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BIG TEN CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA DAYS

October 19, 2017

Richard Pitino

Madison Square Garden - New York, New York

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Minnesota head coach Richard Pitino. Go ahead and start with an opening statement and open up for questions.

COACH PITINO: Excited, obviously, about the year. A lot of guys back. A lot of guys have gotten better. Certainly an unfortunate injury with Eric Curry that will hurt us from a depth standpoint. So we're going to have to have other guys stand up, step up. But we got a good team. And we've got to be ready right away because we have a very tough schedule. Excited to get going.

Q. Going into the first practice last month, you had a few guys banged up and Reggie Lynch, one of them, and he's not here today. Can you talk about just the importance of being healthy going into this season and the status of these players?
COACH PITINO: Yeah, it's been difficult because we have had a lot of guys who are allowed to practice but not do contact. So it's tough to figure out where are we at from a defensive standpoint, a rebounding standpoint, all those physicality things that you can't work on.

So Reggie, Davonte and Dupree have consistently been on contact restrictions of 15 minutes at the most so far. So Reggie's got a meeting with the doctor, we expect him to be cleared soon. Probably today would be my guess.

And Davonte will be extremely patient with, just because of his medical history. And Dupree is another guy has had that stress reaction, all summer, just trying to get him healthy.

I've been like an NBA coach where I've really, really limited those guys. So it's been difficult to gauge where we're at. But we'll get healthy. I don't think any of them are major concerns. We've just got to be patient and I've got to be patient. Nate Mason was another one who missed a couple of days of practice, but he did a little bit yesterday so he'll be fine with a minor ankle sprain. Get it out of the way now, right, hopefully.

Q. There's been some talk that the one-and-done rule could change in college basketball. I wondered what your thoughts are on the impact that rule has had and how you would ideally like that to play out going forward?
COACH PITINO: Well, I don't have the answer. So I'm not really sure from a one-and-done standpoint. We obviously haven't had any. So it hasn't really affected our program from the sense of all the turnover, et cetera. But I do think that it seems like the NBA is now, they care to kind of acknowledge it and change it.

I don't really know what the answer is. I don't know if I'm smart enough to figure that out. But I do think that where it's at right now is not good. If kids don't want to go to college, we probably shouldn't make them go.

But I'm not sure what exactly it is. I think the trendy thing that everybody said is the baseball model. I don't even know what that is. So I'm not sure.

Q. With a guy like Reggie Lynch who is that gifted defensively but also finds himself in foul trouble, what have you done to maybe advise him as to how he can stay on the floor and avoid some of those fouls this coming season?
COACH PITINO: Begged, pleaded, interventions. Tried them all. I think he needs to realize from a foul-trouble standpoint it's not always blocking shots that's getting him in foul trouble. I think if you cut down on the other things, maybe it's him getting tired and making a silly mistake. You know, improving the fundamentals of how you're guarding it and just teaching him, because we don't want to take away from that aggressiveness from a shot-blocking standpoint because he's as good as it gets when it comes to shot blocking.

But we've got to find a way to cut down the other fouls. I think if we cut down the other fouls, I think he'll be fine. I think he'll still be able to be aggressive from a shot-blocking standpoint because we need him to do that.

So we just continue to teach him as best we can. And I know he's a willing learner. I think last year, more than anything, because he jumped up in conferences from -- obviously Missouri Valley is a very good one to the Big Ten, but there's different personnel in there. So that was an adjustment. I think he'll be better this year because of it, a little bit wiser.

Q. How do you work Isaiah Washington into this group? You've already got some really talented guards.
COACH PITINO: Isaiah's an interesting one because he's very, very talented but he's a freshman. He's got a long way to go with little things.

Freshmen need to understand sometimes it's what you do on the court that prohibits you to get on the court. And with Jamir Harris and Isaiah, whether it's mistakes and so on, if they can minimize those things they can play a lot.

But Isaiah brings a dimension that we haven't really had. He's a phenomenal passer. End-to-end, he goes as good as anybody out there. I've tinkered with lineups to find a way to get him on the court. But when you're talking about playing time and how do you fit guys in, that's a great problem to have.

We had our first time in four years, NBA scouts coming to our practice. It was a great feeling. We haven't had that. So it's a good problem to have.

Q. With the tournament coming to Madison Square Garden, moving up a week, have you thought about how that's going to affect just the schedule and just everything for you throughout the season?
COACH PITINO: I haven't thought about it much. I guess I'm a little bit superstitious. We went to the tournament last year. I want to go again. So it's one of those things where I'll cross that bridge when it comes to it, when I come to it.

But it's made the schedule a little bit funky, a little bit different, but that's okay. Anybody who has played in this building knows the opportunity that it presents and how special it is to play here. And sometimes you've got to sacrifice a little bit. So if we're fortunate enough to be in the NCAA Tournament again at the end of the year, great problem to have.

So I think when you get towards the end of the year, a lot of it is rest, but a lot of it is making sure you're sharp with certain things. But, again, I welcome that challenge because that means we're in the NCAA Tournament again.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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