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00:00 I haven't really looked at the stats since my first time looking at it.
00:04 Right off the cuff.
00:06 Hold on.
00:08 Only for you, Will.
00:10 Will, I had to talk to Billy Thompson.
00:13 [Laughter]
00:15 Yeah.
00:16 Sorry, sir.
00:17 Thank you.
00:19 Right off the cuff, guys, I think it's important to say
00:23 when we scheduled this game and after I watched FAM,
00:27 that's a pretty good team that just played against a scrappy team.
00:30 They're going to beat a lot of people.
00:32 They fought, they shoot the three, they drive you, they force you to help.
00:37 If you can't keep the ball in front, they're coming at you.
00:42 I thought we finally--we needed this win,
00:47 and we needed it for the guys in that locker room.
00:50 So for me to sit here and talk about strategy and this and that,
00:54 they fought for a win and they got a win.
00:57 It wasn't pretty, but we executed, I think they said,
01:02 every possession in the second half except seven, we got the ball in the paint.
01:08 That's pretty impressive.
01:10 That's the way we want to play.
01:11 We want to attack people, and then we want to play unselfish.
01:14 Questions?
01:19 Hey, Kenny, when you go into halftime trailing by eight,
01:22 was there a player who stepped up to be a leader?
01:25 And I've talked to the guys, or was it just more so things coming from you
01:29 and things that they can work on after the first half?
01:32 I don't really know what they talked amongst themselves
01:34 before I got in the locker room.
01:36 To be honest with you, I went in the locker room and I jumped straight,
01:39 like, you're not going to play that.
01:42 You didn't come here for that, to play that way.
01:44 You're not.
01:45 You are a stat, she feel it.
01:48 I need you to defend, I need you to rebound,
01:50 I need you to share the ball, I need you unselfish.
01:53 If it ain't in your mind that you're going to win the game for us
01:58 and play at your pace and do it your way and try to win, it's not going to happen.
02:02 You will look bad.
02:03 I need you to play unselfish, I need you to rebound, I need you to pass,
02:07 I need you to be a willing passer, and I need you to be about your teammates.
02:10 If you can't do that, you've got to see me.
02:13 I think you made the adjustment better in the second half,
02:16 and the same for Scott.
02:19 Listen, at the end of the day, as a coach, you have to challenge your best players.
02:25 You have to.
02:26 I need Scott Clark to play to get 10 assists.
02:29 He's going to score.
02:30 You're playing basketball to get 10 assists.
02:33 If you do that, the rest of the guys on the team will play within a rhythm,
02:37 then we're a really good team.
02:39 If you play to score, we're not going to be a good team.
02:42 We look selfish.
02:43 But, again, hats off to Brandon, 10 rebounds.
02:50 Mike James, I say it all the time, if you have eight Mike James, you don't lose.
02:57 His will, his fight, it's not about his talent, it's about his work ethic,
03:04 his professionalism, coming in every day, just fighting to get better.
03:10 Kenny, what happened at the end of the game?
03:13 You have the ball, you could hold it for a shot.
03:15 You were talking about Trey, it looked like he kind of forced that,
03:17 but then he also--I'm not sure, he got it back, I guess he lobbed it to JJ.
03:22 We work on that in a drill every day where if we miss the shot
03:26 or something, we tip it up in the air so that the other guy can dock it in.
03:30 I mean, I guess it paid off.
03:32 I told him in the locker room,
03:34 "Isn't it amazing how everything that we practice,
03:37 and from the outside looking in it may not look like it,
03:40 but every single thing that we practice is vital to us winning.
03:45 Retreat drill, keeping the ball in front, boxing out,
03:49 not looking at the ball in the air, going to find a body,
03:53 getting in the lane, kicking out, accelerating through layups,
03:56 all those things, making the extra passes, stunning and making the tough twos
04:01 opposed to sagging in and giving up a three.
04:05 Everything that we practice religiously,
04:08 hard from a fatigued state, translates to winning.
04:11 I just need those guys to understand, and this is new,
04:15 this is still a young team, but I need them to buy into that
04:20 and don't worry about how hard practice is.
04:23 Worry about why we're practicing that hard.
04:27 UMBC lost one of its cards to foul trouble early in the second half,
04:31 had two others but four.
04:33 How much did that impact your strategy and your desire to attack the basket?
04:39 I mean, I love the fact that we got them in foul trouble.
04:43 I love the fact that we shot a lot of free throws.
04:46 I hate the fact that we missed a lot of free throws.
04:50 What happens if we make another eight free throws?
04:55 Like, what happens?
04:57 What happens if we make all our free throws?
04:59 We're a good shooting team.
05:01 We're good free throws.
05:03 You did the hard part, drawing the foul.
05:05 Now go up and finish them, finish the game.
05:09 I love the fact that it was a hard-fought game.
05:11 It could have went either way, but we fought out a win.
05:16 We're 1-0.
05:18 Kenny, how much did you guys kind of need to win like this,
05:22 given last year so many of these kind of won possession games
05:25 didn't go your way?
05:27 I think it's everything.
05:29 I think the morale when you see in the locker room the guys are excited,
05:33 yelling, screaming, jumping up and down, even though they didn't play great,
05:39 I think it becomes obvious as a coach just how important
05:43 and how fragile winning is.
05:45 The other thing is how fragile the human mind at a young age is.
05:51 So when you look at, for example, when they're not playing during the week,
05:57 the words that they use, and then when it gets at the end of the week
06:01 when it's time to play, then you see a different mentality.
06:05 You see a mentality that is not quite as sure of themselves.
06:09 I want that.
06:10 I want them unsure.
06:12 The best players that I've ever been around have been unsure,
06:16 but their unsureness, if that's a word, fueled them.
06:22 Coach, it's 1 o'clock in the morning.
06:24 You say it any time I need you.
06:26 Can we get in the gym?
06:28 Can we go do some sprints?
06:30 I ain't feeling right.
06:31 I got to make it.
06:32 I got to be great.
06:33 I got to do this for my team.
06:35 I need those guys.
06:36 So I see it in them that they're unsure of themselves.
06:40 Now the second part is don't let your ego get in the way
06:44 and fight for what you want.
06:46 Don't take anything for granted.
06:50 Coach, a big part of this evening was honoring Denny Crum.
06:53 To secure a victory in this particular evening,
06:56 does that mean anything emotionally to you,
06:58 or is there any takeaway additional to this?
07:00 I can say this like this, and hopefully no matter how I say it,
07:05 you probably wouldn't understand.
07:08 I played for Denny Crum.
07:11 I played at this university.
07:13 On the night that we are honoring him, I'm ecstatic that we won this game,
07:20 but I'm also cognizant of how fragile winning is on his night.
07:26 Like what happens if the ball bounces a different way?
07:30 That's how fragile winning is.
07:34 We talked about how some of these games,
07:36 particularly those first three last year, you lose by one point in each of them.
07:40 Does it boil down to something simple as fight, resolve,
07:43 that makes the difference and swings it the other way to get a couple breaks?
07:46 I thought the whole night in the host, you know, I'm drawing up plays with scoring.
07:52 I'm drawing up plays with getting good shots.
07:54 But the whole time I'm saying, guys, no matter what I draw up,
07:57 this isn't about exiting the host.
07:59 This is about your will to keep the ball in front, to get one shot,
08:04 and then we get it and run it down the coast.
08:06 You have to fight for what you want.
08:09 In the step first half, they were at certain points of it,
08:13 shooting in the high 50s, 60%.
08:16 That's not good enough.
08:17 You basically let a team come in here and get confidence on you.
08:21 Now you have to dig, and I'm glad that we did.
08:24 We had to dig our way back, and we got back in it in the beginning of the second half
08:28 with a little more discipline, a little more focus, and a little more fight.
08:33 Kent, you didn't get much out of your big guys in that second exhibition game.
08:37 Is that kind of what you--Huntley Hatfield, you already mentioned him,
08:40 but in quarter four, too, he played some minutes
08:41 and affected the game when he was on the court.
08:43 For those two guys, do you feel like that's what you need to get out of him?
08:46 I mean, look, I am happy that Emmanuel played 10 minutes, had six rebounds.
08:53 He was active. He was busy.
08:57 I go back to Brandon, 10 rebounds for him, that's huge.
09:02 That's huge.
09:04 Those two guys, I need them to bring it for this team to be good.
09:09 I need them to bring a physicality to the game.
09:11 I need them to bring the rebound and the screening to the game.
09:14 If you look at the way we screen, basically when we screened well,
09:20 the guards went downhill and got layups.
09:23 That's a product of physicality, being strong in your screen.
09:27 So I'm proud of them, but we have to build on that.
09:33 Did you say anything to Mike to get him going,
09:36 or he seemed like he really got very aggressive and assertive in the second half?
09:41 I think you don't really have to say anything to guys like Mike James.
09:45 They have a love for winning. They have a love for competing.
09:49 Mike James is very astute. He watches everything.
09:53 He sees everything. He's listening to everything.
09:56 And he has a will to win.
09:58 And to be quite honest with you, he understands the situation that we're in.
10:05 He understands how bad this community wants to win.
10:09 He understands how much, even for me, winning is important.
10:14 He sees it every day.
10:17 And so I don't have to talk about it with him.
10:20 He already sees it, and I know it.
10:22 I just got to make sure that he trusts himself
10:25 and not second-guess anything he's doing.
10:27 I don't care if he goes 0 for 6. I really don't.
10:31 I need your heart. I need your heart.
10:33 I need the way you care about your teammates.
10:35 I need your fight.
10:37 If you shoot the ball great, great.
10:39 If you don't, you still impact winning with your spirit.
10:43 I love that about Mike James.
10:45 Yeah, can he--Tyler has been someone that you've talked about during the preseason
10:49 just needing to work more defensively, but he played 12 minutes, I think, in the second half.
10:55 What have you seen from him over the past week that made you trust him in this big moment
11:00 and not down the stretch playing a lot of minutes?
11:02 Just watching him in practice, watching him in the few games, the exhibition games that we played,
11:09 really looking at the film, you can see he's going to help us.
11:13 He brings the dynamic to this team that we need.
11:17 I just got to get him to understand that your discipline is vital.
11:22 You're the smallest guy on the court.
11:24 You can never take a moment and relax because then you become, as they say in elite basketball,
11:30 you become a cone, and a cone is the little orange thing that's on the court
11:34 that you shoot over all the time.
11:36 You cannot become a cone.
11:38 You better be the fightinest little mighty mouse in the country.
11:42 That's what it has to be to survive amongst giants.
11:47 Kenny, you had Tyler and Sky playing together.
11:51 Was that a byproduct just of you and BC being smaller, or do you like having two point guards?
11:57 I like them on the court together.
12:00 I can't--in my mind, I can't start them together because I need one of them to have a backup for the other.
12:09 But there are stretches in the game, the way this guy Clark shoots the ball, his feel for scoring.
12:15 Sometimes it's better for him to be off the ball and just mix it up.
12:20 What I'm really hoping is that as this year goes along, that we become one of the best defensive teams in the country.
12:28 It did not look like that tonight.
12:30 As this year comes along, as it goes along, I need those two to create havoc on the offense
12:37 with their pressure on the ball, with fighting to keep the ball in front,
12:41 and then I need Dennis, Brandon, and Emmanuel to clean up anything that gets past them.
12:48 And we've got a pretty good defensive team.
12:51 With a ball on Thursday, we will likely not have availability for Chattanooga,
12:55 so make sure there's no more questions related to that game in Florida.
12:59 Enough about me. You've got to want to talk to the guys.
13:02 [laughter]
13:04 We've got one more.
13:05 Yeah.
13:07 There was a sense after the exhibition game that the sky was falling
13:15 and a lot of dread going into this game.
13:19 Yeah, there was supposedly this fight that never happened.
13:23 Okay. I'm not suggesting that.
13:26 But what does tonight do for your guys?
13:29 Does it take pressure off, or is it still there?
13:33 Obviously, this is Louisville, right?
13:36 That's my trip.
13:37 Kansas, Louisville, Kentucky, Duke, Carolina, don't go to those schools if you can't take pressure.
13:48 You're amongst the best of the best.
13:51 So obviously this program has had a lot of things happen to go the wrong way, right?
13:59 So our jobs, my job, their jobs is to fix it.
14:05 But with that comes pressure.
14:07 Nobody really cares to hear about what exactly all the things that we deal with day to day.
14:13 I never heard anybody--I don't listen to complaints anyway,
14:17 but I never heard anybody ask, "What all have you done to clean up the mess?"
14:24 Nobody's ever asked that question to me.
14:27 Whatever you go through from day to day, nobody has ever asked me that question.
14:32 They just assume I'm here, we're going to win, and everything is bad because it's bad.
14:39 There's something else to it, and we're cleaning it up.
14:42 I'm proud of that.
14:45 I'm proud of that because the type of kids that are in this program now,
14:51 they're the type of character kids that you guys should be proud of.
14:55 And as we go along, we're going to beat some people,
14:59 but we're also going to lose some games.
15:02 We're not going to go undefeated,
15:04 but we're going to show you hopefully with our character and with our work ethic
15:09 that this is headed in the right direction.
15:12 All right, thank you, Coach.