, and two bigs. And we haven't had the opportunity to play two wings very often. So they've probably been the two best true wings that we played with maybe together since I've been here.
Q: How much did these cancellations and just kind of all this craziness that's happening with your schedule right now, how much does that hurt your progress and development of the team doing what it typically does?
A: You know what, Matt, I don't know. Sean's done a great job on staying on top of that and hopefully, we'll have another announcement real soon on another game Saturday. Not yet obviously, but I don't know that it's hurt our progress. We probably have worried more about ourselves, which probably should help our progress. And we have opponents because we haven't known who we're going to play. So maybe that helps a little bit, but as far as not playing the Colorado game, we needed to play a road game that was hard, that we'd have to grind and have a crowd involved, and knowing how to take the crowd out of the game and that kind of stuff. We haven't had that yet because at St. John's it didn't ever become that situation. So the next road game that we play will be our first really true road game. And I was hoping we'd get one in before the league play, but that's not going to happen. But that may have hurt some, I don't know, but I don't think it's been a deterrent.
Q: Do you think you'll play Saturday?
A: Yeah, I think we'll play Saturday, but I don't know that for a fact, but we're working on it. We're working on it. So-
Q: Will it be non-con?
A: The way it looks right now, and I think I can speak definitely on this, Saturday's game will be a non-conference game. That game isn't going to be replaced with another conference team. So it will be a non-conference game if we get a game on Saturday, and I think that that's a very strong possibility.
Q: You said on your show that Stephen F. Austin might want to play?
A: No, no, they're out. They're out. I said that that was a talk that we had, but then they were eliminated themselves. So yeah, they're out.
Q: I asked Ochai if you gave a new year's resolution to the team, what would it be? He said defensive intensity. Do you agree with that? Would you add to it at all?
A: Well, I told them, "We can't control a lot of things about this year. You can't control health, you can't control exposures, you can't control a lot of different things, but you can control being in a stance. You can control competing on that end. You can control hitting somebody every time the ball's shot. You can control certain things that we haven't done." So I think if Ochai said that, that would probably be the right thing. Our defensive stats misleading though. Our defensive stats are poor. But the biggest reason why they're poor is because of pace of play. Whenever you play faster and have more possessions in the game, you give up more points. How many points you give up four out of five times doesn't have anything to do with how good you defend, in my opinion, because if you play fast, there's more possessions, you're going to give up more points. If you play slow, less possession, you give up less points. It's not that complicated. And when you play fast, the game gets looser. Every coach will tell you this. When the game gets looser, the end that's most effective is the defensive end. It's the same in football. I hadn't thought this through, I'm just talking off the cuff, but in football, you huddle up every play. So everybody's fresh, everybody's set, everybody knows that this is our coverage, this is what we're trying to do. In basketball, when it gets going like that, there's no control. There's broken floor plays, there's bigs guarding littles. There's littles guarding bigs. There's bad match ups. There's a lot of things that happen, which good defensive teams obviously are able o play through and adjust with that and all those things. And something else that really affects your defensive numbers is your offense. If you turn it over, which we have done, we haven't turned the ball over much this year, I don't know if you guys noticed that, but when we do, it's for layups. It's like we have more live-ball turnovers that lead to layups than anybody right now that I can see. Well, if you do that four times a game, the other team goes 4-4, it's hard to hold a team under 40% if you're giving up four uncontested layups. So I think there's ways that our defense will be better if we are better offensively in those situations and if we can just tighten up some things that is obviously created by loose play, more open floors. And we've talked about that quite a bit. So our defensive numbers are not great, but they're not as bad as what you think they are because you can't say, "Well, they're giving up 67 points a game. That's the worst in league." Well, yeah, we're scoring more points than everybody too. It doesn't go hand in hand. But we'll find out how good we are defensively starting in league play, because teams that play slow or with not as much tempo in league play will slow us down, which will naturally slow the other team down also. So we'll know more starting up, but our defensive field goal percentage is not what it needs to be. But I really think if you take away four layups a game, it's probably right where it should be. And the other thing is our rebound margin, considering how small we've been playing, isn't bad. If you're plus seven and you're playing that small, that's not a bad number, regardless of who you're playing.
Q: You already have the Saturday TCU game, obviously postponed.
A: Yeah.
Q: Do you think 18 is realistic or are you still of the belief that it might just not be all the conversations-
A: I think it's still realistic for some teams. Last year, it was realistic for us and nobody else. I think last year probably prepped us for this. And Sean can address this. I think that rolling with it playing three games in a week, I don't think coaches will look at it as much as advantage, disadvantage as they will we just need to get the games in. Everybody agree? Seemed like last year is there was too much jockey for a position. Well, we're not healthy. We don't want to play. I don't think there's going to be that this year. I think if you can put a team out there, I think people will put a team out there. And the way this thing's going, I just don't see there's going to be very many opportunities where you can't get six healthy guys, because seven guys on their team's going to already have had it. Or even if they hadn't tested positive for it, so if you do have to test everybody, you're going to have seven guys test negative. So I still think you're going to get your games in. Sean, you agree with that? So this situation right now on in this particular week is magnified for one reason, everybody went home and many people brought stuff back with them when they went home. Totally understandable. It's happened all across America everywhere. So maybe it's good to knock it out now. I do believe there'll be one or two weeks where everybody plays three games, but I don't think it's going to be anything that is to the point where Baylor last year, and I'm sure rightfully so, I'm not saying anything negative, they played four or five games less than everybody, less than us, which they still would've won the league. Hand down, they were by far the best team. And then you get in a situation in the last couple of weeks where you want to play three games in a week, but you really don't want to play that back to back weeks, which to me, doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's the way I think the protocols going to be now. It seems like to me if you miss games, you want to do everything again to make them up. And from a monetary standpoint, with the athletic departments, giving up home games and reimbursing or whatever you do, hopefully you don't have to do that, but giving up home games, that could be a pretty big, significant loss. So I think everybody is going to want to get the games in it.
Q: It sounds like you, you won't be able to conference watch on Saturday because you'll be working, but the conference does start a lot of great games, Iowa State, Baylor, you'll start with Oklahoma State, but just speak to what you're looking for. You've already mentioned maybe it's going to conference is what you've seen.
A: You know what? I think it's better than what we've ever had, and we've had some great runs. You guys know better than me, but our league the last six years has probably been number one overall league four times, maybe five, not it's six. So for instance, in the last six or seven years, if you take the numbers in each year, and these aren't exact, obviously, because there's always outliers, but if you take the numbers each year, we may add up to a 1.2, a 1.3, and the next league maybe 3.1. It something like there's probably quite a bit of separation. And this year going into league, if I'm not mistaken, head and shoulders, the toughest league so for, we're looking at Iowa State and Baylor, a combined 22 and zero going into the first league game. TCU and us would've been a combined 19 and two going into the first league game. So yeah, this'll be as good a league as we've ever had.
Q: How has the team held after break?
A: Oh yeah. Knock on wood, we've been good. So everybody's practiced. That can change obviously overnight, but as of now, we've been good.
Q: Coach Cal said today or yesterday that they're only testing when a guy is symptomatic.
Q: Is that the way to go? Is that-
A: Oh, I don't know if that's the way to go, but I think that's how the majority of the teams in our league and in America are probably doing testing if you're symptomatic.
Q: That's what you do?
A: What's that?
Q: That's what you do?
A: Oh, I've been testing.
Q: I mean the other teams.
A: Yeah, that's what we're doing as well. Yeah. But if people have symptoms, you test them. And we've had numerous times that that's occurred, but we've been fortunate on the outcomes.
Q: Have you heard anything about the OK state game because they have COVID in their program?
A: Yeah. But it goes back far enough that that shouldn't impact the second game at all. We could impact the second game. We don't know what's going to happen, but I think them impacting us the second game, Sean, you agree that that probably shouldn't be a factor.
Q: I can see you in the dark over here. The lights are off in our building. Anyway, Coach, have you changed your coaching with never knowing about a game? Do you prepare your bench differently never knowing if a person's going to test positive ?out of this whole experience, has it changed you as a coach at all?
A: I think that's a great question. I don't think we've done much to change anything, Karen, other than when we practice, probably don't practice with just five or six on the first team. Probably try to slide as many people into that situation. So there is a little bit more of a comfort level. I guess, something in football, making sure your second team gets first team snaps. And so we're trying to do that as much as we possibly can.
Q: Coach Andy Reed talks about adaptability. So do you feel now, as you've been coaching all these years, you're more adaptable now because of all this than you've ever been in your career?
A: All these years. Thanks so much Karen for that.
Q: Well, hey, I'm older than you now. I can say that.
A: I don't know. I don't know. I think I'm certainly more adaptable today than I was a while back. I think coaches, and maybe football coaches are different than basketball coaches, but when you're dealing probably with 100 athletes or 80 athletes, everything is punctuated probably because it has to be that way because you're dealing with so many. And with basketball, it's not quite that way. So we're probably a little bit more flexible in how we can adjust and do things as what football coaches probably are.
Q: Hey coach, Sam Lance with 24/7 Sports. Do you have any sort of update on Bobby Pettiford and his abdominal strain?
A: The update is he's still doing the same thing, which is almost nothing right now. He's doing spot shooting and very little things like that, but supposedly it's got to run its course before we can really test that. And as of now, we've still got a couple of weeks probably to go before we'll know if we can put him out there and have him be pretty much pain-free.
Q: I also wanted to ask you about your young big men, KJ Adams and Zach Clements. And in what ways have you seen them progressing so far this year?
A: Well, I think Zach is coming fast. His hands are good. He's strength away. So let's not get too carried away, but the floor is more stretched with him in the game. I think we've been better offensively in practice many days with him in the game just because it opens up other things for people that are pretty good at driving the ball and those sorts of things. I think KJ has kind of emerged as maybe our second-best offender behind Juan. I like where he is. Offensively, he's, I don't want to say behind because there's some things he does actually as well as anybody else on the team as far as moving the ball and drive to pass and those sorts of things, but we probably have more confidence in KJ at this juncture defensively than offensively, and probably more with Zach offensively than defensively, to be candid, but they're both going to be really good players. Really good.
Q: In the beginning of your tenure, you played Nevada three times. What do you remember about that series against Trent Johnson and Coach Fox?
A: Well, if I'm not mistaken, what did we go, one and two?
Q: Yeah.
A: So they beat us twice. And when we played them out there the first time, I think the final score was only like 13, but it felt like 20, 25. That was the last game before Christmas. And I remember calling all the families after we got back and dreaded so much to talk to them just because we were so bad in the last game. And then everybody said, "Oh, come on, Coach. It's Christmas." So I kind of got past that, but I definitely remember sitting in the car making all those calls. And then the second, I can't remember the second time we played him, was that Fazekas or is that the-
Q: Fazekas played, but you guys beat him by 30 here
A: Yeah. Beat him pretty good here. And then they came back and Fazekas had 35 and I think it was 35 on the nose if I'm not mistaken. They beat us on last possession. So that's one of our 15 losses in the building and they played great. So our first year we played them they had an NBA player named Kurt Snyder that was terrific. They were really good. We were in the same regional and Georgia Tech beat them in a good game in Sweet 16. And we beat UAB in the Sweet 16. And so we missed each other in the tournament, but they've had a good program and a good run.
Q: And Dave had to go back as a freshman when maybe I think after the game he said, "It'd have been nicer if they waited to bring Padgett back."
A: I can't remember 19 years ago, but-
Q: Do you remember Dave Padgett
A: Yeah. I remember Dave Pageant. He played here. Made a big basket against Missouri. So Dave was great, but I'm sure that was a deal that Roy had worked out with the Pageant family. If you pick us, we'll go out there and play a game with anticipation that he probably wasn't going to be a four-year guy. So that's done sometimes in recruiting.
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