Pre-tourney teleconference as the league prepares to travel to Connecticut for the AAC Tournament.
Says obviously we've had a tough year but the thing I would say is that we're still competing hard and fighting hard. If you look at our last two games we defended really well, we rebounded really well, we had a shot with ten seconds or so to go to put us up by one. We were right there in that game with Temple yesterday and again defended well, rebounded well, just didn't make enough shots. That's really kind of been where we've struggled all year, we've just kind of struggled to put the ball in the basket. Offensively we've really, really struggled at times.
I am proud of our guys they've been really resilient, the attitude has been good the energy has been good. You know they could have quit on us a month ago. They've had a tough go for a couple of years, then with the transition of coaches in January. I just give our guys a lot of credit to continue to practice hard and battle hard, we're defending better we're rebounding better hopefully we can score a few more baskets on Thursday night. But I am proud of the energy and I'm proud of the effort.
Q: This time of season opponents know what you're going to do and you know what they're going to do. Given that how do you prepare to play a team for the third time?
A: The two games we've played UCONN they put it on us really good. In the game here in Tampa they beat us by 20 or so and in the game at UCONN they really put it on us hard. I like Kevin's team a lot, I like a lot of the guys they've got and what they do. For us it's got to be about us the next few days and just trying...again I think we're defending much better we're rebounding much better we've just gotta figure out how we can score a few more points. So I do think there's got to be a lot of focus on who you're playing but I think the majority of time I think you've got to spend on your game and that's what we're going to try to do the next few days.
Says obviously we've had a tough year but the thing I would say is that we're still competing hard and fighting hard. If you look at our last two games we defended really well, we rebounded really well, we had a shot with ten seconds or so to go to put us up by one. We were right there in that game with Temple yesterday and again defended well, rebounded well, just didn't make enough shots. That's really kind of been where we've struggled all year, we've just kind of struggled to put the ball in the basket. Offensively we've really, really struggled at times.
I am proud of our guys they've been really resilient, the attitude has been good the energy has been good. You know they could have quit on us a month ago. They've had a tough go for a couple of years, then with the transition of coaches in January. I just give our guys a lot of credit to continue to practice hard and battle hard, we're defending better we're rebounding better hopefully we can score a few more baskets on Thursday night. But I am proud of the energy and I'm proud of the effort.
Q: This time of season opponents know what you're going to do and you know what they're going to do. Given that how do you prepare to play a team for the third time?
A: The two games we've played UCONN they put it on us really good. In the game here in Tampa they beat us by 20 or so and in the game at UCONN they really put it on us hard. I like Kevin's team a lot, I like a lot of the guys they've got and what they do. For us it's got to be about us the next few days and just trying...again I think we're defending much better we're rebounding much better we've just gotta figure out how we can score a few more points. So I do think there's got to be a lot of focus on who you're playing but I think the majority of time I think you've got to spend on your game and that's what we're going to try to do the next few days.
