Cal men's basketball head coach Wyking Jones had a teleconference with the media today. Below is a transcription of what he said.
Q: What is the Don Coleman status for this week?
Wyking Jones: “Don is back on the team and will play this week. So, he’s been taken off suspension.
Q: Will he start?
Wyking Jones: “Uh…I don’t know yet. I haven’t made a decision on that yet.”
Q: What’s his reaction and the team’s reaction with him back in practice for you guys?
Wyking Jones: “He’s been good. He’s been good. He’s been engaged and he’s working hard and hopefully that will carry over into the game.”
Q: Can you talk a little bit about your overall thoughts on Oregon, what you see from them, and what kind of challenges they pose?
Wyking Jones: “Oregon is a team that, they’re very fundamentally sound, they play great together, they’re very balanced. You can’t really key on one particular guy. They have a number of guys who can step up and make plays. They’re one of the deeper teams in the conference and I would say on average they probably play eight to nine guys and Payton Pritchard is a great point guard. A great leader and he’s a guy that makes plays when they need him to make plays and he does a great job of running their team. So, it’s going to be a tremendous challenge for us playing against them on Thursday. We expect a battle.”
Q: What can you say about Dana Altman?
Wyking Jones: “Dana Altman is one of the best coaches in the country. I don’t think he gets the credit that he deserves. I’ve always been a fan of his. Just his ability to get his teams to play together. In terms of getting guys from, sometimes he has international guys, if he’s not getting local guys he’s taking junior college guys, 5th year guys; he finds ways to get them to all play together. I’m a fan of Dana’s. He’s an unbelievable coach.”
Q: What do you make of the fact that their top three scorers are their top three assist guys?
Wyking Jones: “Well they’re versatile. They’re versatile. We talk about Troy Brown, he’s kind of a jack-of-all-trades. He does a great job of continuing to be humble. He doesn’t carry himself. We recruited Troy straight out of high school and I was always a fan of his. He can rebound, this is a guy who can score, he posts, he does a number of different things. And obviously that’s what we talk about with Payton Pritchard. He’s a natural leader and he does a great job of making sure everybody is involved and engaged and Elijah Brown, you don’t think of him as a set up guy because he’s such a great scorer at New Mexico, but he’s doing a great job of his (inaudible) as well.”
Q: What are your thoughts on Kenny Wooten? Is he another Chris Boucher?
Wyking Jones: “Yeah, I think Kenny’s a good piece for them. I wouldn’t compare him to Chris Boucher. Chris Boucher, he was a three-point threat along with his shot blocking ability. So, he was kind of a very very unique, one of the most unique players in our conference because of his ability to knock down shots and rim protect and so Kenny doesn’t have that ability. He’s a true post player, he plays inside the paint, so different from Chris in that sense.”
Q: But in terms of being a shot blocker do you see him as that kind of guy?
Wyking Jones: “Yeah, he has that part of him. He has that part of him. He’s leading the conference in blocks at this point. He’s one of the top guys, but yeah he has that presence.”
Q: Oregon is number one or two in field goal defense. What do you guys need to do offensively this week?
Wyking Jones: “We need to take care of the ball. You see our game against UCLA and it’s a game, we’re competing. We’re right there because we took care of the basketball. A couple of days later, going into USC and we don’t take care of the basketball and it ends up getting ugly for us and so we just have to do a better job taking care of the ball and Oregon likes to run a 1-2-2 kind of three-quarter court press and so we just have to make sure that we do a great job of handling it and getting the ball past half-court and running our offense. That’s the most important thing for us is not give away possessions.”
Q: It seemed like against USC part of the turnover problem was that guys weren’t making themselves available to accept passes and so forth. Is that what you saw when you looked at it on video?
Wyking Jones: “That’s absolutely what I saw. Guys weren’t, they were leaving their teammates out to dry, and they had us on our heels as opposed to looking to attack. And it’s interesting, I talked to my video guys and said let’s put together and edit our turnovers and our plays where we broke the press and got something out of it. Arizona State is a pressing team, UCLA is a pressing team, and we did a great job of attacking their press. I felt great about our ability to do that after those two consecutive games and being able to get something good out of it against the press and then we go into USC and it was the direct opposite.”
Q: What do you need to do to get your team to play a complete game for a full 40 minutes?
Wyking Jones: “Everybody has to give us something. Every single player that we put into the game has to give us something in order for us to be able to finish games off. Everybody has to be. It really just comes down to that. Because of our youth and because of, well you’re talking about the last three games we played. Arizona State, top 25 team in the country, UCLA top 25 team in the country, USC top 25 team in the country at some point in the season, so you’re talking about teams with unbelievable talent and veteran players with experience. So for us to beat those teams, Arizona before that, the last four games basically for us. For us to beat those teams, every single person on our roster has to give us something in that game.”
Q: Coach, can you talk about what you’re doing to keep the guys’ spirits up, keeping them focused? You guys have lost eight in a row now since you’ve beaten Stanford. Just talk about what you’re doing to maintain that level of focus at this point of the season.
Wyking Jones: “Just staying positive. Just staying positive. Just seeing the big picture. Just seeing the big picture knowing that things are going to get better. The future’s bright, just focusing in on that and not placing so much on the wins and loss. Always getting better, always learning, always figuring things out and we’ve lost eight, I said to one of my assistants we’ve lost eight games in a row and it doesn’t feel like that. You go up to UCLA, play a hard fought game; you bring Arizona State in here and you play a hard fought game. Very talented programs and so even though we’ve lost eight [in a row] it doesn’t feel like that and I’m not walking around acting as if we’ve lost eight [straight] games, I’m staying positive and the minute I go negative or throw in the towel, then my team is going to follow suit and so I know better than to do that.”
Q: What is the Don Coleman status for this week?
Wyking Jones: “Don is back on the team and will play this week. So, he’s been taken off suspension.
Q: Will he start?
Wyking Jones: “Uh…I don’t know yet. I haven’t made a decision on that yet.”
Q: What’s his reaction and the team’s reaction with him back in practice for you guys?
Wyking Jones: “He’s been good. He’s been good. He’s been engaged and he’s working hard and hopefully that will carry over into the game.”
Q: Can you talk a little bit about your overall thoughts on Oregon, what you see from them, and what kind of challenges they pose?
Wyking Jones: “Oregon is a team that, they’re very fundamentally sound, they play great together, they’re very balanced. You can’t really key on one particular guy. They have a number of guys who can step up and make plays. They’re one of the deeper teams in the conference and I would say on average they probably play eight to nine guys and Payton Pritchard is a great point guard. A great leader and he’s a guy that makes plays when they need him to make plays and he does a great job of running their team. So, it’s going to be a tremendous challenge for us playing against them on Thursday. We expect a battle.”
Q: What can you say about Dana Altman?
Wyking Jones: “Dana Altman is one of the best coaches in the country. I don’t think he gets the credit that he deserves. I’ve always been a fan of his. Just his ability to get his teams to play together. In terms of getting guys from, sometimes he has international guys, if he’s not getting local guys he’s taking junior college guys, 5th year guys; he finds ways to get them to all play together. I’m a fan of Dana’s. He’s an unbelievable coach.”
Q: What do you make of the fact that their top three scorers are their top three assist guys?
Wyking Jones: “Well they’re versatile. They’re versatile. We talk about Troy Brown, he’s kind of a jack-of-all-trades. He does a great job of continuing to be humble. He doesn’t carry himself. We recruited Troy straight out of high school and I was always a fan of his. He can rebound, this is a guy who can score, he posts, he does a number of different things. And obviously that’s what we talk about with Payton Pritchard. He’s a natural leader and he does a great job of making sure everybody is involved and engaged and Elijah Brown, you don’t think of him as a set up guy because he’s such a great scorer at New Mexico, but he’s doing a great job of his (inaudible) as well.”
Q: What are your thoughts on Kenny Wooten? Is he another Chris Boucher?
Wyking Jones: “Yeah, I think Kenny’s a good piece for them. I wouldn’t compare him to Chris Boucher. Chris Boucher, he was a three-point threat along with his shot blocking ability. So, he was kind of a very very unique, one of the most unique players in our conference because of his ability to knock down shots and rim protect and so Kenny doesn’t have that ability. He’s a true post player, he plays inside the paint, so different from Chris in that sense.”
Q: But in terms of being a shot blocker do you see him as that kind of guy?
Wyking Jones: “Yeah, he has that part of him. He has that part of him. He’s leading the conference in blocks at this point. He’s one of the top guys, but yeah he has that presence.”
Q: Oregon is number one or two in field goal defense. What do you guys need to do offensively this week?
Wyking Jones: “We need to take care of the ball. You see our game against UCLA and it’s a game, we’re competing. We’re right there because we took care of the basketball. A couple of days later, going into USC and we don’t take care of the basketball and it ends up getting ugly for us and so we just have to do a better job taking care of the ball and Oregon likes to run a 1-2-2 kind of three-quarter court press and so we just have to make sure that we do a great job of handling it and getting the ball past half-court and running our offense. That’s the most important thing for us is not give away possessions.”
Q: It seemed like against USC part of the turnover problem was that guys weren’t making themselves available to accept passes and so forth. Is that what you saw when you looked at it on video?
Wyking Jones: “That’s absolutely what I saw. Guys weren’t, they were leaving their teammates out to dry, and they had us on our heels as opposed to looking to attack. And it’s interesting, I talked to my video guys and said let’s put together and edit our turnovers and our plays where we broke the press and got something out of it. Arizona State is a pressing team, UCLA is a pressing team, and we did a great job of attacking their press. I felt great about our ability to do that after those two consecutive games and being able to get something good out of it against the press and then we go into USC and it was the direct opposite.”
Q: What do you need to do to get your team to play a complete game for a full 40 minutes?
Wyking Jones: “Everybody has to give us something. Every single player that we put into the game has to give us something in order for us to be able to finish games off. Everybody has to be. It really just comes down to that. Because of our youth and because of, well you’re talking about the last three games we played. Arizona State, top 25 team in the country, UCLA top 25 team in the country, USC top 25 team in the country at some point in the season, so you’re talking about teams with unbelievable talent and veteran players with experience. So for us to beat those teams, Arizona before that, the last four games basically for us. For us to beat those teams, every single person on our roster has to give us something in that game.”
Q: Coach, can you talk about what you’re doing to keep the guys’ spirits up, keeping them focused? You guys have lost eight in a row now since you’ve beaten Stanford. Just talk about what you’re doing to maintain that level of focus at this point of the season.
Wyking Jones: “Just staying positive. Just staying positive. Just seeing the big picture. Just seeing the big picture knowing that things are going to get better. The future’s bright, just focusing in on that and not placing so much on the wins and loss. Always getting better, always learning, always figuring things out and we’ve lost eight, I said to one of my assistants we’ve lost eight games in a row and it doesn’t feel like that. You go up to UCLA, play a hard fought game; you bring Arizona State in here and you play a hard fought game. Very talented programs and so even though we’ve lost eight [in a row] it doesn’t feel like that and I’m not walking around acting as if we’ve lost eight [straight] games, I’m staying positive and the minute I go negative or throw in the towel, then my team is going to follow suit and so I know better than to do that.”
