Coach Gottfried Previews the 2002-03 Men's Basketball Season
7/19/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Transcript from the July 18 SEC Basketball Coaches Summer Teleconference
On the talent Alabama returns from its 2002 SEC Champions Team
"I'm excited about this year. I think having won the year outright—and we never played a senior—that makes you feel good. I wish that Rod Grizzard would have been back as a part of our team but he's not, having elected to leave a year early for the draft. But I think you just move forward. That's all a part of college basketball these days.
"I like the fact that we have some experience that we haven't had. From that perspective, we're pretty excited about the upcoming season."
On his concerns going into the 2002-03 season
"Obviously you want to stay healthy. We were very fortunate last season in that we did not have any injuries of significance. I think as a coach, that's always a concern. But we've got to get better play or probably consistent play out of our wing position. You're going to have a new player replacing (Rod) Grizzard, and I think Terrance Meade as a senior needs to step up. And whoever plays in that position, we need to have a lot more consistent play.
"I think as a concern for us, too, is that last year with Grizzard we had the ability when we substituted an inside player, (Erwin) Dudley or (Kenny) Walker, we had the luxury of playing Grizzard as a fourth perimeter player and really had some mis-match problems. I don't think we have that luxury right now. We've got to find it, more of your traditional guy like (freshman) Chuck Davis, Reggie Rambo, Lucky Williams—these guys that somebody needs to step up for us."
On taking team steps further into the NCAA tournament
"I think last year we played like we hadn't been there in a long time, which we hadn't. It was new territory for us. We have some experience now and we need to be better. Playing the SEC tournament, we played the Friday, Saturday and Sunday then turned around and played Thursday (in the NCAA tournament) and probably looked like a tired team. We need to handle that better next year. So experience is something that we hadn't had, we have a little bit of that now, and hopefully it helps us."
On the effect the return of UA's Erwin Dudley and MSU's Mario Austin has on the strength of the SEC Western Division
"I was concerned (that Dudley might have gone early) but I just try to give him as much factual information as we could to help him. I'm obviously very thankful that he's returned, and I think that both he and Mario (Austin) will be two of the best players in the country. So I don't think there's any question that it strengthens this side of the league and there's going to be some good battles I'm sure. Our league is very good. The West, I think, is a very strong side. There's a perception, I think, a lot of times that the West takes a back seat to the East which I don't think is accurate at all. I think the West is going to be tremendously strong."
How close was Dudley to leaving a year early? Did the two discuss the topic much?
"We talked about it a lot. I think Erwin approached it from a very mature and level-headed perspective. He wanted to find out if he was going to be among the top 12-15 picks in this draft if that was something that he could feel in his mind would be something of a guarantee. That wasn't the case. So I think for him, he had made his mind up that he does want to graduate. He's on track to graduate. He carries a 3.0 GPA plus he's excited about his senior year. He went into the process in a very systematic way. He evaluated it and made a decision."
On freshman newcomer Kennedy Winston, the state of Alabama's "Mr. Basketball"
"I'm sure fans are expecting a lot, and that's unfair. He's a young player who will be a freshman, and he's going to go through a learning curve that every player goes through. If you look back to Rod (Grizzard) and Erwin (Dudley) their freshman year, they're certainly a long ways ahead now of where they were then. He's very talented, and he's a good worker. He's going to have a great future, but those things take time. We'll see how it goes."
On the delay in finalizing Alabama's schedule (which is waiting on the decision toward exempted games in a national court case) and who will be amongst the 13 scholarship players on roster
"The schedule—we're still waiting. We're kind of being held hostage just a little bit by the court ruling. We don't know. We've got to wait and see. We were told it was going to be this past Monday. I've now been told it should be today. But I have been told that six or seven times this spring. It's in a judge's hand in Columbus, Ohio. He gets to make that determination. There are a lot of coaches in similar situations as we are so we're all just waiting to see. And it will work itself out in the next few weeks.
"As far as our personnel we'll continue to look at that here in the next couple of weeks."
