You and the athletic director are both in your first year here at Floyd. What does that look like as you’re both settling into your new roles?
Well, there’s a lot of learning. Just figuring out the history of what’s been done in the past and also evaluating maybe things that can be done better going forward. From a basketball perspective…the main focus has been building relationships and establishing a culture that we want to have going forward. So that’s been the biggest thing. And the guys have really done a great job of making it easy for me to do those things.
So as a coach, what is your philosophy or your message that you really want your athletes to buy into?
Well, like I said, the culture is a big part of that, the biggest thing is how hard we play. We want to be known as a team that competes every single night. And along with that, also plays together as a group.
When you’re coming into a school that had five wins last season, what is your approach?
Well, going back to last spring when I first came on board and through the summer, the biggest thing was just figuring out who we had, what was the mindset of the returning guys, what did they experience in the past, and what could we change. And the thing that was consistent throughout was their feeling that they weren’t really put in a situation to be successful. So that’s been the biggest thing is to try to create opportunities for them to feel like this program is about them. It’s about the players. And that’s what we wanted to establish.
What do you think you’ve learned in your first year here that can carry over through the future seasons?
Well, the biggest thing is going to be just the commitment level of the guys we have in the program. Our guys are bought in in terms of their commitment level and what they do. So that’s the positive. I don’t have to worry about how hard they’re going to work and whether or not they’re going to be here. They have done a great job of really being committed to what we want to do this year.
What would you say this group of players’ real strengths are?
Well, the thing that we’ve noticed throughout the year is just the character of the kids. I mean, we’ve got a lot of high character guys academically, socially, athletically. We’ve got guys that do things the right way. And that’s, you know, that’s so important to a program and it makes it so much easier as a coach, you know, when you know you’ve got the right guys in the program.
You’ve lost a couple of players that played a lot of minutes over the season in Landon Reed and Logan Young. How have you been compensating for that? And is that lack of depth going to affect your postseason strategy?
Well, obviously, depth became a concern and we had to throw some guys into some positions that a little sooner than we wanted to, like Ethan Noble becoming a starter as a sophomore. But the philosophy we’ve had is -while it’s disappointing when you talk about those two situations with Logan and, more particularly, with Landon being hurt- it’s next man up mentality. Here’s an opportunity you’ve been wanting…time for you to step up and we’ve had guys that have stepped into those new roles and accepted them, embraced them. Jacob Stewart now being a starter, Parker Kay [has] has been hurt a couple of weeks as well, which is limited to his playing time. Gavin Scheich’s been out sick. We didn’t have him last Tuesday. Not sure about tomorrow. So yeah, depth is a concern. But at the same time, I’ve always said the game’s 32 minutes. These guys are 17, 18 years old. They can play 32 minutes.
Nine of your games have been decided by five or less points. How can your team practice being able to close out games like that?
Well, we’ve spent a lot of time trying to practice that, and we’ve spent a lot of time watching film to figure out the mistakes we’ve made. The thing we’ve got to avoid is beating ourselves, we’ve given the other teams too many chances to beat us because of things, mistakes we’ve made. And that goes into a level of confidence, getting them to believe in what we can do late in the game, making free throws and getting stops on the defensive end and not having silly turnovers. So those are the things we’ve definitely tried to focus on. It’s a process to get them through that and you’ve got to win one of those games you know to really see that confidence start to grow.
You’ve lost to Jeff in the regular season, what can you take from that game and carry it over to your sectional matchup?
Well the thing that we’re looking at is, we’ve got to cut down on our turnovers. We know how they’re going to play defensively, we had 21 turnovers the first time we played, so taking care of the basketball is going to be huge. Defensively, we know we can make it hard for teams to score. We’ve been pretty good defensively all year, minus a few quarters here and there. But the biggest thing is gonna be taking care of the basketball. If we cut down on our turnovers and we take good shots, I think we’re gonna put ourselves right back in the same position we had the first time, where we’re gonna have a lead in second half and then it’s going to be a matter of just executing down the stretch.
You’ve gotten a couple of techs over the course of the season. Is that a tactic you use to fire up your players, like how baseball managers will get themselves ejected?
No, not at all. The two that I’ve gotten this year, one was a result of trying to protect a player who got fouled [and] the other one against New Albany was not deserved. But at the same time, my goal is to make it through the season without getting one. I’ve got a pretty good relationship with most all officials out there. And it’s disappointing when I do lose my composure a little bit. I’ve got to work on making sure that we keep ourselves focused just like I ask the players, it’s not a strategic tactic.
The student section has, at least in my experience, been a lot bigger this year than it has been in years past. Has that impacted the team in any way?
Yeah, I mean, the guys really appreciate it. I know I appreciate it. I love seeing the students there. I’ve even given them a little bit of a hard time because my goal was to have them in the green zone. Particularly for the smaller games, of course the bigger games we can’t do that because it’ll be too big. But we just want them to cheer the right way. But yeah, it’s been a tremendous help for us and we hope to see another big crowd tomorrow night.