Men's Basketball Coach Jim Christian and Senior Mike Scott Press Conference
10/30/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Head Coach Jim Christian
Opening Statement on this preseason
“Practices, we have been pretty pleased with them. We have had about 15 practices or so and I think the new guys are getting acclimated to what we want, the level of intensity we want. I think we are just getting great leadership from our more experienced players, and I think it has helped us and it has made it more competitive, and we are now excited to have an opportunity to play against somebody else.”
Changes from last year
“It's hard to tell since we haven't played a game, but guys are more comfortable, as guys are around longer they get more confident, they understand the system a little bit better, and they understand the things that we are trying to do. The overall difference is we haven't had to stop as much and explain things. It is more correcting instead of stopping and teaching every five minutes. When the older guys are the best teachers you have a pretty good thing going on in practice. The other part is that you can tell the guys are having fun, they are playing hard, and having fun playing together and that's all I want.”
Changes as a team
“We do change from year to year based on our personality, defensively we are not changing much, it is the staple, it is our staple, it doesn't change much. And because of our depth we are able to do some different things. Offensively I think we are doing some things differently to take advantage of our personnel, but for the most part we are the same. It is good to see guys improve, I think as guys improve, which we do have guys who have clearly improved, it becomes exciting for me.”
On this season's depth
“It allows us to be more competitive, we have always played with a lot of people and we are going to continue to do that. So guys know that, their jobs need to be won and earned and then kept. We have more versatility, and we have guys that can play different positions now so it has been good.”
One the first starting five.
“I don't know who is going to start, we don't play until November 3rd, so we wont know that until November 2nd. The thing about these guys that I'm trying to get, is that, they don't care who starts. So we won't know that until November 2nd, and then after that till November 10th. It really doesn't make a difference, they know if they play well they are going to play, and if the don't play well they have to earn their spot. And that is what we want, we don't want to be a team that depends on one guy or five guys or three guys, we want to be a team that can go and play 10 or 11 guys and get contributions from them all, and we will need that to win, we have learned that. It is a tough long season in this league, and we learned that if you count on one guy, it's going to be hard, where if you count on all eleven guys, it just creates better chemistry for your team.”
Senior Mike Scott
On this year's team
“It's coming together very well. Me and coach talk a lot and we're both excited about the year to come. Everybody gets along real well, which is probably the most important thing besides being good on the court. Everybody's chemistry of the court is amazing. Everybody got stronger in the summer; everybody's been in the gym. It's going to be exciting.”
Teams Defense
“We definitely have a ways to go. That's why we have been practicing hard day in and day out working on a couple of new things that coach Christian is giving us this year. I think we are on pace for sure to be a very good defensive team this year.”
Differences Between this year's team and last year
“I think everyone is intone about what coach is trying to do. On the back of this shirt it says 'Trust the system' and I think everyone is actually trusting the system. We know that it works, everyone is buying into it one through 13.”
On Streak of 20 Wins
“I'd be lying if I said that we don't want to do it. That's the staple of the program. It's a recruiting tool and what Kent State has been known for, for so long. It's up there with some of the elite teams. We definitely want to keep it going and do our best one night at a time.”
On being picked to win MAC
“It doesn't really matter. I've pretty much adopted the coach's view about that. It doesn't matter if they pick us at the top or the bottom. We are going to do what we do.”
On Senior Leadership
“Every year coach has had some great seniors who he has taught how to lead the team and I've just picked up a little bit from everybody...They were all hungry and they just wanted to win They loved the game, they loved diving on the floor and all of the other little things.”
