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5-HOUR ENERGY PUERTO RICO TIP-OFF MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 1, 2011Gregg MarshallTIM SIMMONS: Coach Marshall, good morning. Welcome to our teleconference. COACH MARSHALL: Thank you very much. TIM SIMMONS: How are pre-season practices going for you? COACH MARSHALL: Depends on the day. There's some good ones, there's some bad ones. There's some ones where we look like we have a chance to be a pretty good team, there's some ones that look like we're not very good at all. It's pre-season. Thank goodness we're not playing games yet. TIM SIMMONS: Any players been standing out or new players that have caught your eye? COACH MARSHALL: You know, Carl Hall is a kid that's going to play. He's a ball-getter. He goes and gets rebounds, relentless on the glass, tough, strong kid, junior college transfer. Then the 7' kid we've had in the program a couple years is starting to develop. Practices he's looked good. Unfortunately when we've gone live in scrimmages or inner squad, he hasn't looked at good. In practices, he's shown glimpses of being a really good player. He would be the returnee. Carl would be the best junior college transfer. Then of the freshmen maybe a kid that we're going to redshirt, Ron Baker from Western Kansas has really played well, shot the ball. He's going to be a very good player. TIM SIMMONS: In Puerto Rico we play two days, off a day, play the final day. How do you like the format? COACH MARSHALL: Well, it sounds good to me. Hopefully we're winning. I like that day off a lot more if we've won a couple games. If we're losing, I want to get right back at it. I guess it just depends on how we play when we get down there and what Dan has scheduled for us when we get down there. TIM SIMMONS: Compare this year's team to last year's team. COACH MARSHALL: We lost four guys that were older, experienced guys. None of them were 22-year-old seniors. They were 23. Graham Hatch after his Mormon mission was 24. You can't replace that. You can't replace that experience and maturity. But we've got some talented guys coming back, especially in the backcourt. Murry and Kyles and Ragland, Williams, Smith. We have a lot of guys that have won a lot of games and know how to do that. You just have to replace the experience, size, toughness, and that will come in time I hope. TIM SIMMONS: You have a very interesting bottom half of the bracket. You play Colorado. You saw them in New York lose to Alabama in the semifinals. You have Maryland, a coach that was in Wichita there. COACH MARSHALL: It's going to be a Wichita State reunion with Tad Boyle having been Mark Turgeon's assistant at Wichita State. So three coaches that have spent some time here in Wichita in that bottom half of the bracket, plus Alabama. We're looking at the first game only at this point. I know Tad will have his team ready. I was very impressed with what he's done at Northern Colorado, then at the University of Colorado last season, getting a chance to watch him in New York. Whether it's Coach Turgeon and his new Terrapin team or a rematch with Alabama, we know we're going to have our hands full in the second round. TIM SIMMONS: Questions for Coach Marshall. Q. How did Sunday's scrimmage go? COACH MARSHALL: We broke it down yesterday. We played 20 minutes, then 20 minutes, then as much as we could. We played like 47 minutes in the morning, 50 minutes in the afternoon. We won. But there were things we need to get better at. There's guys that played better than we thought. There were a couple of surprises, a couple of disappointments. We tried to play everyone. We did play everyone. But Murry was out because of the rib thing. They had a player out, as well. All in all I would give it a C plus, B minus. Q. What did you come out of there thinking you want to work on most? COACH MARSHALL: I want to continue to get better rebounding, defense. That's my deal. That's what I like to do. That's what has carried our teams throughout most of my career. We want to rebound and defend. My coaches are adamant that we're going to be able to score the ball. We just need to continue to work on rebounding, defense. When you lose those guys that we mentioned, that size, experience, toughness, 6'8", 6'9", plus Graham Hatch, who was a man, that's the part that suffers with toughness and rebounding around the basket. TIM SIMMONS: Last year you played in the Maui Classic, played Connecticut who went on to win the national championship, then you won two more games. What were your thoughts knowing you played the national champions last year? COACH MARSHALL: I thought we should have won the game. It was hard to keep Kemba Walker off the lane and foul line. Shot 44 free throws. Played them great. Really hurt us when we lost that game because we needed the RPI boost of playing either Washington, Kentucky or Michigan State as opposed to Chaminade and Virginia. It's going to be better this year for us because regardless, we're going to play another BCS team in this format. So I liked it when I saw the bracket. TIM SIMMONS: Coach, thank you very much. We look forward to seeing you in a couple weeks. COACH MARSHALL: Thanks Tim and Dan. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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