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BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S MEDIA DAYSOctober 17, 2012Travis FordKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Travis Ford. Coach, your comments about the upcoming season? COACH FORD: We had a very competitive opening weekend of practice. We were fortunate enough to be able to take a trip to Spain, a summer trip in early August, which really got us ahead. And I think it's really we've already seen some dividends. It's paid for us as far as how sharp their practices have been, and things like that. I like our basketball team. We return several young players that were kind of thrown in the fire last year and gained some extremely valuable experience. I'm not sure how many games. But at the end of the year, the last 7, 8, 9 games of the season last year, we were starting three freshmen, a sophomore, and a senior. Those freshmen and sophomores got some extremely valuable experience, and all those guys will be stepping up and playing, obviously much bigger roles this year and we'll be adding in some incoming freshmen that will step in and take Keiton Page's spot. But we finished the year last year with some pretty serious injuries with Olukemi out with an ACL and Philip Jurick was out with a torn Achilles and Le'Bryan Nash missed the last seven or eight game was broken wrist. We're still in the same situation. We're pretty injured right now this first weekend and this first week of practice, including this week. We'll be without three of our top seven, four of our top eight guys have been out with either injuries or illnesses. So our team can start preparing and start coming together as a team, because we're just kind of piecing things together at this point through practice. But I like our team. I like that we're still very, very, very young. We're going to be playing three or four‑‑ three or four freshmen, and three sophomores, and a junior, and probably one senior or two seniors the majority of the minutes. But we're still relatively a very, very young basketball team. But fortunately enough we have young players that have gotten valuable experience through last season. Q. Travis, I heard that Smart is a very versatile player. How many positions can he play? Can he play point guard? What all can he do? COACH FORD: Yeah, Marcus is an extremely versatile player. Can he play four different positions on the court from the point guard position to the two, to the three, to the four. If you asked him to play the five, he would do that too. But extremely unselfish basketball player. Marcus, probably more than any player I've ever coached, affects a practice, effects games more than any player I've seen. He's involved in every play in practice, whether it be a rebound, a loose ball, defensively making assists. He's involved in everything. He's the ultimate winner. He competes every drill to win every drill. He takes great pride in winning. He takes pride in his team winning. He's an extremely vocal leader. He never stops talking in practice, and this is from a freshman. I tell everybody, he's kind of old school. He doesn't care what position he plays, doesn't care how many points he scores. All he cares about is winning. I've never seen too many players that make as many extra effort plays as Marcus Smart makes. I was telling our team the other day everybody kind of does what I tell them to do. He kind of goes above and beyond what I tell him to do. It's just very refreshing. I think it's fortunate that on our team we have two to three to four different players that play that way. It becomes contagious when you have a player like that. He kind of helped everybody. It makes it that much better when he's so unselfish. It's fun to watch him play every day. But he affects the game in so many different ways. Q. With that, how has he impacted Le'Bryan Nash? Le'Bryan comes in as one of the top recruits in the country. Are they developing a relationship that carries on to the court? Is Le'Bryan welcomed? Marcus? How does that dynamic work? COACH FORD: Absolutely. I think they complement each other very well, very well. In the fact that I think Le'Bryan complements Marcus very well, because Marcus is a great passer, and Le'Bryan is a great finisher, and he can finish from a lot of different areas on the court, from the three‑point line on in. Marcus, those two have developed a great bond on and off the court. They're fun to watch. Marcus complements LB, because LB sees the success that Marcus has and his team has only because of how hard Marcus plays, and that becomes contagious is to guys like Le'Bryan who last year was a little inconsistent and with his play. He worked a little bit. We don't have that problem right now. He's been terrific. He learned so many great lessons his first year in the Big 12. In that aspect, he's helped Marcus a lot too. He's helped Marcus a lot. I heard him talk about how competitive it is at this level. It is. It's interesting seeing those two on the court because they complement each other very well. A lot of people have commented to me that I bet Marcus really helps Le'Bryan, well, Le'Bryan helps Marcus as well. It's fun to watch those two. Q. Obviously you've got some new talent coming in. You have some hold overs from a young team. But what do you really need to do to move up?  What is maybe one of the most competitive, if not the most competitive leagues in the country? COACH FORD: That's very easy for us. We've got to rebound the basketball. That's been kind of the theme for us since practice has started. Kind of been the emphasis for us since practices started. Pretty much every category. Any rebounding category we were last. From offensive, to defensive, any category, we were last in the league in rebounding. We've got to make a drastic improvement in that area. We have Brian Williams who is pretty seriously hurt right now who will be out for a while, and that does not help our basketball team as far as rebounding. We've got to get some other guys working. Brian Williams was one of the more athletic players in our league. 6'5", he was playing the four‑three for us. He's out for a while. We're not sure how long yet. We've got to make sure that we're doing drills every single day. Brought up to our team every single day that we need to make sure that we kind of had the slogan, last to first in rebounding. That is the emphasis we're making on it. It's very evident what we've got to get better at when you just look at stats‑wise. I think we'll score a few more points than we did last season, even though we're losing our league in score. I think our defense will be better. We're longer, more athletic. We're making the emphasis on assists. We want to be one of the top teams in assists. That is another emphasis for us. We were fifth or sixth in the league last year. But it all comes back to rebounding every single time. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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