TRANSCRIPT: Dusty May's weekly press conference 1/5

Opening Statement

We’re excited to get on the road for our, I believe, third true road game. We played several neutral sites, so it’s not as if we played a heavy home schedule. But we’re excited to see if we can improve on our performance on the opposition’s home court.

On what he learned about road games in the Big Ten last year

Each road game, we were at a different stage, and so it’s tough to say we learned this or we learned that. Obviously, our first road game was Wisconsin, and we played very well. And I thought that game propelled us into the belief that we could win on the road. The USC and UCLA trip, we found a good rhythm and flow, so we played well there. And then it brought us back to Minneapolis, and we weren’t ready to play. We weren’t in the right mind space.

And then, as it got late in the year, we were knocked on our heels a little bit because of the schedule, because of our lack of depth, and some other reasons. But we know that you have to be incredibly disciplined and prepared when you go on the road, because every team’s a much, much different home for obvious reasons.

On increasing the margin between rebounding and turnovers

I’m not sure we could afford to turn the ball over, as we saw earlier in the year, with our first couple games, our exhibition games and whatnot. So, a credit to our guys, they’ve been very, very intentional. The mistakes we were making repeatedly early in the year, and as I said at that point, we weren’t committing these turnovers in the summer.

And when you look at our live stats, our five-on-five stats over a period of four or five months, that was an issue that really came out of nowhere, and probably a byproduct of the way we defend ourselves and things like that. And conversely, we’ve gotten better at forcing turnovers, so maybe that’s helped us as well, that we’re forcing more, we’re being more aggressive, active in the passing lanes, things like that, which is helping us fight for catches and work. But USC did a couple things that we’re going to see going forward.

One thing that we have to be good at is anticipating, predicting what we’re going to see from each team, and then hopefully we have a solution to counter it. We have a lot of respect for Penn State, their coaches, their young nucleus of guys. They have a core group that, even though they haven’t been together long, you can see their confidence growing, and they’re staying committed to the process of getting better. They played Illinois very well Sunday.

On putting Roddy Gayle in the paint when facing zone vs. USC

Roddy’s a very good playmaker. He’s poised in the middle. He knows where to look. He knows where to focus his attention. He has a lot of reps. We put different guys in there, depending on what the zone looks like, depending on who’s where.

Sometimes, if we have two or three guys that are similar to Roddy, then we’ll flash them in, pull them out, we’ll ball screen, we’ll look for some lobs, but we just trust his decision-making, really, in any situation. That’s why Roddy, off the bench, I can’t imagine there’s a more valuable sixth man in all of college basketball than Roddy Gayle is for us, meaning that if things are going well, they’re going to continue to go even better with the energy and invisible plays that he makes. And if things aren’t going well, usually he brings a jolt of energy, and maybe it’s a hustle play that becomes contagious.

So, he checks a lot of boxes for us. So, him in the middle of the zone, him cutting out the corners, him as a primary playmaker up top, we’re pretty comfortable with all of them, and that’s a nice weapon to have in a group coming in three or four minutes into the game, someone that can check a lot of boxes, and Roddy does that for us.

On whether he thinks anyone in the program wants to skip ahead to the tougher parts of the schedule

I don’t think so. Me, personally, I’m not big on hypotheticals. I enjoy competing, I enjoy playing. Obviously, there are certain games because of television and promotions and things, and there’s just a different level of energy for certain rivals and things like that. I’ll enjoy today, the preparation for Penn State, and knowing that if we’re not layering our teaching, our vocabulary the right way, then we’re not going to be able to go through Big Ten play.

For example, we go to the Pacific Northwest, and we play, and then we come back, and we have the shortest turn of any scheduling turn in the conference. There’s only one – there’s two teams in all the league that travel across the country and have that quick of a turn, and I’m not complaining about it. We all have certain things that – a lot of times, as coaches, we complain about our disadvantages. Well, because we have that scheduling disadvantage, then we probably – if we look at it closely, we probably have one or two scheduling advantages that balance it out. But just going through the Big Ten, we’re not going to have time to practice.

We’re not – it’s going to be a mental preparation later on, so we have to be very, very forward-thinking in what we need to have in and what we need to be able to do based on us watching games last night. For example, Washington and Indiana, and we’ve got to start looking ahead at what are we going to have to be able to do to win these games in really, really short preparation time. And obviously, our staff’s very committed to living this game and our profession.

So, yeah, we have to do a better job than last year, but we’re excited. But no, there’s definitely – none of us are looking forward to fast-forwarding and not appreciating those guys in our locker room every single day. I don’t want to wish away one minute. It’s like having kids. You’d hate to wish away one minute that you have whenever you know there’s a destination for everyone.

On trying to stay unbeaten and be the number one team in the country

I’ve heard a few of the guys talking about that as a little bit of extra motivation. And as we’re still the hunter, not being ranked number one, that’s not it for me personally. But I don’t mind. Look, we’re all wired differently. We’re all motivated by different things. Some of us intrinsically, some extrinsically. Whatever the case, it doesn’t really matter what motivates our guys as long as they’re motivated to improve. They continue to be great teammates. They continue to play for each other and for the win.

As far as staying undefeated, yeah, we want to win our next game. So we’re undefeated now. So if we win our next game, then we’ll remain undefeated. But other than that, I’m not thinking about going into this game undefeated or that game undefeated or one in the pool or two. It’s how do we prepare? Are we in the right mind space to play really good ball at Penn State tomorrow? Look, we all know how difficult it’s going to be.

On Adai Mara’s free throw shooting

I think, and to be honest, literally everything we do, we’ve had some really poorly officiated games in practice to get he and LJ, some of the guys that didn’t have, Elliot, some of the guys shooting below 80, to get them game reps with the game on the line and running on the line. And so it’s not that — Adai is shooting a lot of them, but even in his pressure situation free throws, where you get fouled, and you have to make one for two points. And if you don’t, your team loses, and then you have to run again, whatever the case. And so I think a guy was seven for eight yesterday, and the pressure free throws, live play free throws, and they all look great. It’s 100%. He’s overthinking it.

He’s got a beautiful stroke. He’s going to make them. He’s got to figure out a way to separate all the distracting information and thinking about it. And even we talk about protecting our ego when he makes one doing the, look, step up there. If you make it, you make it. If you don’t, you don’t. We’re going to live with the results either way. We have a good offensive rebounding team. You have a good chance of getting it back even if you miss.

So we don’t talk about it. Obviously, he’s not trying to miss it. And probably the more you talk about it, the more it goes into his head. And even last night, I was texting him about it because I was watching a practice film. And they looked great. And he made a comment about doing it in the game.

And I thought, let’s not think anything more about it other than walking up there and trusting your work and your routine and shooting the ball and living with the result. We’re big boys. We can live with whatever the result is, this possession or this game. So that’s our message.

On what he learns by watching other games around the conference

All above. Sometimes it’s just a reminder of, wow, look at how fast player X rim runs. And therefore, they get transition threes out of it. Or it’s, oh man, mental note, they tried this tricky defense against this team, and it didn’t work. Or it did work. Or this team became stagnant against a press.

Or whatever the case. So it’s just making mental notes and having more information because, like I said, you have guys on your staff that are watching many. But once we get into season, I can watch three, four, five games max. And so maybe something eight games ago happened where maybe a team went hack-a-shack and the guy missed three straight one-on-ones or whatever the case. And they got back in the game. So just having that information. And hopefully you don’t need it when you do play those games. But you might. And so just little details like that.

On Morez Johnson’s recent run of form

I mean, first and foremost, his effort and want to is generating a lot of his looks. He’s in the gym right now. He works very, very consistently and religiously on getting better at what he needs to get better at. He hasn’t missed an individual film session. And to be honest, with us, we don’t chase our guys down and make them watch film.

We want them to feel like they’re getting better by coming in this morning and wanting to watch their individual films. So he’s an everyday guy. He’s added some things to his game. When he still needs to fix some things, he’s very open and honest and vulnerable towards, I need to get better at this. And then he attacks it. So he’s been a godsend. I mean, he’s one of my favorite players I’ve ever coached in such a short period. And he’s opposite for me personality-wise off the floor as probably anyone on our program. And I appreciate him as much as anyone.

On whether he believes it would be a challenge for the team to play in a close game right now

If that meant that we played really well and the other team played exceptionally well, I would live with that. But, no, we just want to play really good ball. I think we had 92 possessions against USC. We want to play good ball in 92 possessions. And, no, I don’t really want to be in one-possession games because as we saw at Minnesota last year, one-possession game could be a half-court heave to lose. And as we know in the Big Ten, one game can cost you a championship or can send you down a spiral that you have to figure out a way to stop the bleeding and things like that.

So, no, we want to show up and play with the same spirit and fire that we did in game one and continue to make the plays that are contagious because, as we all know, human behavior is contagious. So, if everyone’s being unselfish, it’s very easy to fall in line. If everyone’s working, spending extra time in the gym and busting it in the weight room and intentional about the film sessions, then that is contagious also. So, we’re more concerned with that. Am I sitting here saying I hope we have a close game in Happy Valley? Absolutely not. We want to play good ball and trust that the scoreboard says what we need to say at the end of the day.

On Yaxel Lendeborg and Nimari Burnett’s status

Nimari’s on the court shooting right now. Yes, he practiced yesterday, full go. Yaxel is day-to-day. He’s feeling much better. I would say he’ll be a game-time decision. We’ll see how he goes today and then see how he feels tomorrow. Shoot around and then make the decision from there with the medical team. I won’t have anything. The trainers will tell me if he can go or he can’t, and he’ll say whether he can go or he can’t.

On how Penn State will challenge the team on both ends of the court

They didn’t shoot a great percentage against Illinois, but they’re generating really good looks. They’ve got good speed. They’ve got a couple guys, Deleon, for example, that can really score the ball. Eli Rice, I believe in his shot. He’s a good shooter. They’ve got young bigs.

They’re new bigs. I don’t think they’re that young, the European bigs. And so I think when you have shooting, when you have speed, and like I said, I believe in their shooting much more than their percentages right now, much like our team last year. So they’re capable of banging in a bunch of threes. They give us problems. We competed against Coach Rhodes at VCU.

He gave us problems last year at Penn State. It took a heroic effort from a couple of our guys individually last year not to drop that game. Just to show you how fickle winning and losing is, I mean, Niederhauser, they did such a good job with him. He’s playing for the Los Angeles Clippers. And if he’s on this team today, the complexion of their season looks completely different to have a dominant big man, someone that commands that much attention, and now everyone’s in a little bit different role. And so, yeah, we know there’s going to be several teams in our league going to Happy Valley and leave very disappointed in the result, and we just want to make sure that we’re not one of those

On whether fighting complacency is tougher or easier with successful teams

I mean, look, every team has their own issues. Yesterday I thought it was one of our best practices of the year, and that’s really the only gauge that I can use or how we are mentally in practice. I thought the game, I thought we played. We didn’t play well against USC. We made a lot of errors that we haven’t been making, and they weren’t at their best either, so don’t get me wrong. So there hasn’t been any complacency.

I think we have a group that loves to compete, and also when you have the depth that we have, if one of the guys isn’t in the right mind space, and the guy checking in for them is probably going to bring it, and then he’ll probably take it home that game. So really as an individual, our guys don’t have any margin of error. And also, once again, I think there’s a real community to our group that they’re accountable to each other. They’re not going to let each other down when it comes to effort.

On the metrics he’s been most pleased with and areas of improvement

Yeah, our field goal percentage defense is something we’re very pleased with. We still have to get better rebounding the ball, and our rebounding numbers are good. I think we’re just outside the top 50 offensive rebounding, and our defensive rebounding numbers are good.

But when you look in our locker room, and you just do the half circle, just looking around the room, we should be elite when it comes to rebounding the ball. So we’ve got to put much more emphasis on that. Our turnovers are going. They continue to decrease, and some of those have been the last couple minutes of games when you’ve had your third unit in, and the game’s just gotten a little bit sloppier, especially the officiating changes. The game just gets sloppy in the last four minutes of some of these games. But, yeah, the rebounding is the number one thing.

As far as proud of the stats, we’re not big on being proud of what we’re doing well as much as we are. What do we need to fix? What do we anticipate being a problem going further? But there still are a couple areas that we need to get better at, and especially on the nights when the shots aren’t going in like they were against USC. We’ve got to go get some of those. We need to go get more of those back.

On his thoughts on the team shooting numbers

I still think Will and Nimari and Roddy, Trey McKenney, I still think those guys have some big, big shooting games in them, whether it’s next game or the game after that. I think we’re shooting it well enough. I do think our guys, because of the shots they’re generating together, I still think we have another jump to make as far as shooting the ball, obviously from three in the free-throw line, because our two-point offense has been extremely efficient all year, even though it’s getting better.

I think we were maybe 1.59 last game from two points per possession on the season. We’re in the mid-1.4, 1.42, something like that. So we do feel like we’re getting better and more efficient from two, but continue to generate the right shots and trust that we’re just going to make the right plays.