JH: thought our play was real solid - defensively it starts, and we've held
our last three opponents under 40% shooting. You get into some of these things
during a long year, but we've gotten back into it. Defend, rebound and run
is what we really like to do.
If you watch tape, you can't imagine how valuable Chris Daniels is. He rebounds,
makes passes, defends well and even brings it up if we need it. Steve Thomas
wasn't playing well on the road at mid-year, but he's got his act together.
It has to be a team effort, because it is now gut-wrenching time.
You know
Alabama is a pretty good club as they went to Knoxville and beat
Tennessee.
For the NCAAs, break-even in the league and 16 wins seem to be magic numbers.
You want to reach those as soon as possible. UK &
Florida keep finding ways
to win. Lots of basketball still left. Dawg fans were pulling for the Commodores
to get it done last night against Florida in Memorial but Florida found a way.
JH watched the UK game today. Miss. State fell behind by 19 but got it back
to 5 and never quit. JH thinks MSU will win the west, where the co-leaders are
each 7-5. Bama is two games behind and still has games against
Auburn &
MSU.
Ole Miss is very physical and gets into you on defense, and its very loud there.
But they've struggled this year (3-8 in the SEC). They thought Justin
Reed would be a big-time pro his first year, but he hasn't played up to
that. Of course, they had an outstanding big man his first year.
That alley-oop dunk to end the half was one of the best send-off plays Scott
said he'd ever seen. JH said we stole that ball with 3.2 seconds left and
JH thought they had time. Fine play by Wright; he knew he had time and made
a fine pass. That play is all about the pass. Scott said it reminded him of
Vick's play to beat the Vikings, where he scored and ran straight into the
locker room.
Damien Wilkins is playing well now, doing what he needs to and really being
an additive to the team. The top 7 are playing well right now. JH thinks Damien
spends more time on basketball than anyone he's ever seen. He wants to be
a great player and works hard at it.
The first caller, John from Gainesville, thanked JH for spending time with him
& his daughter after the Vandy game, and asked about the motion offense.
Do we run any different wrinkles? JH says he won't change what he does,
but there are enough options in the motion offense where we should respond to
whatever the defense gives us. We want to score 1/3 off the half court offense,
1/3 on fast breaks, and 1/3 off what defense generates. We run a balanced half
court offense with the plan to get the ball into the blocks and go from there.
John from East Cobb asked about Jarvis coming back and the effect on incoming
recruits. JH said all those guys were signed with the plan of losing only Ezra.
JH also thinks it was premature for that to be written and doesn't think
Jarvis has thought about it yet.
George from Memphis - looking forward to being in Oxford, and he remembers being
there two years ago when we fell behind 14-2 early but rallied to win. About
inbounds plays .. JH mentioned we scored 8 points off our inbounds plays against
Bama, and did well with a zone out of bounds play yesterday. The main objective
is simply to get the ball in and not get a five second violation.
Robert from Atlanta (Ferrall) wondered if we planned to play Jordan
Howell as a freshman next year, to get him experience so he'd be ready to
take over the year after? JH hopes to play him behind Wright in the games, and
head up against him in practice - he's led his team to the Final Four in
Alabama coming up this weekend - and is a gym rat who spends more time there
than anyone JH has seen.
Other coaching influences besides Wooden? Pete Newell, defensively. JH used
to watch him all the time, and would bring him in. JH thinks Newell passed ideas
on to Bobby Knight and JH has studied him. Most everything you do, you learn
from somebody else. JH doesn't think he invented anything and hasn't
seen anything new in recent year. The latest thing was the matchup zone which
came about in the last 15-20 years.
John from Carrollton wondered about tie-breakers in the SEC, which JH explained.
If we split against a team, then it is based on who beat whom, starting at the
top of your division.
Max in SC wouldn't be surprised if we beat UK in Athens next week. JH was
floored that anyone could beat us as bad as UK did in Rupp. After that, we back
to the first day of camp on defensive sets to try and get our intensity back
on defense and on the boards. We needed to get Ezra and Jarvis rebounding again,
as Thomas, Daniels and Jonas can't do it all. Also, there was a renewed
focus on concentration. We slipped a bit in the last two games after getting
big leads so concentration again. But other teams do it too. Oklahoma led Kansas
by 32 and had it cut to 4 or 6, and UK led MSU by 19 and had it cut to 5. The
hardest thing to teach in sports may be going for the jugular and finishing
the business when you get a big lead. Right now, JH thinks we can play with
anybody in the country with the possible exceptions of UK and Arizona.
John from Albany complimented JH on his teaching ability. They discussed both
Chris Daniels and Alexander Johnson. All JH would say about Johnson is that
we're still recruiting him. And all the guys we've signed have already
passed their tests. JH acknowledged messing up on that one year.
Jeremy from Memphis asked about what JH expects from inside players. JH wants
traffic rebounds and quality rebounds at key points. He'd like to have his
inside players about 10 points/8 rebounds, depending on the flow of the game.
We'd be a lot harder to defend if we had five players in double figures.
Leah in Macon likes the lights and music before the games, and wondered why
Gibson wasn't playing more. JH just likes the way the top 7 are playing;
Damien is playing very well. Gibson would probably have more playing time if
he'd been with the team longer.
Charlie from Statesboro wonders if you can motivate players to play for tournament
seeding. JH hopes the goals and objectives of playing the best you can are enough.
If you're going to compete, you do your best all the time and good things
will happen. Scott asked if players know the difference between a 3 and, say,
a 5 seed. JH notes we had a great seed last year and let it get away. And, JH
had been to the Elite 8 as an 8 seed (at Rhode Island).
Scott asked JH about seedings. JH would make UGA a 5 or 6 seed, and would rather
ditch the conference tournaments and open up the NCAA tournament to every Division
I team. He thinks every town with a Division I team would be interested in the
tournament. As it is now, at smaller schools - like when he was at Pepperdine
- you only have to be good three days in March if the tourney champ gets the
bid instead of the regular season champ. JH can remember once in the early 1970s
when UCLA was number 1 and USC was number 2 but couldn't even get in the
NCAAs because only the champ got in. And Maryland, which was great but lost
one year in the tournament and it crushed Lefty. (I think JH was talking
about Maryland falling to NC State in the 1974 ACC tournament final.)
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