Everything Jim Larranaga Said After St. Leo Exhibition Game
The Miami Hurricanes men's basketball team had a empressive first outing against St. Leo against in a 94-61 victory in Exhibtion play.
Following the win, Miami head coach Jim Larranaga took questions:
Opening statement....
"I thought we played very hard and very well in the first half. Had a 30-point lead at halftime, but, unfortunately, we didn't do the same thing in the second half. Saint Leo's took advantage; they kept plunking away their very good three-point shooting, too, and we gave them a lot more open threes, and they buried them in the second half. But, we learn about ourselves, and we've got a lot of new guys, and they're trying to figure things out."
On Paul Djobet's play and Jalil Bethea's Flagrant 2...
"Yeah, Jalil had ten points at halftime and got into a scrum in the second half, and unfortunately, the way the officials saw it, he had to leave the game. Paul, on the other hand, has been practicing very hard since the summer, he got into the weight room, he is stronger, he's jumping better, and he kinda has grown up he's no longer a freshman learning he's a sophomore leading and our other scrimmage we had he was plus thirty in the plus-minus collum the highest on the team. So, he's doing a really good job."
On Divine Ugochukwu leading the team in assists and seeing the floor well....
"You know, originally, when he came in the summer, we were planning to redshirt him, but he was so good at just playing basketball, finding the open man, making layups, playing very well on the ball defense, and we told him about a month ago, we were not redshirting you cause you could be a contributor this year as a freshman and I'm not surprised at all of him leading us in assists he's very good at doing that I was very pleased that he found Yousef whos not been scoring much and he got three quick baskets off of Divines very nice passes"
On the first unit...
"We've got off to a little slow start offensively, missing some threes, but I didn't look at the stats and probably should, what we shot from three-point range cause we were shooting. We were 9 for 24 from three, and that is what 37% we have some guys that can make three,multiple guys that can make threes hopefully, we'll share the ball well enough to find the open man and make a lot of threes this season."
"Anything different you are seeing from Nijel?"
"One of the things is he had a knee issue, and so he did is he rehab the knees so his legs are much stronger it led to him being a little faster, jumping a little higher and moving a little quicker with or without the ball, and its given him additional stamina so he can do it for a longer period."
On the frontcourt play...
"Okay, well, they are starting four and five then. We need both of them to average between 8-to-10 rebounds a game we also need them to get assists because, in Brandon's case, he is a really good passer, and in Lynn's case, you saw it tonight, he's going to get double, so he's going to be able to find the open man. So, those two guys are key, and it'll be nice once Matthew Cleveland can come back cause he is an additional bounder, right, some of the other guys don't rebound quite as often, but Matt, Brandon, Lynn, and Paul are our best rebounders."
On Matthew Cleveland....
"I don't know how long he's going to be out You're going to have to talk to our trainer about the injury or Megan she seems to have it... He has been out for two weeks I think he'll be back tomorrow see, he will be ready on Monday."
Update on Kiree Huie....
"Well, he had surgery, and we're going to wait... an undetermined amount of time."
On experenmenting with differnet lineups...
"You know, with ten new guys, I don't know what everybody's going to do during game action, so I got to play these guys to see which ones are ready and which ones are going to have a good night. I liked what happened tonight cause when we put that second group in, they did a great job"
On Lynn Kidd's play.....
"Well, think about it: we've been putting the ball in Lynn's hands so often during the summer and fall leading up to this game, and it has been fantastic his jump hook right hand, left hand, or dynamic he just has to stay focused, and know he has the same responsibility as everybody else if you're being double teamed find the open man.
