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herky
YEAH JEETS!!!!!!111
TRANSCRIPT: Fran McCaffery Presser for 10/31
Pt. 1
Pt. 1
Q. How do you see your starting five shaping up for Sunday? How content would you be with that being your group for the foreseeable future?
COACH McCAFFERY: I would say that there's a good chance the team I start on Sunday would be the team I start for a while. Obviously it would depend upon how it unfolds before our eyes. Do we play well? Do we play with chemistry? That kind of thing.
Still tinkering with it a little bit. Obviously there's some guys that are pretty obvious going to be in the starting lineup, others not so much.
Q. How about your rotation? Do you have a feel for that? Eight to nine?
COACH McCAFFERY: At least 10, maybe 11, but at least 10.
Q. Have you thought about the redshirt possibilities?
COACH McCAFFERY: Yes. We can play first‑year guys Sunday and still redshirt them, not second‑year guys or third‑year guys. So any decision on redshirting will not be made until after Sunday's game. I don't plan on redshirting anybody other than a freshman, unless of course they got injured, and hopefully that won't happen.
Q. Eric May, your starting three?
COACH McCAFFERY: A possibility, yeah. A possibility. He's plays well enough to be in the starting lineup. I've been very, very happy with Eric May. He's kind of doing everything you would expect him to do when he's healthy, but he's doing more off the dribble, shooting the ball well, really showing great leadership, playing like a senior, the only senior we have. He's playing like that.
So it's possible he would be in the starting lineup. But the thing about him, whether he's starting or not, he's probably going to have about the same role. He's going to be an integral part of what we're doing. He may be more comfortable coming off the bench, getting the same amount of minutes, bringing energy and experience off the bench. We'll see.
Q. Based on the scrimmage Sunday, where is your defense? Making progress?
COACH McCAFFERY: Better than it was. Not where it needs to be by any means. But when you have more people that can come in and be fresh, that can only help your defense. You're looking for two areas. Number one obviously is improvement in technique, but also improvement in intensity level.
Sometimes your lack of defensive intensity is not a result of the kids not wanting to do it, it's fatigue. So it's funny, because we played a lot of guys on Sunday, and you would think that we kept taking them out, putting them in, taking them out. You think some guy is going to be miffed about how many minutes he got or didn't get. Nobody was complaining because they were coming out when they were tired, and they went back in when they were rested. That was better for us.
Q. First time you've been able to do that?
COACH McCAFFERY: First time. Otherwise we have too much trouble scoring. I mean, I'd have certain guys on the floor, didn't matter what we did on defense, we couldn't make a basket. Just couldn't leave Matt out there by himself. We had to have some other pieces around him, guys that could make shots.
Q. What can you say about the scrimmage? How important was it?
COACH McCAFFERY: No specific point total or scores or that stuff.
I would say this. It was a substantially better performance than the last time we played them, to say the least. I thought we were very fortunate to be able to get them to play. That doesn't always work. A lot of programs put those two games on their season ticket package, so you can't get a team that's ranked in the top 15. They're anywhere from 9 to 15, depending where you look. They've got two pros legitimately, without question I think. The big fella is in the best shape I've ever seen him. I coached against him when he was at Rutgers. The transformation in him has been tremendous. Credit to him and to Greg and his staff.
McDermott still one of the best players in the country. First team All‑American again I'm sure. We did a better job on him. I would say essentially did a better job from a technical standpoint. Also rotated some guys on him. I think he had 10 of the first 15 points, 12 of the first 15, something like that. This time around he wasn't quite like that.
So I was pleased with overall what we were able to accomplish. The beauty of a game like that is this: you play a game and you can do some situations. I'm not worried about subbing players in. I didn't start Devyn Marble in the second half because I wanted to get some other guys in there. If it was a regular game, I would have. That's kind of how you approach it.
I don't know if he left some of his starters on the bench longer than he would have knowing this game was close, this type of thing. But it's not what that day was about. It was trying to figure out who can play, who's ready, who's not ready, what combinations might work from a lineup standpoint. Can we press effectively a good team, can we do that. We tried to press them last year and it was a non‑factor in the game. It was a factor in the game on Sunday, very effective. That's a good sign.
There's a lot of good signs.
We made some mental errors at some crucial points that is a little upsetting. But that's why you do it, because you put them in a position so hopefully they won't make that same mistake the next time you're in that situation, the same people.
I thought our young kids performed extremely well. Very pleased with that. We had some tremendous individual performances. Without getting into it, phenomenal individual performances, which were very encouraging. You know, when it was over, I think it was one of those things where both programs could look and say that was a worthwhile experience for both of us.
Q. When you talk about Woodbury going head‑to‑head, that's got to be a great learning tool for him knowing the centers he's going to face week in and week out.
COACH McCAFFERY: It was great. He's a handful because what he does is he knows how to use his body. Whereas he used to tire early in his career, now he's sort of relentless, constantly wears you out with that frame. He plays within himself. He scores in the post. He doesn't try to do what he can't do. Ultimately he puts up numbers.
I thought Woodbury, from the very beginning, was banging with him and really made it hard on him, didn't back down from him physically. Woodbury is fearless. That's what you need to see. Let's face it, last year, (indiscernible) had his way with us, absolutely had his way, could do whatever he wanted to do.
That wasn't the case. He certainly played well, but he had to work a lot harder. We had a low‑post presence in that game. That's going to be very important for us as we move forward.
A low‑post presence doesn't mean you throw it in there and he scores. It means you throw it in there, good things happen, whether it's a bucket, a move, post‑feed kick‑out to the weak side for three, hitting a cutter, collapsing the defense, there's any number of things. That's one of the things where Woody is really good.
Q. Anybody in the last couple weeks that raised their stock that you're going to have to get minutes for them?
COACH McCAFFERY: I wouldn't say that. I would say everybody has been pretty consistent there, yeah.
Q. What is the challenge of having 10 or 11 players on rotation?
COACH McCAFFERY: The challenges are very simple: there's going to be a guy or two occasionally that thought he was going to play 28 minutes, 32 minutes, he plays 16 or 14. Are they going to be satisfied? Are they going to accept that role? Is that going to be a problem? That's a personal thing. Might be that they play eight in a particular game.
The flipside of that is, you know, if they only play eight, are they going to be ready for the next game. Forgetting whether or not they were upset about it, am I giving them enough minutes to develop them. It's a two‑sided issue there.
So it was not a problem on Sunday. I don't anticipate it being a problem most of the time. At some point, probably going to be a problem. We'll just deal with it at the time.
We've been lucky. We hope we stay healthy as we have been. But Pat obviously would impact what your question was all about. Somebody gets banged up, can't play. We have three or four guys banged up, none to the point where they wouldn't practice or play.