July 20, 2008
Head coach Kevin Stallings talked Commodore basketball with the national media during last week’s SEC Summer Teleconference.
Opening statement:
We have two returning starters – Jermaine Beal and A.J. Ogilvy. Jermaine was our point guard, and had a very solid season, and has started off and on for us for two years, and been a very solid player for us, and is definitely a guy who we’ll need to raise his game and take his performance and productivity up a level or two in order for our team to be successful. A.J. came in obviously as a freshman last year and had a terrific year; got sick early in the conference season and was really kind of far less than 100 percent for about two weeks. But aside from that two or three week stretch, I thought he had about as good a year as we could have hoped for; and he attempted to make the Australian Olympic team, but was a late cut from that team. So, he has spent most of his summer over there trying to do that, and we obviously expect that A.J. will come back in great shape and be ready for another great year.
How is the summer going with the six new players?
We’ve had different guys come in at different times. A couple of our incoming freshmen have been here for both summer school sessions. A couple others have just gotten here for the July session. I think for the most part they’ve come in and tried to work hard and tried to play hard, and as best I can tell they’ve tried to do what the older guys have led them to do, which is really the way it ought to be; and we’re very excited about our group of freshmen. Obviously, we have two guys who we sat out last year – Charles Hinkle and Festus Ezeli – but those guys were with us all of last year. They just didn’t play. So, we’re going to be a very young basketball team as you mentioned. But as far as the new guys, I think they’ve come in and tried to quietly go about their business and do things the right way and that’s been very pleasing.
Any sense yet about the type of team you’ll have?
Honestly, probably as little of an idea as I’ve ever had about a team going into a season in terms of the little nuances that you might think about as a coach and that sort of thing. So, it will certainly be good for when the time comes for us to be able to get out on the floor and start putting it together. But that’s part of the exciting thing about being a college basketball coach is new faces, new teams; and every team requires little adjustments that work better than for others. So, we’ll have to go about that process of figuring it out.
How is the team being received out on the recruiting trail after the successes on the court and in past recruiting?
Well, I think that the level of player that we’re able to get in front of right now is as good as it’s ever been, and that’s obviously been an exciting thing. We’ve had some very good players since I’ve been here. I think just from a consistency standpoint, we feel like we’re getting entertained and getting interest from as high a level of players since we’ve been here. So, there’s a tremendous amount of momentum that we feel in our program, and I think that the guys we recruit feel that and that’s what makes things around here exciting right now.
Does that raise the expectations for the program by getting in front of those types of players and getting those types of players?
I don’t know if that raises the expectations. I think what raises the expectations for your program is what your prior teams have done, and the fact that we’ve been to two Sweet 16’s in the last five years, in three NCAA tournaments and had 26 wins last year. I think those things are what raise the expectations of a program, not the kind of guys that you’re recruiting. I think that it’s what those guys do when they get out on the playing floor that ends up raising expectations.
What are your thoughts on the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ suggestion to not offer high school players scholarships until after their sophomore years?
I think there’s two things in play here – one, is aggressiveness, and there’s always going to be people in our business who are pushing the envelope, and I don’t mean pushing it in a bad way. I don’t blame necessarily anybody who’s done that, because if you feel certain about a kid, now I find it hard to feel certain about guys at that age, but I think that there are guys out there being very aggressive; and then I think the other thing that comes into play is there’s an element of common sense, and I think maybe that’s what the coaches association is asking for a little bit is for us to apply some common sense here. But nevertheless, I guess I’m in favor of the position that the coaches association is taking, and at the same time I have to smile when I see guys out there getting after it like that and going that young to try to get their job done.
Lute Olson said that he’d no longer recruit one-and-done players – what do you think of that?
If a kid comes out on the front end and says, “Hey, I’m only going to college for one year,” I guess I definitely have a problem with that. I think the position that should be taken by the young men is – I’m going to college; and I would have encouraged A.J. Ogilvy to make himself available for the NBA draft this year if he’d have been a top 10 pick, but A.J. didn’t come in here saying “I’m only going to be here for one year.” I think that kids need to come in and have the mindset that “I’m going to be here as long as it takes for me to successfully position myself for what I need to do next, if that’s four years it’s four years, if it’s one year it’s one year.” But for a kid to announce on the front end, “Hey, I’m a one-and-done guy,” or if a kid comes in and gets hurt and has a bad year and the NBA people decide “OK, you’re not even going to get drafted,” well the kid’s just made a fool out of himself. So, I would think that’s the kind of thing that, and again I don’t know, I didn’t really see what Coach Olson was making direct reference to, but I would have a problem with a kid announcing on the front end, “Hey, I’m one and done, I’m a one-and-done guy. I’m only going to be in college for one year.” But, I would not be opposed to recruiting a kid who played well enough to position himself to be a lottery pick in the draft and go after one year. So, hopefully there’s a little bit of a distinguishable difference, and I’m not sort of contradicting myself.
Talk about the incoming recruiting class and how much they’re going to help you.
They’re going to need to help because we’re a very, very young basketball team. So, they’re going to need to come in and play with more maturity and at a higher level than what freshmen sometimes play at. But in any event we’re excited about them. We think that from top to bottom it’s as good a class as we’ve ever signed. But, I think it’s easy to get enamored with the guys who have never played. I’m always fascinated with the fact that people want to talk about the incoming guys more than they want to talk about the returning guys, and I understand from your guys’ standpoint you have a job to do and that’s what people like to read about. But, I can almost assure you none of these guys will be more productive than A.J. Ogilvy will be next year, but nevertheless we’re very excited about them, and we think that all of them can be really, really good players for us during their careers here. How quickly? I certainly don’t want to put any timetables on any of them, but we feel like we have a combination of size and strength and athleticism and skill, and I think that all of those things you have to really try hard to go out and recruit. The best thing that I like is I think we’ve gotten really good people, and guys are going to have good team attitudes, and that’s what we want the most.