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Alabama HC Nate Oates Thurs FF · Coaches Corner

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Coach, Nate Oates coach, can you please give us an opening statement?
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Then we'll take some questions. It's great to be here. I UH very
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fortunate that I'm able to UH coach at a place late Rhymus. It gives
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us the UH resources to UH to be able to make a run like this.
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I mean, shoot, I done a lot of reminiscent over the last
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week. As people asked me. Eleven years ago, I was coaching high
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school basketball and just getting to know the Hurly brothers pretty well. It's ironic
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that, you know, my first final four that I make, the first
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one Alabama makes, but I coaching against Danny or Hurley who brother Bobby.
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It's the one that got me in this business. If it wasn't for Danny
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and Bobby, I want to be here, and we're playing each other in
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Bobby's town down here in Phoenix. So it's kind of funny how it comes
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full circle. But you know, be nice if I wasn't having to play
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against Danny's team, because it's pretty good team. So we uh, but
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we've been underdogs, UH kind of through this tournament. Nobody expected us to
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be here at this point. You know, last year we had a number
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one overall season. That's the nature of the tournament. With a one game
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elimination tournament, the best team doesn't always win. It happened last year,
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and we we've been able to make a run now and we're gonna have our
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team ready to go Saturday night. You know, we know we've got a
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daunting task in front of us, but our guys will be ready. And
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you know, me and Danny talked earlier in the week, we're gonna have
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fun. Uh. He's ultra competitive, as I'm sure you all know,
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and UH not quite sure what happened with the plane. I it wasn't me.
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I didn't send anybody over there to uh to mess with the mechanics.
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I'm sure he's a conjured dead up in his head already. But uh uh
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I did get a good night's sleep last night, so it's nice. Uh
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but uh, I'm sure he'll be fired up and ready to go Saturday.
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It'll be fun and then we'll we'll touch base after the game. Coach.
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Our first question comes all the way up front on the left side of the
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room. Jeff, Yeah, how many hours of sleep did you get?
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I got a solid seven to eight hours in a bed, not enough playing.
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They got in at three thirteen. That's not fine. I am glad
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I'm not the ops person for the University of Connecticut basketball team during this trip,
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that's for sure. How do you approach this with your team? I
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mean, obviously nobody's picking you guys to win. You're a heavy underdog.
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How are you approaching this with your group right now? I listen, we
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were an underdog. No nobody expects us to be here. I mean,
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we weren't playing our best basketball coming end of the regular season. Now,
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part of that was we weren't healthy. We haven't had at the last time
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we had our full team healthy, we beat a really good A and M
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team one hundred to seventy five. So, you know, we had to
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sell our guys that we can make the run, you know, before the
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tournament. Now that we've made the run to get to the final four,
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you know, I want our guys playing loose and free, but I want
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them thinking we got a chance to win. I mean, I mean,
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if you guys know me, I'm not going to this game just happy to
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be here. Like I mean, you kn's great, Danny's done a great
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job. I mean, there's you know, as Danny said, they're they're
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bulletproof. But you know, other teams have been up on them going on
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runs. The problem is they just go on a huge run, as evidenced
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by the last game thirty to zero, or they make these enormous runs.
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So we're we're gonna show our guys' success other teams have had and the success
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that other teams have had. We we also do those things very well.
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We just we just can't give them these big runs that everybody gives up.
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Now, it's a lot easier said than done, but you know, I
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mean, over forty minutes, you know we're gonna be in there. We
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got a chance. We played some of the best teams in the country.
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We've and we didn't win in the non conference against some of the best teams,
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but we had margins. You know, we were up at least six
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on all three of those games. When we played Purdue, Creighton, Arizona,
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we were up at least six with at least a seventy five percent chance
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on winning each game in the second half. So we've played good teams and
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been up on them and we can go back to that. We just got
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to close out forty minutes, coach, We're gonna go to the left side
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of the room by the Colin ap Hey coach right here, ap Stead ap
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A Kelly as we see a syndicated radio coach. What elements of Yukon Hurley
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basketball are president Alabama basketball and in general, what do you tell your team
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about playing against that's the frame shop blocker. Yeah, I mean, you
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know, the similarities are there. They play, you know, Danny's everybody
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makes it out to be like, you know, we're the ones doing all
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the analytics and efficiency. Well that Danny's about that stuff too. Me and
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Danny have talked about it, like they're trying to get the most efficient shots
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they can too. They're trying to force any fishing shots. They do it
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a little differently because they've got a post player and clinging that they can go
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to, you know, and we don't play through the post as much.
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But I mean they like to shoot a lot of threes too. Every big
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run I've seen them make, they've made plenty of threes. They take threes
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in the break like we take them, you know. They now we play
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a little more loose and free in the half court. They're a little more
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set oriented I mean they're going to run a set every time they don't score
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quickly, you know, in a transition break. Our guys play a little
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bit more in the flow, but probably a lot more similarities and there are
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differences, and he does a good job with the sets. Then obviously a
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tech and clinging well, Illinois tried to go right at him and I think
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they were over nineteen on shots that clinging can test. And so it's probably
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not the best plan of attack. But we have played against d We played
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against Colgbrenner, you know, we played against Jonas a Do at Tennessee.
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We played against some some real shop lockers, and you know, we've had
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some success with them. You know, can you pull him away from the
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rim? You know, we we can play Grand Nelson at the five,
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so him and you know, if he's making shots, he's got to come
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away from the rim. There's there's other things you can do, but we
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certainly aren't going to just drive the ball at him and expect to score over
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the top of him all night. That didn't seem to work very well.
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Their last came out just a quick reminder. You can take still photos but
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no video. Well, in the press conference room, let's go up to
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Dan left side up front. Nate over here. Hey, Dani walk in
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USA today. You talked about reminiscing of the last several days. When when
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you think back to that time in your your career and your life, were
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you happy being a high school coach for the rest of your career? Did
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you, you know, were you grinding every day to strive to get you
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an opportunity to do something like this. That's a good question. So when
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I when I took the job, you know, at twenty seven, i'd
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been a Division three assistant for five years. I think I would have taken
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any Division one assistant job anywhere in the country. It didn't really matter,
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just to be at this level. As I stayed at Romulus longer and longer,
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I was getting more and more picky with where I'd go. I you
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know, I had three daughters that were born and right outside Detroit there,
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and I didn't want to have to move my family. And really the Hurly
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family kind of helped me come to grips in my head with I'll be okay
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just being here the rest of my life. We were successful at Rohymulus,
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we were winning, you know, good retirement plan as a school teacher,
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you know, because I had interviewed at a few different schools in the back
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and didn't get them or just wasn't the right or been promised a job that
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didn't come through when they had an opening. And I could be frustrated,
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but I'd come to grips if Bob Hurley Senior could be a Hall of Fame
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coach and turned down. I think he had multiple Division one head coaching jobs
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he turned down and stay at Saint Anthony's And we were nowhere close to Saint
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Anthony. He's at Romulus. I'm not trying to compare the two programs,
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but the fact that he stayed at the high school level and was and everybody
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knew him and he was great, Like I could stay here and be a
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very successful basketball coach and be happy with it. Well, seems like every
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time you kind of get that way in life, then a pretty good opportunity
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comes up. So kind of when I got to the point where I I'm
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work going to work hard, but I wasn't just trying to get to a
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college job. Let's do this the best I can because that's the way we
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should do it. Then I had a pretty good opportunity to come up,
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and Bobby Hurley offered me a spot, and I got to the point I
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was not going to go into college if I wasn't pretty confident the guy was
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going in with was going to be successful. I was pretty confident the Hurley
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family was going to be successful. Bobby Hurley being part of it, obviously
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was going to be successful in his college coaching. Because I didn't want to
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have to move after getting fired year after year after year. And I've been
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fortunate we haven't been fired anywhere yet. Coach. We'll go to the right
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side, just to the left of the column. Hey, Nate David Brant
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with the Associated Press, you talked about your background, and I think four
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out of the top five scores on your roster transferred from mid majors. Do
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you do you think that kind of player is is a little more hungry,
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a little more appreciative that there's something about, you know, that journey that
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makes those players in some ways tougher. I think so. I feel like
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I'm, you know, a little bit the same way, like I'm just
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a high school guy that caught a break that's still trying to prove that I
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even belong at this level. I think those guys are mid major players with
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a chip on their shoulder that you know, played well enough that now they
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get an opportunity to prove they belong at this level. And they're still trying
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to prove it to the day, and they're gonna be trying to prove it
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Saturday. They belong at this level. You know, look at a kid
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like Mark Seiars, He's from the state of Alabama that we probably screwed up
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and didn't offer him a scholarship. There's no probably about it. We screwed
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up. He's obviously good enough, but I'm not sure that he would be
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this good if he didn't have to go to Ohio University first before he came
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here. Because he is a kid that's improved every single year out of high
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school. He had to go to Hardgrave, then he has to go to
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Ohio. Didn't shoot it well as a freshman, got to prove he's a
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shooter, plays well, then we take him. You know, he ends
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up being our second leading scorer. Now this year is our leading scorer and
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we're in the final four. I mean, he's just improved every year.
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But they all got a little chip on their shoulder. You know, a
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strata from Hofstra. I mean, he's a player of the year back to
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back years in a great league there. But now you know he didn't play
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it a ton at Oregon when he so now he's proving he can do it
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at this level and a team that can win and go to the Final four.
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And Grant Nelson and Rights and even Nick Pringle started at Wafford and I
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think only played in half the games is freshman year at Wafford. So I
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think all of these guys are trying to prove they belong at this level,
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just like I am. To be honest with you, Coach third row on
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the right side, Coach Ryan had to the NBC thirteen in Birmingham. There's
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a stat that came out that over the last few years, the final four
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coaches have an average of twenty years of experience as a head coach. I
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believe yours is nine in Division one. How many people have said to you
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you can't do it this way, Your your route was a little different,
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not being an assistant for long And what do you say to those people that
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there is different routes to take to get to the Final four. Yeah,
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there's definitely a different route. Mine's a lot different than most. You know,
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and I was at Romulus, and you know, Danny being at Saint
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Benedict's, Kevin being at Hargrave and Ramos is a little bit different. It's
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cool that we were all in high school. Mine was a little more like
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the tradition high school. He actually had to live in Roymulus to go to
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Rymulus. And I think it gives some hope and believe for just the normal
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high school coach out there, you know, maybe not the high school coach
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that's on this national level, whether recruiting nationally, you know, but I
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think and I wouldn't trade my route for anything, because I got experience at
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that in different ways that a lot of these coaches don't get. If you
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haven't coached at a high school level, you have no idea what it's like
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to be on the other side of the recruiting table. You know. I
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had eighteen kids go play Division One. I took a lot of them on
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visits. I took Easy Matthews on an unofficial visit Trorrhode Island, drove them
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out there from Detroit to Rhode Island, sat in on all the meetings.
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I know what it's like to sit on that side of it, so I
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can use that to apply and there's lots of I'm able to experiment with how
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I play. If your first head coaching job, ever, is at Division
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one level, there's a big spotlight on you. You can't experiment as much.
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You know, one year, we pressed the whole year, found out
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what worked and work. You know, like, if you do that at
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this level and it doesn't work, you may get fired after a year.
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Like you can if they fired me from being at coach Rhymas say that only
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takes like four thousand dollars out of my I'm I'm still good as a teacher.
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I still got my math job, you know. So I was able
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to experiment a little bit more, you know, coming up that way,
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and I think it gives me a different perspective on some things. But I'm
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here to those that say you can't do it. It's definitely harder, but
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you can't do it. I just did it. I mean, you got
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to catch some breaks. I don't want to. You know, if I
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had some secret formula, i'd write a book and make millions retire from coaching.
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You got to catch a lot of breaks, but you got to be
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ready for your breaks when they're given to you too. Like. So,
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yeah, I mean, I'm thankful to be here. It's grateful to work
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at Buffalo under an ad that took a chance. He's now in the SEC
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Danny Whites at Tennessee, but he gave me a job after only being there
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for two years. You know, I was only out of high school for
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two years, So I know that I'm fortunate. I worked for different people,
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caught different breaks that a lot of people don't get. There's a lot
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of high school coaches that are probably just as good, if not better than
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me, and just haven't had a break like I've been able to have all
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the way back and all the way to the right side. Coach Sam Lance
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with Adams Gory and Zachswag dot Com. First thing, what made you want
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to recruit Aaron Nostrada And how does NIL help someone like him kind of change?
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He in his mom's life. He talked to us about how much Anil
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has allowed him to support her. Yeah, I mean, Aaron's an unbelievable
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kid, a great player. I coached at a level similar to what the
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CIA is, the MAC and the CA are similar levels. And when I
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got the job at Alabama, I know there's the best player in the MAC.
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Could definitely have played for us at Alabama for sure, just about every
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year. So you go find a player to hear. I'm back to back
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years in the league as good as a CIA like we knew. And we've
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got to party analytics company that helps us kind of evaluate transfers and fit within
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our program. And they they thought he was great. I mean, he's
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like the best guard in the portal that we could get for how we want
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to play, and he's proven to be pretty good. I mean he's got
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a triple double. I mean, you think about all the pros we've had
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since we've been in Alabama, it's only the second triple double we've had.
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Kyra Lewis had the first one. So he's played great as far as the
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NIL goes, you know, you know, you go from Hobster to a
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place like Alabama and there's opportunities for a lot of a lot more in il
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than there wasn't Hofster. You know, for him to be able to bring
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his mother down to as many games as they did and help her. You
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know, I did an in home visit with him in a Philly area,
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him and his mom, and it kind of took me back to my Royemeo
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stays like I said, I you know, I He's to go to all
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my players' houses and stuff, and I'm gonna It was cool to kind of
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be in there and know that he could support his mom. And I mean,
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she's a great lady. Love seeing her at all the games and she's
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super nice. But yeah, he's able to help her with what he can
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and bring her to games. And you know, the NCAA, it is
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great. They provide the money to bring the families to the final four.
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But now within il like the kids can bring their parents to all the NCAA
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tournament games Spokane, LA, they can type fly him up to Toronto when
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we play Purdue they can. So those opportunities are great for the kids.
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Now up front and center, I think Kelly thus Closer News, can you
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put into words what Mark Sears has meant to the team's success in the tournament
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and the whole season. Well, obviously he's our leading scorer, and you
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know we at a top five offense in the country most of the year.
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A lot lot of the year we were number one offense in the country and
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he's a huge part of that. We wouldn't be where we're at without him.
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We know that. And offensively, he's been one of the best players
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in the country all year. We would not be in the final four if
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it was not for Mark Sears defense leadership like he's turned it turned it around
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a lot in that regard in the last month. I think he's made a
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decision. He wants to play as long as possible this year, wants to
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put himself on a national stage. The only way we were gonna do that
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is if our best player was really locked into the defensive end of the floor.
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And he's been really locked in and proved he can be a great guard
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defender, and he's doing it. We need him to do it on Saturday
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night again because you know, he's got to play. He's our best player
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on offense. He's gonna play a lot of minutes. So when your best
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players playing really hard on defense and leading the way he's been for these last
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few weeks, he got a chance to make a special run like we've done.
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Coach center of the room. Three rows from the back, Robert O'Connell,
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Wall Street Journal, Nate You've talked all tournament about this philosophy of next,
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next, Next. Can you expand a bit on the different things that
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might mean to you on the practice level, game level, season level,
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and how hard is it to kind of trust that process in like you say,
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elimination tournament where things can go off the rails so quickly. Yeah.
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So, you know, I talked to coach Saban after we lost in the
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SEC tournament. You know, I think just about every year he won a
18:15
national championship, they lost some point during the year. And football is obviously
18:18
different. You know, there's a lot more games in basketball, but like
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this year, they lost the Texas game and he did an unbelievable job getting
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the season turnaround. So I called him, like, how do we get
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this thing turned around this late? Like we haven't, we're not playing our
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best basketball. And he kind of talked he watches all the games and coach
18:36
got to get you guys, they got to go to the next play.
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And we kind of talked about that a little bit as a group, and
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I'm like, you know what, we're gonna make this real simple. We're
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gonna come in, We're just next, like and it goes all kinds of
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different ways. Sometimes we'll be on like we've had, Like I said,
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we had the number one offense for a book of this year this year until
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we got the injuries came. But sometimes we'd be on a big run,
18:56
be up on a team big and we just relax on defense. Even happened
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to us in the NCAA tournament. We got up thirty one on Charleston,
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and I felt like we relaxed and over the last seven minutes that I was
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course by eighteen. So we did a pretty good job of next until then
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and then we didn't do a good job. But it's also been the other
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way. You know, we we'll have some offensive struggles. Guys will drop
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their heads and they're thinking about the last play on offense instead of the next
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play on defense. So you know, we just it's the next action within
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the play. It's the next play. No matter what happens on offense,
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good or bad, bad call by a referee, teammate misses you on and
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open kick out, it doesn't matter. Just go to the next play and
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give everything you have to the next play, and then when we're done with
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this game, move to the next game. So I think it's great philosophy
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in life. There's a lot of adversity you hit in life. Move to
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the next what's the next best action? Like she would go through all kinds
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of things in life, move to the next one and make that the best
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one. By you live in the past, you're not going to be very
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good in the present. So we we've been trying to move to the next
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play, the next action, the next time out, just next, next,
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next, and our guys have been doing a pretty good job at for
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four games. Coach, this is likely our last question and read using that
20:11
same back right, Mike Matt Matt Norlanders, CBS Sports Nate, this is
20:15
kind of touching on what you just talked about. But you're one hundred and
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fifth and adjusted defensive efficiency at Ken Palm, which I know you know at
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this stage of the season your team is defensive capability or lack the rough kind
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of is what it is. When you face Yukon as a coach and at
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with your staff, are you going to lean in on everything possible that you
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have offensively, knowing that you have certain limitations offensively and what the data says
20:41
and I know you're deep into that, or how do you prepare this team
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after seeing Yukon essentially you know eviscerates pass four tournament amount post. So yeah,
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I mean, obviously, we we've got a third party analytics company that
20:52
does a great job. We look at ken pommelaut, we look at bart
20:56
Torvik, We look at all of them a little bit here and there.
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I think bart Torvik's got one that you can put in just a set number
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of games. So if you look at our four games in the NCA tournament,
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we're not anywhere close to one hundred and fifth, do you know what
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we are? Yeah, you should look at just the tournament. And if
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you looked at the four games in the tournament and took a part, look,
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we did a very bad job. Once we got up thirty one on
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Charleston, we relaxed. If you take out those seven minutes where they outscored
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us by eighteen after we got up thirty one, our defense and you could
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probably do it. Do it. I should ask our third party an leagus
21:38
company SSAY to do it for me. I believe our defense is more like
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top thirty, So I don't We're not going to just assume that we're a
21:48
terrible defensive team and just try to outscore you gun. I think that's a
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recipe for disaster. They're too good on both sides of the ball. I
21:55
will say we basically are our mindset with these guys have been guys. If
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we can, if we're back healthy and have the number one offense in the
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country like we had when we were healthy, and we can be a top
22:06
twenty to thirty defense, we can make a Final four run. So forget
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it. We're not fixing the one oh five. I mean, there's not
22:11
enough games left to but let's forget that. Let's lock in. We're gonna
22:15
do everything we can in these games. So we did give our guys after
22:19
the first week at a tournament. In the last two games we were whatever
22:23
was thirty something, I think it was. So I haven't run it yet.
22:27
I've been a little bit too busy trying to figure out Yukon. We've
22:30
got our hands full with Yukon. You could probably run it quick and I
22:33
should have had a run, but we're not. Our offense has to be
22:37
great. We know that against a very good defense from Yukon, but we
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are going to try to be as good as we can possibly be on defense.
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I just don't think you can try to be yukon one hundred and twenty
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twe hundred and eighteen. That's probably not gonna be a good idea. That's
22:55
unfortunately all the time we have with coach o its fortunately or unfortunately. Thank
22:59
you, Matt,