Mark Gottfried Press Conference
11/8/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Following are a sampling of quotes from University of Alabama head basketball coach Mark Gottfried taken from his November 7 press conference with media to preview Alabama's season opening game against Troy at 7 p.m. CT on Friday, November 9 in Tuscaloosa. They were taken from his press conference on Wednesday, November 7:
On Troy:
“Like every team, we’re anxious to play. I think our guys are. We’ve got a lot of respect for Troy. They will be a very good team this year. We scheduled teams like Troy because we felt like Troy has a chance to win their league. I’ve known Don Maestri (Troy head coach) a long, long time. In fact he recruited me when I was in high school. He worked for Coach (Wimp) Sanderson. He left by the time I got here, but I’ve known him for a long, long time. He’s a very, very good friend.
“We’ve got our hands full. I think we’ll have our hands full with everybody we play, so we better get ourselves ready to go. We’ve had a couple of good days of work since the North Alabama game (on Monday), so we’ll go from there.”
On Richard Hendrix, how the loss of 20 pounds affects his play:
“The first thing the weight (loss) has done, I think, is helped him stay in the game longer. His endurance is much better than it was a year ago, which I think will help every part of his game. We tried with him to lose some weight without losing strength and make him a little bit more mobile, agile, give him a chance to be a lot more affective in those kinds of areas. And that, to me, has been the big difference when I watch him play right now. Up and down the floor, he can extend his minutes longer and play harder for longer periods. He has done a good job. Terry Jones our strength coach has done a great job with him getting him to that point.”
On the starting lineup that he used in the UNA exhibition game of Richard Hendrix, Demetrius Jemison, Alonzo Gee, Rico Pickett and Mykal Riley and possibly using it again against Troy:
“I think, number one, the lineup can change and these guys know that. We’ve talked a lot about that. I’m not going to keep things in concrete. If they work out to where it’s the same for a while, then that will be because they will have earned it. They will earn the right to be in the lineup. I think with Demetrius especially in there, it gives us a quicker, better defensive player on the floor. And Demetrius is a player that can guard a number of different guys. He’s got to be that all-purpose guy than can guard a number of different players, brings some toughness, take charges, get deflections. He’s done that very well so far for us.
“If you look over there as well with (Brandon) Hollinger and (Justin) Tubbs and (Senario) Hillman, especially on the perimeter those guys, they are chomping at the bit to get in there and guard somebody right now. So hopefully our defensive intensity is going to be where it needs to be and it’s going to stay there.”
On former Tide player Justin Jonus (Boaz) who is now playing for Troy:
“Justin Jonus is a very good player and I’m sure he’ll be excited to come back and play here at the coliseum. Our guys know him. But he’s just one piece of the puzzle and you’re trying to figure out how to stop Troy’s weapons.”
On status of Ronald Steele:
“Ron is now beginning to work out. We’ve had him go through individual workouts the last couple of days. We’re going to try to increase those throughout the next two to three weeks, maybe month, and then maybe by December first, maybe as a loose goal, maybe he can join practice and just kind of see where he goes from there. I don’t really want to put him in our practices before he’s ready. You don’t want him where he has to be in and out or miss a day or miss half of practice. I’d like to try to get him as ready as possible to practice. And then when he practices, he’ll be kind of the scout team guy. He’ll be a guy that’s going to challenge our players that are playing. I think that’s about where he is right now.”
On point guard position and what puts Rico Pickett slightly ahead of Mikhail Torrance and does it “make him nervous” to start a true freshman at point:
“We’ve started a freshman here just about every year I’ve been here. I don’t know the stats but it’s been a lot. We’ve had a number of freshman make the All-SEC Freshman team mostly because they’re starting for us, so we’ve been in that situation before. I think Rico has done a great job. He’s picked things up real quick, the offense, the defense. Where he’s really good is he can assess things: he’s got that ability as a point guard to read situations, figure out, pay attention to match-ups. Somebody comes in the game, he’s thinking, ??Who should be guarding who? I’m coming down the floor; Richard hasn’t touched the ball for a little while’ and he’s thinking in his mind, ??What do we need to run offensively to give Richard the ball?’ He’s constantly assessing things. I like that about him. He’s got a good mind for a point guard. He’s just like every young player. In the game the other night he made a couple of turnovers where a couple of them were because he’s physically weak as a young player. As he gets older and stronger he won’t make some of the same turnovers. It kind of hit his arm one time and loses the ball. He made a couple of decisions where he tried to make something happen when something wasn’t there. But overall, in the last week to 10 days, he’s really pushed out there in front. He’s done a good job.”
On establishing a team identity:
“Every team does develop some kind of characteristic or identity. I don’t know that you can always dictate that. You’d like to. (But to do that is hard), especially in basketball. Our numbers are different. We have smaller numbers (than a sport like football). But this team, we haven’t developed that yet. I think that’s going to take time. I hope we become a really good defensive team that pushes the ball up and down the floor, gets a lot more baskets in the break this year. We’re going to be a fun team to watch. This is going to be a team that’s got a lot of energy and a lot of emotion, those type of thing. That’s what you want from your team. This is not one of the most talented teams we’ve ever had here in my nine or 10 years, but I really like some things about this team. I like some things about the way they go about taking care of business. We’ll see how that develops.”
