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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE OPERATION BASKETBALLOctober 25, 2017Quentin SniderAnas MahmoudCharlotte, North Carolina Q. Quentin, what you can say about going into this season, obviously a little bit differently, some unexpected things happened. What you can say about navigating with a new acting head coach and not having Coach Pitino there anymore. QUENTIN SNIDER: It's been a lot different, but the main thing is practice is still very intense. We still have good competitive and stuff, but the thing about practice has been more relaxed, more laid back. Usually with Coach P we go two hours and 30 minutes, but with DP, he rests our legs and makes sure that our legs are fresh. Q. Has it been difficult, and how difficult has it been to kind of maintain going into the season with the same mindset? QUENTIN SNIDER: It hasn't really been difficult. You know, the main thing is we've still got a chip on our shoulder with everything that's going on. But with DP being the head coach, it makes things much more relaxed because he's doing it for us, not for him. He's helping us out. Q. You refer to coach as DP. Obviously there's a sense of family. Does that change things that he moves from an assistant to acting head coach. QUENTIN SNIDER: It does, but like I said, I'm still calling him DP. It feels much more comfortable, but with him being the head coach, he really makes everything so much easier, much more relaxed. Q. You've been here for four years now. You've been through a lot of various trials and tribulations of the program. Does having that experience going through some of those things kind of help you and give you the experience to get through this to kind of block stuff out and put your head down and just play basketball? QUENTIN SNIDER: Yeah, most definitely the main things, like I said, I've been through this twice throughout my four years. One thing that keeps me going is just the teammates and the game I love, which is basketball, which is how we keep going with stuff. Q. What you can say about leadership on the team right now, how you look to one another. Who are the leaders who are starting to establish themselves and would you consider yourself to be one of them at this point? QUENTIN SNIDER: The leaders I look up to is with Deng Adel and Anas. Anas keeps everybody calm and collected, even when we have like little scrimmages in practice when things get bumpy, he's the one that can bring us together, keep us collected. And with DA he brings that intensity, gives us the motor and all that. Q. Could you talk about your off-season and what you did to get in better shape? QUENTIN SNIDER: What I did this summer, I hired a track coach to get me much more faster and to work on my defense with lateral quickness, and that was just the whole summer I just worked on that. Even though I still worked on my game, but the main thing was just getting much faster, getting more lateral quickness. Q. You mentioned Coach DP keeping you guys relaxed. Is that sort of a team mantra, taking a step back breathing as the season approaches? QUENTIN SNIDER: Most definitely. What Coach DP has, he just keeps us all calm. He makes things fun. He like jokes with us and stuff. He's a player's coach and makes everything just much more calm even when things get a little hectic at times. He's still here for us and all that. Q. Tell us about your teammate that just left the podium. ANAS MAHMOUD: He's a great, great point guard, really fun. He's really enthusiastic. He runs the team when he's on the floor. He knows what he's doing. He played basketball when he was really young, and he watched a lot of basketball, so he has a lot of knowledge for the game. Q. What can you say about not having Rick Pitino there and navigating through having a new head coach that you obviously know but having him step into that role and just what it's been like as far as the environment around Louisville right now. ANAS MAHMOUD: You know, it's a new head coach, but it's a really, really similar system. We didn't have to do a lot of transitioning basketball system-wise. Q mentioned that practice is a lot more fun, a lot more relaxed, and it's competitive, but it's fun, and it comes out as a good sign. Everybody competes, even the coaches themselves, they compete against one another. It's just a great atmosphere. Q. Now that you guys actually have a full coaching staff, how have you seen practices and the team sort of fall into place, and how difficult was it with David as the only guy the first couple weeks? ANAS MAHMOUD: It was tough for him by himself. He had to monitor defense and offense, which is tough to do by yourself. You know, now we have a full staff, but they're also -- they just got here. They have a lot to learn about the system we're running. It's going to be a transition for them as well as us, and we're just going to stay the course. Q. Quentin's comments and your comments, I'm almost taking it like there's some relief coach Pitino isn't there anymore. Am I misreading that? You guys keep saying how much more fun and relaxed it is. ANAS MAHMOUD: It's not relief, but Coach P had a really strong personality over everyone, not just players but also coaches, even the University itself. Playing for him was really nice in games, but practice was not fun. Me myself, I didn't enjoy practice, and I would rather just play games the whole year. But David Padgett, he's still young, he played for Coach P, and he knows what we felt like when Coach P was the coach. He tries all the time to make practice fun. He's sarcastic in nature, and he did not change one bit. Q. You mentioned getting familiar with some of the new coaches. Have you been able to interact a lot with Coach Greg Paulus at all? ANAS MAHMOUD: He got here earlier this week -- well, not earlier, but in the middle of the week. He actually texts me every morning and tells me you're going to have a great day and enjoy it, and he texted me this morning, and he said, enjoy your ACC Media Day. He's getting to know all of us. We're also getting to know him, and he's a great coach and a great human being. Q. Are you enjoying your Media Day? What do you like about it so far? ANAS MAHMOUD: It's a bit early. Woke up a little early today. But it's just great to be here representing Louisville. Q. Talk about dealing with some of the off-the-court distractions; how much does that help you kind of get through this a little bit? ANAS MAHMOUD: You know, the biggest thing was we know what we have to do this time around. We know as soon as practice starts and game starts, everything will get moving, and at the end of the day that's when we came to Louisville to do. We came here to play basketball, and as soon as practice started and we started for getting, started getting distracted from what happens in the media and what happens out of our control, and I'm hoping when the game starts, as well, it's going to take a higher step and further step into that process. Q. The American and NCAA amateurism model is pretty unique. You have a more global perspective. What's been the reaction when you explain to people what happened at Louisville that aren't from this country? Have you ever been able to explain it? ANAS MAHMOUD: You know, I try to explain it to my parents. I try to explain it to my friends. It's just the concept itself of all the NCAA rules and how much you can violate it and you can even violate it without knowing is the one thing that people don't understand overseas. There's so many NCAA rules and there's a lot of them that we don't even know. We try our best to know all of them. It's just the concept of that many rules is the one thing that they don't understand very well. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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