Everything Tad Boyle had to say earlier today in previewing his 2021-2022 Buffs (there's a lot, brace yourselves!) I took the liberty of bolding/italicizing some areas of what he said that I thought were of particular import.
Opening Statement:
“Hard to believe it's beginning of year 12 for our staff here, but I'm as excited about Colorado basketball today as I was when I was hired here May of 2010. So anyway, I'm excited about this team. We're going to have a young team, a very unusual team in terms of our makeup, with two seniors, and 10 underclassmen. Obviously, our walk-ons are a big, big part of our program. Benan Ersek and Will Loughlin are our two walk-on seniors but Evan (Battey) and Eli (Parquet) are the scholarship guys that we're going to rely on a lot this year, those four kids and then, we've got 10 of our 12 scholarship players that have never played in front of a college crowd. And that's a lot. So obviously, the sophomores last year with COVID didn't get a chance to play in front of fans. They're going to get that opportunity this year, thank goodness, and as our freshmen are, so this is going to be a team that's going to be a work in progress. We will not be at our best on November 9th. I'm hopeful we'll be better than we were today in practice and the way we've been here the last week or so. This is a talented, talented group of young players that we're going to have to get to grow up quickly as this season unfolds so there's going to be some adversity, some headwinds, that'll hit us, and that's what we're going to rely on our leadership with Evan and Eli and Benan and Will to help us get through that but excited about the program and where we're at and certainly where we're going."
Importance of the defensive side:
“Like every year, a lot. I mean that's one of the things I talked to our team about today at the end of practice is, we have to prepare for games and for nights when the shot’s not going in and it's happened in practice. Young players usually identify with their jump shot, going in or not going in or scoring the ball or not scoring the ball. That's why, Eli and Evan, who are seniors who understand that defense is such a big part of what we do and, and it's half the game, if not more so, limiting the other team from getting easy baskets and good shots. Making them work for everything they get, again, we've never pitched a shutout here. We're not going to shut anybody out but we got to prepare to win games on nights when our offense isn't clicking because that that will happen, and especially with a young team that will happen so we've got to be able to rely on that, the defensive side of the ball and rebounding the basketball at a high level and our young guys don't have a grasp of that yet and that's the challenge that I have as a coach right now.”
Importance of preseason games considering most of the guys haven’t played in front of a crowd:
“It is important, and that's the reason why we agreed to the Nebraska scrimmage, the charity game. They'll return it next year but for this year's team, we need that. It's also why I didn't schedule, a lot of games away from the Coors Events Center early in November and December because I know in the league we get 10 away from our home in league play and then obviously we got the Virgin Islands tournament so we'll get enough road experience, but we're going to have to figure out in that Nebraska game it will be a great test to see where we are in that regard and then the Virgin Islands and obviously our opening conference game against UCLA in L.A., We'll find out there as well.”
On Julian Hammond:
“Julian, I think the longer he is here, is getting more and more comfortable and more and more confident. He's done some really nice things. I thought he played really well in Costa Rica. And one of the things Julian and I have talked about is the fact that this is the first time in his career, where he's been able to concentrate on basketball all summer, and all fall. I think that's really going to benefit him this winter. Usually he's on the football field and that's been great playing football at Cherry Creek for Dave Logan has prepared him well in terms of being a competitor and his toughness level. It's exciting to look at his ceiling as a basketball player now that football is out of the equation and Julian is going to be a terrific player before it's all said and done. He does some really nice things.”
On Jabari Walker:
“Yeah, the expectations we have is that he becomes an everyday guy. And last year he didn't have to do that because we had so many seniors with Jeriah Horne, D’Shawn Schwartz, McKinley Wright, and Dallas Walton, he was able to be that freshman that came in and gave us a spark off the bench and he was really good at that. You look at Jabari’s numbers last year relative to the minutes he played and he's very efficient. He had impacted the game when he was in there but he got in foul trouble some. He was a catch and shoot guy. Now we're challenging him to be more of a well-rounded player and impact the game in different ways other than just shooting the ball from the perimeter. We know he can do that he's a good shooter, he knows that, we know that, his opponents are going to know that. So how does he impact the game in terms of rebounding and blocking shots and making plays for others and driving close outs, those are the kinds of things we're talking about to Jabari. We need Jabari to be an everyday guy and consistency is going to be his biggest challenge going from a freshman to a sophomore and going from a role player to a guy that we're counting on night in and night out to produce and perform. He's fully capable of it, without a doubt.”
On building off the Pac-12 Tournament and NCAA experience from last year:
“I hope it bleeds in. Every year is a different year, it's a different team. This is a totally different team because we graduated so much production and we've got so many new faces. We're going to need some of those sophomores to step up without a doubt. We're going to need some of those freshmen to play minutes without a doubt, and that's really going to be the question mark with this team so I'm hopeful that if we're able to get back - we know we're going to be in the Pac-12 Tournament - but if we're able to get back to you know that level, it's going to be a long road for these young guys and they're going to again have to grow up quickly and learn quickly and adapt quickly, but I love our talent level, I really do and I love our youthful exuberance, but boy, the experience factor is, is really dwindled with this team, when we flipped from last year to this year but again that's where we’re going to rely on Evan and Eli a lot.
On Keeshawn Barthelemy filling McKinley Wright’s shoes:
“McKinley’s loss is a big one, but we also know Keeshawn is fully capable. I thought he did some really good things last year in some tough situations. Keeshawn had the most difficult role on our team last year backing up McKinley. He didn't know if he was going to play, or how much he was going to play. There were times where McKinley went down with what we thought was a concussion and he came back and Keeshawn filled in, I thought admirably, when he was called upon. He just didn't get the significant minutes that he needed to prove what he can do. He's going to get that this year, so he's capable, much like Jabari’s capable, but I don't want to put it all on him. We've got two freshmen guards in KJ Simpson, and Julian Hammond, who are fully capable as well of running the team and playing point. I look at it as three headed monster. Some of those guys will play together in the backcourt. We can play with the three-guard lineup, you know with Eli, Keeshawn and either KJ (Simpson) or Julian, or KJ Julian and Eli the three. This team is going to have a lot of versatility, we can go big and play Tristan at the three, with Jabari and Evan. That's the nice thing about coaching this team now. It's up to me to figure out, you know, what makes the most sense on a given night and given how guys are playing. We've got three capable point guards. I don't want to put it all on Keeshawn’s shoulders but Keeshawn is the most experienced and the guy we're expecting probably the most from, but we're going to need KJ and Julian to give us minutes at times this year without a doubt, and production.”
On the recruiting the last few years and why people should play here:
(Good stuff from Boyle below
“In the landscape of college basketball, with the transfer portal that we're all aware of, it's been well documented, it's here, here to stay, the genie’s not going back in the bottle. We are a recruit and develop program. You look at the 12 guys on our roster, they were all recruited as freshmen and they've developed. You look at Eli’s development, you look at Evan’s development. The sophomores turning the page from their freshman year to sophomore. Their ability to step up and every kid has their own kind of path that they have to lead. When we recruit, we have to evaluate guys that are not going to duck out of this program at the first sign of adversity, because it's going to hit us. If we got guys looking for the transfer portal we have not recruited the right guys, and it's something we talk about in recruiting. It's something that we, we face head on, we're not shying away from it. It doesn't mean we won't lose anybody to transfer portal, it just means we want guys that are here that want to be Buffaloes, that want to be Evan Battey and Eli Parquet someday. The thing about those two kids is they’re Buffs through and through. They own this program, they're what I want all of our freshmen and sophomores to achieve to be, and if we can accomplish that goal, with the majority of them, this program will continue to ascend and compete for championships and have success. I said it again, I got the job 11 years ago and I talked then about becoming a national program and sustaining it. That's what we've tried to do and I think we've done it in many respects, but there's still a lot of work to be done. We still need to get that second week in the NCAA Tournament and we know that, not shying away from that. That's something we talked about as well: let's take time and take the next step. Now, this year's team, we'll see. I think the foundation is laid for the immediate future Colorado basketball but I want the future to be now. I want the future to be next year and we're approaching this season with that goal in mind.”
On the team understanding the commitment and intensity:
“Right now, we're two weeks into practice. It was practice 15 today. They're thinking, ‘when's the first game?’ My thinking is, ‘how are we going beat Colorado School of Mines in our first exhibition?’ I'm going to remind these guys; the last time we played the School of Mines in an exhibition game we were down 4 or 6 at halftime. We had two four-year starters and a first round draft pick on that team. Our guys have no idea what's in front of them. The old adage, they don't know what they don't know. That's what's happening with this year's team. It's my job to help try to prepare them and do it realistically and I don’t want to blow smoke and tell them the School of Mines is the best team we're going to play this year because we know that's not the case but they're a solid team and they're going to expose some of our weaknesses. Nebraska is going to expose some of our weaknesses; how quickly can we shore those things up and get them get better and learn from the things that happened to us on the floor because basketball is such a fluid game. It's up and down and up and down. You don't have a lot of time in the heat of the moment to change a lot of things other than maybe your offenses or your lineups, but other than that, you better learn from day to day, and our sense of urgency and it's not easy being good. That's the other message I'm trying to get to our young guys. They think they're good because they're talented and they were highly recruited but they're going to find out. It's not easy.”
On what coach is evaluating with the exhibition:
“I'm just evaluating, are you able to play to the standards that we've set forth? Are you able to do your job? If your job is to rebound, are you rebounding? Your job is to crash the boards offensively, are you crashing the boards or are you executing your part of the play? Are you doing your job, that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for guys that want to do their jobs, possession in possession out, not once every three possessions or every other possession but every possession. I've got to find five guys that are. I have confidence that Eli and Evan understand that, and are going to be able to do that. Not that they're perfect. They're not perfect players but they understand we need some other guys to get to that point, and that's what I'm going to be looking for in both of our exhibition games.”
On if there is a mental wall:
“There is a mental wall and it's my job as a coach to help them power through it. I don't lower the standards and we're not going to make excuses. We're not going to let other people make excuses for us. We're going to call it like it is and today's practice was not a good one. Naturally speaking, there's no doubt that every team in America is fighting it now and you can talk to any basketball coach, they're fighting it, players are thinking the same thing. It's natural. Part of what we do is to fight human nature. Right now, I’m fighting human nature for the next two and a half weeks without a doubt. I'm fighting it and I'll be fighting it tomorrow and Friday, Saturday and Sunday when we practice but that's my job and that's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to let them off the hook and tell them they're doing great when they're not doing great. I've also told myself and I have to remind myself that I'm going to have to have a little bit more patience with this year's team and I have to find a balance between patients and not lowering standards. That's going to be critical for me to do my job as best I can. Patience, especially if you ask my wife, is probably not one of my strongest areas.”
On coaching freshmen:
"There's no doubt that I don't understand them as well yet and I think the same is true I don't think they understand me yet. They're figuring me out as much as I'm figuring them out, that's just part of the process. But I told our freshmen, I told Julian (Hammond III), I told KJ (Simpson), I told Javon (Ruffin). Obviously, Quincy’s (Allen) not playing this year so he's got a different set of challenges. But those four guys have told them, I am not going to coach you like a typical freshman. Because last year, Tristan (da Silva), Nique (Clifford), Luke (O’Brien), Jabari (Walker) they were typical freshmen last year because they had a bunch of seniors that I can rely on. They could just be freshmen and they could play well and not play well. You obviously want them all to play well when they get their opportunity but we didn't need those guys like we need some of them. We don't need all four of them this year but we need a couple of them to step up and be ready when their number’s called. And that's difficult. Every one of them was the best player on their high school team so they're going through the transition that all freshmen do. The difference is, we need a couple of guys to step up and play minutes so I have to coach those guys harder than I coach a normal freshman. So that's a change I have to make and they've got to be able to handle it. But I think they will. They’re all good kids, they're all very coachable, they all want to play. We all want the same thing, it’s just who's going to be able to up their game and that's what we're in the process of figuring out.”
On his coaching staff:
“Rick Ray, Mike Rohn and Bill Grier have all been head coaches and they're all really good at what they do. They can teach the game, they know the game, they're good communicators. So this is a this is a year where their job is gonna be called upon to teach and coach, again a little bit, just like mine. You know, with a young team we're gonna be doing a lot more of that than we had to last year. We have to get more reps in practice this year than we did last year. We have seniors who have kind of been there, done that so to speak. I'm not saying you take your foot off the gas, they know what is down the pike. Our freshmen don't know. Our sophomores, you know get Tristan and Jabari they don't know yet. And Nique and Luke they don't know. Our staff is gonna to be called on this year they all of us, myself and the assistants included. Our trainer he's dealing with young guys who maybe don't know quite how to fight through the bumps and bruises that they're gonna get. We're all in the same boat. We're all dealing with young guys and who we've got to kind of coach through and manage through a difficult long college basketball season. But we're no different than everybody else. We’re all facing the same challenge.”
On asking season-ticket holders not to sell their Kansas tickets to Kansas fans:
“Well the genesis is look, I coached in the building my first year when we were in the Big 12 before we kind of established ourselves, where there were more Kansas fans in the building than should have been. And I also coached in a game a few years ago, this is when we beat them and there were some Kansas fans - there's gonna be some Kansas fans here we know that - but it was 98 percent Buff fans, and it helped us win a game. I want our season ticket holders to understand number one, we're making a commitment to you to allow you to buy extra tickets to those games to make sure that they get in Buffalo’s hands with your friend and neighbor or whatever. We're asking and begging and pleading not to put them on Stubhub and sell them to Jayhawk fans. Now whether they'll do that or not, we'll see. But one of the most embarrassing moments of my tenure here as a college football fan was when Nebraska had 55 percent of the stadium when we played them a few years ago. That was embarrassing to me. It was embarrassing to all of us. I don't want that to happen. Look it’s nothing against Kansas, it’s my alma mater but I’m a Buffalo and I coach the Buffaloes and I want the Buffaloes to win that game and I want the Buffaloes to have a great home court advantage. That's gonna be hard enough game. You know as a coach and players, I just asked our fans to join in the fight.”
On Tristian da Silva’s development
“Jabari we all know how talented he is and what type of scorer he is and he's a terrific player and we're going to need him to step up. But I always put Tristan right in there with Jabari because he is a guy who can play multiple positions offensively, he can guard multiple positions defensively. We always talk to our guys about what can you do to affect the game, and help your team win when you're not scoring the ball. Tristan da Silva can do a lot of things you know handling the ball passing the ball. We're challenging him everyday to rebound the ball, stronger and tougher. He can put the ball on the floor, he plays with great pace. He doesn’t get sped up and Tristian is the guy to me nobody talks about that had a chance to have as good a year as anybody on our team this year. We’re gonna need him to be on the floor as much as possible. He's had a great summer, he played with the (junior) national team in Germany for a few weeks when he was back home, he had a great six week stint with through April and May, where he was really doing a good job in the weight room. He's gotten bigger he's gotten stronger, needs to continue to develop. But he's gonna be a big, big, part of this year's team.”
What he learned as a coach from last season:
“Obviously we've always known how important matchups are in the NCAA Tournament. That was pretty evident when we went to play Georgetown and Florida State two totally different styles and one we had really good success with and one not so much. We were very McKinley Wright dominant last year, and have been the last four years. Which, for good reason he’s a heck of a player who made unbelievable plays we won a lot of games. This year's team's gonna be different because we're gonna be a little bit more balanced I think we've got a lot of weapons that can really hurt people offensively. I think we're gonna miss McKinley as much as on the defensive end. So I would say I learned that I also learned that, look we made it get back to the Pac-12 championship game, first time since we won it (in 2012) and we came up short against, retrospectively a team of Oregon State that was playing really really well. We knew that we had beaten them in Corvallis a few weeks earlier. We had such an emotional win against USC in the semi-finals. I don't think I did do as good a job as I could have done getting our team emotionally ready for the Oregon State game in such a quick turnaround, but we came up a little bit short. I still remember we had a good look at a Jeriah Horne ‘3’ and if that goes in it’s a different outcome and we’re cutting down the nets. But it didn’t’ happen, so you don't get those opportunities very often. So when you get them you better make the most of them. So you just continue to learn as a coach and hopefully I'm still doing that.”
On Evan Battey’s next steps:
“I think Evan’s always been such a good teammate. He's a guy that would rather pass then shoot sometimes but we’re gonna need him to be an aggressive scorer. Not that he has to get 25 a night, but we need him to be a really force down low and he's really worked on his perimeter shot; he can put the ball floor for a guy his size he's got a very unique skill set for his body type. We want Evan to be an aggressive offensive player. We know how good he is defensively in the low post. He's got great feet, can switch on ball screens. But I think aggressiveness, we don't have to ask Jabari to be more aggressive because Jabari is aggressive by nature. Evan needs to be a little more aggressive offensively, Tristan needs to be more aggressive offensively. But I think Evan’s gonna have a breakout year. I'm not saying the numbers need to go off the chart but we need them to be a little bit more of a scorer.”
On importance Of Elijah Parquet’s presence:
“I've really challenged Eli ‘you got the perimeter guys, get them right. Talk to them, encourage them, challenge them, go at them every day and let them know what the standard is.’ I've asked Evan to same thing with Lawson (Lovering). What he’s done to help Lawson grow and compete, and really get better. Lawson, defensively as post guy, he’s as good as we've had. He really is and again a lot of that is because he sees what Evan does every day. But Lawson’s 7-feet tall. He's got great feet, great length. Evan is 6-foot-8 and he's not as long. But Lawson’s such a quick learner so I want Evan to really take those bigs, kind of challenge Jabari and Tristan and Lawson and I want Eli to do the same thing with all the perimeter guys. That's why leadership is so, so important to his team and we’ve got two guys that are really capable.”
On Jabari breaking the backboard in Costa Rica:
“I thought ‘well the game's over and I hope we can play the next night.’ That was the third game in four games. That was a great trip. I think that experience really helped Jabari. One of the biggest challenges I have in coaching in 2021 is the effect that social media has on our players and their mental makeup and how the world looks at them and feels about them because, it used to be just don’t pick up the paper if you don't want to hear it. Now it’s don’t pick up the phone. Well guess what, everybody picks up their phone. So Jabari experienced maybe some negative feedback on that and I think it was an eye opener for him and I'm glad that happened in the summer in Costa Rica and is something he can learn from, the rest of our players can learn from. Because I do think as the season goes on, when things don't go well, the public is gonna let our players know about it. It's just the nature of the world we live in which is unfortunate. And the players have to be able to handle that and navigate that world and I wish they would do what I do which is don’t even look at it but I know that's not the case. If you're going to look at, you better be able to handle it. So that's another challenge we’re gonna have as the season unfolds.”
Opening Statement:
“Hard to believe it's beginning of year 12 for our staff here, but I'm as excited about Colorado basketball today as I was when I was hired here May of 2010. So anyway, I'm excited about this team. We're going to have a young team, a very unusual team in terms of our makeup, with two seniors, and 10 underclassmen. Obviously, our walk-ons are a big, big part of our program. Benan Ersek and Will Loughlin are our two walk-on seniors but Evan (Battey) and Eli (Parquet) are the scholarship guys that we're going to rely on a lot this year, those four kids and then, we've got 10 of our 12 scholarship players that have never played in front of a college crowd. And that's a lot. So obviously, the sophomores last year with COVID didn't get a chance to play in front of fans. They're going to get that opportunity this year, thank goodness, and as our freshmen are, so this is going to be a team that's going to be a work in progress. We will not be at our best on November 9th. I'm hopeful we'll be better than we were today in practice and the way we've been here the last week or so. This is a talented, talented group of young players that we're going to have to get to grow up quickly as this season unfolds so there's going to be some adversity, some headwinds, that'll hit us, and that's what we're going to rely on our leadership with Evan and Eli and Benan and Will to help us get through that but excited about the program and where we're at and certainly where we're going."
Importance of the defensive side:
“Like every year, a lot. I mean that's one of the things I talked to our team about today at the end of practice is, we have to prepare for games and for nights when the shot’s not going in and it's happened in practice. Young players usually identify with their jump shot, going in or not going in or scoring the ball or not scoring the ball. That's why, Eli and Evan, who are seniors who understand that defense is such a big part of what we do and, and it's half the game, if not more so, limiting the other team from getting easy baskets and good shots. Making them work for everything they get, again, we've never pitched a shutout here. We're not going to shut anybody out but we got to prepare to win games on nights when our offense isn't clicking because that that will happen, and especially with a young team that will happen so we've got to be able to rely on that, the defensive side of the ball and rebounding the basketball at a high level and our young guys don't have a grasp of that yet and that's the challenge that I have as a coach right now.”
Importance of preseason games considering most of the guys haven’t played in front of a crowd:
“It is important, and that's the reason why we agreed to the Nebraska scrimmage, the charity game. They'll return it next year but for this year's team, we need that. It's also why I didn't schedule, a lot of games away from the Coors Events Center early in November and December because I know in the league we get 10 away from our home in league play and then obviously we got the Virgin Islands tournament so we'll get enough road experience, but we're going to have to figure out in that Nebraska game it will be a great test to see where we are in that regard and then the Virgin Islands and obviously our opening conference game against UCLA in L.A., We'll find out there as well.”
On Julian Hammond:
“Julian, I think the longer he is here, is getting more and more comfortable and more and more confident. He's done some really nice things. I thought he played really well in Costa Rica. And one of the things Julian and I have talked about is the fact that this is the first time in his career, where he's been able to concentrate on basketball all summer, and all fall. I think that's really going to benefit him this winter. Usually he's on the football field and that's been great playing football at Cherry Creek for Dave Logan has prepared him well in terms of being a competitor and his toughness level. It's exciting to look at his ceiling as a basketball player now that football is out of the equation and Julian is going to be a terrific player before it's all said and done. He does some really nice things.”
On Jabari Walker:
“Yeah, the expectations we have is that he becomes an everyday guy. And last year he didn't have to do that because we had so many seniors with Jeriah Horne, D’Shawn Schwartz, McKinley Wright, and Dallas Walton, he was able to be that freshman that came in and gave us a spark off the bench and he was really good at that. You look at Jabari’s numbers last year relative to the minutes he played and he's very efficient. He had impacted the game when he was in there but he got in foul trouble some. He was a catch and shoot guy. Now we're challenging him to be more of a well-rounded player and impact the game in different ways other than just shooting the ball from the perimeter. We know he can do that he's a good shooter, he knows that, we know that, his opponents are going to know that. So how does he impact the game in terms of rebounding and blocking shots and making plays for others and driving close outs, those are the kinds of things we're talking about to Jabari. We need Jabari to be an everyday guy and consistency is going to be his biggest challenge going from a freshman to a sophomore and going from a role player to a guy that we're counting on night in and night out to produce and perform. He's fully capable of it, without a doubt.”
On building off the Pac-12 Tournament and NCAA experience from last year:
“I hope it bleeds in. Every year is a different year, it's a different team. This is a totally different team because we graduated so much production and we've got so many new faces. We're going to need some of those sophomores to step up without a doubt. We're going to need some of those freshmen to play minutes without a doubt, and that's really going to be the question mark with this team so I'm hopeful that if we're able to get back - we know we're going to be in the Pac-12 Tournament - but if we're able to get back to you know that level, it's going to be a long road for these young guys and they're going to again have to grow up quickly and learn quickly and adapt quickly, but I love our talent level, I really do and I love our youthful exuberance, but boy, the experience factor is, is really dwindled with this team, when we flipped from last year to this year but again that's where we’re going to rely on Evan and Eli a lot.
On Keeshawn Barthelemy filling McKinley Wright’s shoes:
“McKinley’s loss is a big one, but we also know Keeshawn is fully capable. I thought he did some really good things last year in some tough situations. Keeshawn had the most difficult role on our team last year backing up McKinley. He didn't know if he was going to play, or how much he was going to play. There were times where McKinley went down with what we thought was a concussion and he came back and Keeshawn filled in, I thought admirably, when he was called upon. He just didn't get the significant minutes that he needed to prove what he can do. He's going to get that this year, so he's capable, much like Jabari’s capable, but I don't want to put it all on him. We've got two freshmen guards in KJ Simpson, and Julian Hammond, who are fully capable as well of running the team and playing point. I look at it as three headed monster. Some of those guys will play together in the backcourt. We can play with the three-guard lineup, you know with Eli, Keeshawn and either KJ (Simpson) or Julian, or KJ Julian and Eli the three. This team is going to have a lot of versatility, we can go big and play Tristan at the three, with Jabari and Evan. That's the nice thing about coaching this team now. It's up to me to figure out, you know, what makes the most sense on a given night and given how guys are playing. We've got three capable point guards. I don't want to put it all on Keeshawn’s shoulders but Keeshawn is the most experienced and the guy we're expecting probably the most from, but we're going to need KJ and Julian to give us minutes at times this year without a doubt, and production.”
On the recruiting the last few years and why people should play here:
(Good stuff from Boyle below
“In the landscape of college basketball, with the transfer portal that we're all aware of, it's been well documented, it's here, here to stay, the genie’s not going back in the bottle. We are a recruit and develop program. You look at the 12 guys on our roster, they were all recruited as freshmen and they've developed. You look at Eli’s development, you look at Evan’s development. The sophomores turning the page from their freshman year to sophomore. Their ability to step up and every kid has their own kind of path that they have to lead. When we recruit, we have to evaluate guys that are not going to duck out of this program at the first sign of adversity, because it's going to hit us. If we got guys looking for the transfer portal we have not recruited the right guys, and it's something we talk about in recruiting. It's something that we, we face head on, we're not shying away from it. It doesn't mean we won't lose anybody to transfer portal, it just means we want guys that are here that want to be Buffaloes, that want to be Evan Battey and Eli Parquet someday. The thing about those two kids is they’re Buffs through and through. They own this program, they're what I want all of our freshmen and sophomores to achieve to be, and if we can accomplish that goal, with the majority of them, this program will continue to ascend and compete for championships and have success. I said it again, I got the job 11 years ago and I talked then about becoming a national program and sustaining it. That's what we've tried to do and I think we've done it in many respects, but there's still a lot of work to be done. We still need to get that second week in the NCAA Tournament and we know that, not shying away from that. That's something we talked about as well: let's take time and take the next step. Now, this year's team, we'll see. I think the foundation is laid for the immediate future Colorado basketball but I want the future to be now. I want the future to be next year and we're approaching this season with that goal in mind.”
On the team understanding the commitment and intensity:
“Right now, we're two weeks into practice. It was practice 15 today. They're thinking, ‘when's the first game?’ My thinking is, ‘how are we going beat Colorado School of Mines in our first exhibition?’ I'm going to remind these guys; the last time we played the School of Mines in an exhibition game we were down 4 or 6 at halftime. We had two four-year starters and a first round draft pick on that team. Our guys have no idea what's in front of them. The old adage, they don't know what they don't know. That's what's happening with this year's team. It's my job to help try to prepare them and do it realistically and I don’t want to blow smoke and tell them the School of Mines is the best team we're going to play this year because we know that's not the case but they're a solid team and they're going to expose some of our weaknesses. Nebraska is going to expose some of our weaknesses; how quickly can we shore those things up and get them get better and learn from the things that happened to us on the floor because basketball is such a fluid game. It's up and down and up and down. You don't have a lot of time in the heat of the moment to change a lot of things other than maybe your offenses or your lineups, but other than that, you better learn from day to day, and our sense of urgency and it's not easy being good. That's the other message I'm trying to get to our young guys. They think they're good because they're talented and they were highly recruited but they're going to find out. It's not easy.”
On what coach is evaluating with the exhibition:
“I'm just evaluating, are you able to play to the standards that we've set forth? Are you able to do your job? If your job is to rebound, are you rebounding? Your job is to crash the boards offensively, are you crashing the boards or are you executing your part of the play? Are you doing your job, that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for guys that want to do their jobs, possession in possession out, not once every three possessions or every other possession but every possession. I've got to find five guys that are. I have confidence that Eli and Evan understand that, and are going to be able to do that. Not that they're perfect. They're not perfect players but they understand we need some other guys to get to that point, and that's what I'm going to be looking for in both of our exhibition games.”
On if there is a mental wall:
“There is a mental wall and it's my job as a coach to help them power through it. I don't lower the standards and we're not going to make excuses. We're not going to let other people make excuses for us. We're going to call it like it is and today's practice was not a good one. Naturally speaking, there's no doubt that every team in America is fighting it now and you can talk to any basketball coach, they're fighting it, players are thinking the same thing. It's natural. Part of what we do is to fight human nature. Right now, I’m fighting human nature for the next two and a half weeks without a doubt. I'm fighting it and I'll be fighting it tomorrow and Friday, Saturday and Sunday when we practice but that's my job and that's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to let them off the hook and tell them they're doing great when they're not doing great. I've also told myself and I have to remind myself that I'm going to have to have a little bit more patience with this year's team and I have to find a balance between patients and not lowering standards. That's going to be critical for me to do my job as best I can. Patience, especially if you ask my wife, is probably not one of my strongest areas.”
On coaching freshmen:
"There's no doubt that I don't understand them as well yet and I think the same is true I don't think they understand me yet. They're figuring me out as much as I'm figuring them out, that's just part of the process. But I told our freshmen, I told Julian (Hammond III), I told KJ (Simpson), I told Javon (Ruffin). Obviously, Quincy’s (Allen) not playing this year so he's got a different set of challenges. But those four guys have told them, I am not going to coach you like a typical freshman. Because last year, Tristan (da Silva), Nique (Clifford), Luke (O’Brien), Jabari (Walker) they were typical freshmen last year because they had a bunch of seniors that I can rely on. They could just be freshmen and they could play well and not play well. You obviously want them all to play well when they get their opportunity but we didn't need those guys like we need some of them. We don't need all four of them this year but we need a couple of them to step up and be ready when their number’s called. And that's difficult. Every one of them was the best player on their high school team so they're going through the transition that all freshmen do. The difference is, we need a couple of guys to step up and play minutes so I have to coach those guys harder than I coach a normal freshman. So that's a change I have to make and they've got to be able to handle it. But I think they will. They’re all good kids, they're all very coachable, they all want to play. We all want the same thing, it’s just who's going to be able to up their game and that's what we're in the process of figuring out.”
On his coaching staff:
“Rick Ray, Mike Rohn and Bill Grier have all been head coaches and they're all really good at what they do. They can teach the game, they know the game, they're good communicators. So this is a this is a year where their job is gonna be called upon to teach and coach, again a little bit, just like mine. You know, with a young team we're gonna be doing a lot more of that than we had to last year. We have to get more reps in practice this year than we did last year. We have seniors who have kind of been there, done that so to speak. I'm not saying you take your foot off the gas, they know what is down the pike. Our freshmen don't know. Our sophomores, you know get Tristan and Jabari they don't know yet. And Nique and Luke they don't know. Our staff is gonna to be called on this year they all of us, myself and the assistants included. Our trainer he's dealing with young guys who maybe don't know quite how to fight through the bumps and bruises that they're gonna get. We're all in the same boat. We're all dealing with young guys and who we've got to kind of coach through and manage through a difficult long college basketball season. But we're no different than everybody else. We’re all facing the same challenge.”
On asking season-ticket holders not to sell their Kansas tickets to Kansas fans:
“Well the genesis is look, I coached in the building my first year when we were in the Big 12 before we kind of established ourselves, where there were more Kansas fans in the building than should have been. And I also coached in a game a few years ago, this is when we beat them and there were some Kansas fans - there's gonna be some Kansas fans here we know that - but it was 98 percent Buff fans, and it helped us win a game. I want our season ticket holders to understand number one, we're making a commitment to you to allow you to buy extra tickets to those games to make sure that they get in Buffalo’s hands with your friend and neighbor or whatever. We're asking and begging and pleading not to put them on Stubhub and sell them to Jayhawk fans. Now whether they'll do that or not, we'll see. But one of the most embarrassing moments of my tenure here as a college football fan was when Nebraska had 55 percent of the stadium when we played them a few years ago. That was embarrassing to me. It was embarrassing to all of us. I don't want that to happen. Look it’s nothing against Kansas, it’s my alma mater but I’m a Buffalo and I coach the Buffaloes and I want the Buffaloes to win that game and I want the Buffaloes to have a great home court advantage. That's gonna be hard enough game. You know as a coach and players, I just asked our fans to join in the fight.”
On Tristian da Silva’s development
“Jabari we all know how talented he is and what type of scorer he is and he's a terrific player and we're going to need him to step up. But I always put Tristan right in there with Jabari because he is a guy who can play multiple positions offensively, he can guard multiple positions defensively. We always talk to our guys about what can you do to affect the game, and help your team win when you're not scoring the ball. Tristan da Silva can do a lot of things you know handling the ball passing the ball. We're challenging him everyday to rebound the ball, stronger and tougher. He can put the ball on the floor, he plays with great pace. He doesn’t get sped up and Tristian is the guy to me nobody talks about that had a chance to have as good a year as anybody on our team this year. We’re gonna need him to be on the floor as much as possible. He's had a great summer, he played with the (junior) national team in Germany for a few weeks when he was back home, he had a great six week stint with through April and May, where he was really doing a good job in the weight room. He's gotten bigger he's gotten stronger, needs to continue to develop. But he's gonna be a big, big, part of this year's team.”
What he learned as a coach from last season:
“Obviously we've always known how important matchups are in the NCAA Tournament. That was pretty evident when we went to play Georgetown and Florida State two totally different styles and one we had really good success with and one not so much. We were very McKinley Wright dominant last year, and have been the last four years. Which, for good reason he’s a heck of a player who made unbelievable plays we won a lot of games. This year's team's gonna be different because we're gonna be a little bit more balanced I think we've got a lot of weapons that can really hurt people offensively. I think we're gonna miss McKinley as much as on the defensive end. So I would say I learned that I also learned that, look we made it get back to the Pac-12 championship game, first time since we won it (in 2012) and we came up short against, retrospectively a team of Oregon State that was playing really really well. We knew that we had beaten them in Corvallis a few weeks earlier. We had such an emotional win against USC in the semi-finals. I don't think I did do as good a job as I could have done getting our team emotionally ready for the Oregon State game in such a quick turnaround, but we came up a little bit short. I still remember we had a good look at a Jeriah Horne ‘3’ and if that goes in it’s a different outcome and we’re cutting down the nets. But it didn’t’ happen, so you don't get those opportunities very often. So when you get them you better make the most of them. So you just continue to learn as a coach and hopefully I'm still doing that.”
On Evan Battey’s next steps:
“I think Evan’s always been such a good teammate. He's a guy that would rather pass then shoot sometimes but we’re gonna need him to be an aggressive scorer. Not that he has to get 25 a night, but we need him to be a really force down low and he's really worked on his perimeter shot; he can put the ball floor for a guy his size he's got a very unique skill set for his body type. We want Evan to be an aggressive offensive player. We know how good he is defensively in the low post. He's got great feet, can switch on ball screens. But I think aggressiveness, we don't have to ask Jabari to be more aggressive because Jabari is aggressive by nature. Evan needs to be a little more aggressive offensively, Tristan needs to be more aggressive offensively. But I think Evan’s gonna have a breakout year. I'm not saying the numbers need to go off the chart but we need them to be a little bit more of a scorer.”
On importance Of Elijah Parquet’s presence:
“I've really challenged Eli ‘you got the perimeter guys, get them right. Talk to them, encourage them, challenge them, go at them every day and let them know what the standard is.’ I've asked Evan to same thing with Lawson (Lovering). What he’s done to help Lawson grow and compete, and really get better. Lawson, defensively as post guy, he’s as good as we've had. He really is and again a lot of that is because he sees what Evan does every day. But Lawson’s 7-feet tall. He's got great feet, great length. Evan is 6-foot-8 and he's not as long. But Lawson’s such a quick learner so I want Evan to really take those bigs, kind of challenge Jabari and Tristan and Lawson and I want Eli to do the same thing with all the perimeter guys. That's why leadership is so, so important to his team and we’ve got two guys that are really capable.”
On Jabari breaking the backboard in Costa Rica:
“I thought ‘well the game's over and I hope we can play the next night.’ That was the third game in four games. That was a great trip. I think that experience really helped Jabari. One of the biggest challenges I have in coaching in 2021 is the effect that social media has on our players and their mental makeup and how the world looks at them and feels about them because, it used to be just don’t pick up the paper if you don't want to hear it. Now it’s don’t pick up the phone. Well guess what, everybody picks up their phone. So Jabari experienced maybe some negative feedback on that and I think it was an eye opener for him and I'm glad that happened in the summer in Costa Rica and is something he can learn from, the rest of our players can learn from. Because I do think as the season goes on, when things don't go well, the public is gonna let our players know about it. It's just the nature of the world we live in which is unfortunate. And the players have to be able to handle that and navigate that world and I wish they would do what I do which is don’t even look at it but I know that's not the case. If you're going to look at, you better be able to handle it. So that's another challenge we’re gonna have as the season unfolds.”
