An off-season basketball update with Billy Kennedy

Key quotes from Billy Kennedy interview

“We started summer school yesterday and have three of our freshman on campus and hopefully another one today. This is a fun part because freshmen come in all bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to get after it. Then you have seniors who have been working and been in it. It’s a good combination and time of the year.”

“We won 20 games and at one point were having a really special season, but just didn’t finish the way we wanted to. I take responsibility for that, for not being able to win one more game. We just got back from SEC meetings and one of the things all the head coaches talked about was scheduling, RPI and the bubble. The basis of the whole thing was, ‘why didn’t Texas A&M get in?’ We played a real schedule and the gist of it came to down to Dayton and us at the end. When we lost to them, we didn’t have Danuel House and they had everybody. We lost the game by two points and that is how close it was. We scheduled right but we didn’t play Georgia twice, Ole Miss twice or Kentucky twice. It’s splitting hairs, but that is disappointing. I choose to look at the twenty wins.”

“When I met with the now seniors, I pointed at the three of them and then at myself and said, ‘we’re responsible for why we didn’t get into the tournament. We had plenty of opportunities and it wasn’t because House got hurt. Even with him getting hurt, we should have won another game. It’s mostly my responsibility, but you guys need to learn from that. Remember the Georgia game here, how big that game was when we didn’t do some things we were capable of. Let’s learn from it and move forward.’ We want to be Houston bound. That’s the Final Four and it doesn’t get any better than that. We’ve got the pieces and that’s where we are aiming.”

“We have three of the best returners in the SEC. Look at Alex Caruso, who was borderline all- SEC the last two years and has been the heart and soul of our team. Then you look at Danuel House, first team all-league player and Jalen Jones who will basically be a fifth year guy, so we have lots to build off, then the recruiting class has good players and good kids. They will be good Aggies all around and all bring something different. Tyler Davis is a legit five man who is 6-9, 6-10 big body kid who can score on the block and has a great motor. Elijah Thomas can face up and drive the ball at the four. They are both rugged, tough interior players and you don’t get that very often. We haven’t signed a guy like that, who is strictly a position like that. D.J. Hogg is 6-8 and can shoot it and will walk in as one of the top three shooters on the team. He needs to get older and stronger, but he can score.”

“Admon Gilder is a guard who was just named a Parade All-American and is probably the least heralded of the four. He has won games and can play the one, two or three. All these guys have played together and have a great relationship, so that helps.”

“As a coach, one of the most exciting things is that at the end of the year you look and Admon has won two state championships and took another team to the final four this year while the other three won it this year. When you look at the team the last three years, we haven’t had many state championships. So that is a good thing.”

“Heading to Europe, we can stretch practices out and get 10 practices. We’ll spread them out over June, July and August and combine it with the workouts we do now. That gives us a big jump, especially for the young guys. We’ll probably have four or five practices before we head to Italy and play four games over there. It will be a situation where I play everybody, sometimes five in five out. The biggest thing is being on the road having fun and doing some other things socially and developing a relationship. It is not just basketball, but a lot of things. You have these young puppies who think the world of themselves, but then you have these old seniors looking at them like ‘That’s impressive, but welcome to the real world.’"

“We will play seven BCS schools in the preseason or during the season at some point which is twice as many as I have ever played since I have been here. There are no easy games and we will start off with four home games that will be released in the next week or so. Jalen Jones will have to sit out a few games to start as part of the deal last year. Those four will be tough, and then we jump into the Battle of Atlantis, which will be the number one preseason tourney. Look at the teams in it, Gonzaga who was a potential final four team, Washington, Syracuse, Connecticut and Texas.”

“A&M and Texas should be a regular thing. Rick Barnes and I would have continued to play one game a year, but it didn’t work out on their end. I haven’t talked to Shaka Smart about it, but it makes sense. We should be playing them.”

“The new scheduling format gives us three partners that we have some history with. That will hopefully help bridge a rivalry that we don’t have yet in the SEC in basketball. It will be challenging, but the three partners will be good. I still like the old playing everybody twice, but you cannot do that with 14 teams because you end up not being able to control the end of your schedule and the RPI’s effect on it. I didn’t realize how much our RPI was affected by not playing Kentucky, Ole Miss and Georgia twice, three teams that got into the NCAA tournament ahead of us.”

“Everybody thinks the 30 second shot clock will make the big change, but I don’t think it will. Officiating will make a big change if they clean it up and stop slowing it down and stop letting teams foul and get away with it. Coaches think there is nothing wrong with the game and the officiating is what needs to get better. Other people think the rule will help and the 30 second shot clock, but this year in the NIT, scoring averages didn’t change with it.”

“I don’t have a problem losing a timeout, I think we had too many. I have a hard time coming up with two and half minutes of talking and most coaches do, that is why we stand out there and act like we are talking with the other assistant coaches. Our guys are not going to consume that much information that quick, so that is a good rule.”

“Anthony Collins is in summer school, so he wont be able to join us as quick as the others. He was a three year starter and started in the Big East his freshman year and played in the Sweet Sixteen. He is a true point guard who has won state championships and is a winner. He will allow us to play Alex Caruso off the ball and if one of our point guards isn’t playing well, we can play somebody else. That is what I wanted. I didn’t want to be handcuffed by somebody playing bad just because we don’t have anyone else.”?

“We hope that we can pressure people and run guys in and out and wear teams down. Two, you hope you’re winning where you can play everybody. Having that many good players is a great problem to have. Last year we had guys worn down on the perimeter and didn’t finish like we wanted to.”

“If the season started tomorrow the starting lineup would be Caruso, Jones and House. From there, it could be Hogg at the three and bump everybody else up a spot. Either Thomas at the five or Davis at the five. Gilder could be the two, Collins could play the wing. We could go small with House at the three and Jalen Jones at the four. I really don’t know and that is the best thing about it. I know those three will start.”