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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MENS' MEDIA DAYOctober 23, 2014Askia BookerTad BoyleLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Colorado head coach Tad Boyle and senior guard Askia Booker. Tad, provide an opening remark. COACH BOYLE: Yeah, it's great to be back in the Bay Area. We're obviously extremely excited about this year's team, this season. This is a very unusual team at Colorado in that we only have one senior, Askia Booker, who is with us today, but we have a lot of experience coming back. We're going to rely heavily on Askia's leadership as well as our sophomore and junior class, those guys making huge jumps. Everybody had a great off‑season. We're healthy and we're ready to go. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Coach, you said after Dinwiddie went down last season, it almost gave you a jump on what to expect. After having seen this team, what do you see as the strengths? COACH BOYLE: I think the strengths of our team, and we did get a jump‑start on this season, it's nice to have everybody coming back that played late in the season for you, we added two young players, Dominique Collier and Tory Miller who are going to help us, are good pieces to the puzzle. What I love about our team is we have good versatility. We have a lot of guys that can guard a lot of positions, play multiple positions. We have good basketball players that have good basketball instincts. So I think the versatility. Hopefully by the end of the season the depth of this team is going to be a strength of ours. We know what Askia brings to the table, we know what Josh Scott and Xavier Johnson bring to the table. It's some of the other guys like Wesley Gordon, the jump he's going to make, and the rest of that sophomore class, Jaron Hopkins, Dustin Thomas, George King, TréShaun Fletcher, if those guys can make big jumps in their game, be able to do it on a consistent basis, our team will be really deep, and that will be another strength. Q. Askia, what did you learn playing alongside Spencer Dinwiddie? ASKIA BOOKER: Facilitating, pitching the ball ahead, feeding the ball to the post. I think those are a few things that he did great. He took over when the time was needed. He scored the ball when he had to. He didn't really force the issue. He got to the free‑throw line. That's one thing I'm going to try to do a lot this year. People play from my pump fake a lot. When they get in the air, I need to take advantage of that and get to the free‑throw line. I think that's one thing I'll do this year. Q. Coach, you've spoken about strengths. Shooting was one thing you wanted to address and improve this season. What gives you confidence that this team can make a jump in that category? COACH BOYLE: I think the first thing, my job as a coach is to make sure we're taking good shots. I've got to do a better job of that I think with our whole team. It's really guys like Askia, they have to get in the gym, which he has done. He has an unbelievable work ethic. It's incumbent on our players that they can make the open shots and we're taking the right shots. It's twofold. But I think shooting is one area we need to improve on. The other area is passing the ball. Our assist‑to‑turnover ratio was nothing to write home about last year. We spent a lot of time certainly early in practice, and we'll continue to work on passing the ball, really talking. Askia and I have talked a lot in the off‑season about decision making, when are you open, knock the shot down. If not, make the extra pass. Really play together, see that assist‑to‑turnover ratio go up. We want to become a more efficient offensive team. We got a lot of room for improvement there. We've done a good job early in the season so far. But time will tell when the games start. Q. Askia, I read somewhere that you're good friends with Swaggy P, Nick Young. What has he taught you about basketball? ASKIA BOOKER: Man, that relationship builded from my brother, Rene Johnson, in California. They went to school with each other, were always good friends. One day I came back from Colorado for a summer and Rene told me he wanted me to play basketball with somebody. It turned out to be him. Ever since then, that day that we hooped, we kind of talked. I asked him about what it takes to get to the next level, the highest level to play at. He gave me a lot of good advice. Ever since then we've been pretty good friends. Q. Askia, you hear your voice a lot in practice the first couple weeks. Is it more so than in the past? Is it because you're a senior? Do you feel you're talking more than in the past? ASKIA BOOKER: Yeah, I have to. Coach has told me some advice the other day that was very important to me. He told me he got it from the Navy SEALS training. They would say I was a chirper. I would say a lot of stuff, scream, say, Let's go. None of that means anything. I tried to be more efficient with my words, say specific names, call out certain plays, try to get my team going. Whatever I have to say to get them to do that I have to do. Q. It seems like the expectation you guys and Utah might make the toughest road trips in the conference. Does that make a difference when you have a team that just played Utah and comes to your place? COACH BOYLE: I think it helps a great deal. The job that Larry and his staff and their program has done, every year they've just gotten better and better and better. It really helps us. When you're on that Colorado/Utah swing, it's a tougher environment to play in. We play at altitude, which makes it hard to begin with. When you have two tough environments, especially on that second day, the Saturday or the Sunday after a Wednesday or Thursday game, if they played Utah, hopefully Utah has taken some of their legs, beat them up a little bit, it benefits us. Hopefully we can reciprocate, we can take something out of those teams on the first game of a two‑game leg. It's certainly better when they're strong rather than when they're weak. I can tell you that. Q. Askia, you've gone through the program multiple times now, the Navy SEALS program. This year did it take on special significance? Who are some guys you maybe brought along or saw step up as leaders? ASKIA BOOKER: I think this year was a little different because they chose multiple people to lead. It wasn't just myself or Josh Scott. They picked Jaron Hopkins, Dustin Thomas, those guys. They're sophomores this year. Those guys are going to play significant roles on this team. We're going to need them to step up. Without them, I don't think we're going to win too many games. We need those kind of guys 'cause coming off the bench, whether they start or not, that will be up to coach. But they're going to need to step up this year. THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you for your time. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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