Texas A&M Basketball
“The three biggest takeaways were one, it was a great trip. The bonding and relationship of our guys, getting to spend that time together was precious. Great sights, great places and traveling first class like A&M does in everything we do was probably the best part of it. Basketball-wise, it was good to see what Anthony Collins could do. The freshman have been here since June and playing pickup, going through workouts, but then you have a guy who is basically a fifth year transfer at a key position, how is he going to adjust? He didn't come until early July, so to see his personality come out and him evolve as part of our team was a good thing. The last part was seeing our seniors do a good job of leading and our freshman doing a good job of following. A lot of times with all the hype and talent with these freshman, there can be some egos, but we didn't see that on this trip.”
“Our post guys are a threat. We can get a layup, we can throw it inside. Elijah Thomas was really good the first two games. Tyler Davis was really consistent, Tonny (Trocha) was getting better and Jalen (Jones), after the first game, really settled into the role we want him to play. So, we have a post presence and good depth on the perimeter.”
“Being able to mix styles in the post is something that shows me we have options and weapons. In the first game, I think we let Jalen get on the perimeter too much. We had just gotten there, but we learned right away that isn't going to happen. We will tweak that and keep him closer to the basket, but it was good to see in a game that 'didn’t matter'. As a coach with options, you don’t have to worry so much about Xs and Os, you just want to get the right people on the floor, because they can make plays beyond just the Xs and Os and that is when you have a good team.”
“We have never felt like we have had a true post presence. To be able to move Caruso off the ball, that really opens the floor up for us to play faster. That was good to see. We started four different lineups. We started three little guards one game, three big guards one game, started Jalen at the four and each one of the post guys at the five. Everybody got a chance to start and we learned something about our team.”
“Finding playing time for everybody is going to be tough now that Danuel (House) is coming back. He is going to get thirty of the minutes they just played. They don’t realize that, which is probably not a bad thing. We wanted to get them back here and into September, October and let November figure that out. He could have played. He warmed up with us. When we played the Nigerian team, it was a good thing to know that he wasn't playing, because they were so much bigger and more physical than us. They were grown men and half of them played in the NBA at one time or another. That was a great weapon to have. I’m thinking big, we'll have Caruso at the one, House at the two, (D.J.) Hogg at three, Jalen at the four and Tyler Davis at the five. That’s a big, NBA lineup that we didn't get to play. We’ll keep it simple. We’ve got some good players and hopefully we’ll be more balanced scoring than we’ve been since I’ve been here.”
“Anthony Collins just showed me he has experience. I told ESPN this, this is a kid that started every game at point guard in the Big East and then the league changed. Larry Brown and some coaches that I respect told me, 'If you can get him, get him. You can play him anywhere.' When he had good scorers around him like he did his freshman year, he averaged like 16 and seven. They won the Big East tournament, played in the Sweet 16 and had double figures in the NCAA Tournament. We saw that when the game was on the line against a Serbian team that was really good. Now, our team sees that this is a guy we need and a guy that can help us win.”
“Admon (Gilder) is probably our most versatile guard. He can guard the one, two or three. He handles the ball, can play some one. Eventually, I think that will be a position that he could play some more minutes at. Really, he was probably our best perimeter defender, had some steals, made shots and big plays. The play I was most impressed with against the Serbian team was at the end of the first half, he got a steal at the end of the shot clock and went the distance without panicking. He made the extra pass to Tavario (Miller) and we got the layup. That was a play that most freshman don’t make without panicking. He led our team in scoring in the four games.”
“We played fast and we are trying to sell our guys that we have depth, so if you want to play, we are going to exhaust ourselves on every possession and play faster. With that has to come more discipline, because the one thing we did a poor job of was turning the ball over.”
“When you have that level of competition, that’s when you have a chance to be good. A guy can get hurt, but you still have a chance to win a game that you need. We have depth at every position and we have guys that can play. That helps.”
“D.J., defensively, I was really impressed with the things he did. Lots of deflections, lots of steals. The first game he made some threes, but he was trying to figure out where his shots were coming from. The way we played probably didn't suit him early on, just because we will run a lot of special things for him, but with only a few practices, it was hard to get those all in. He is a weapon. We went small when the game was on the line and he was out there. Made a big rebound, made two big free throws, takes the ball out against the press. He’s got a good IQ and is a player that you can use to do a lot of different things. Elijah shot 69% the first two games. He just makes shots and has a knack for scoring.”
“We want to play more guys. We’ll probably play nine guys on a normal basis, but you hope to win and get a cushion where you can get more guys in. Winning will take care of that. I don’t know who won't play today, and that is a good problem to have.”
“Roquan Mitchell, we’re working on getting him into school and getting all the eligibility stuff in line. We feel confident about it, but it hasn't all gone through the process. Because we got him so late, this is a rush for football, so it takes a little longer. But we’re excited about him. When I saw him in Vegas for three days, he is a tremendous athlete and will be the best athlete on the floor when we get him. How he fits in, we’re not sure, but we’re excited about what he brings athletically.”
“Alex and Danuel are the two guys who are the glue. Jalen too, but Alex does everything well. He was the only perimeter player to shoot better than 60%. I told him, 'That’s great. It means you need to shoot more.' He made a big three in the last game and I think getting him off the ball will help him be a better player. He is a big key for us to be good. He knows every position on the floor and where they are supposed to be and our guys respect him. Those four seniors have intangibles. Not only are they talented, but they do other things to help us win. That excites me.”
“Not having to go to Rupp Arena is always a good deal. We have a great home schedule this year. People should be excited about it and about basketball. Coming into my fifth year, I don't believe there has been a better home schedule when you have Kentucky at home, Florida at home, who I think will be really good next year. You have Vanderbilt and LSU who will have the number one pick next year in Ben Simmons. Look at the Big 12 schedule, we have four Big 12 games, three of them at home. If you want to make the fourth a home game, come to Atlantis and watch us play the Texas Longhorns. Getting to open with Texas, we are ready for it. They are good. An NCAA tournament team with four senior starters back, but we are good. This is the year. We’re ready for it.”
“This trip confirmed my beliefs about us being special. With all our pieces last year, we were a tournament team last year. We’ve got more pieces this year, plus the chip from not going. I can always point back to that and getting smacked by the Nigerian national team was good for us. It got our attention again and I think our guys understand that.”
“For now, we’ll push things back a couple weeks because we did so many things in August with the trip. It’s a long season, it’s a grind through both semesters. We’ll pull back a bit and focus on recruiting. We’ve got two committed right now that we’re happy about, so we’re just trying to get one more for next season.”
In-studio: Billy Kennedy discusses A&M's European tour
Key quotes from Billy Kennedy interview
“I was one of the few to have my luggage. We had 57 people in the travel party, counting coaches wives, boosters and Eric Hyman and his wife. We were put on three or four planes on the way over there. One flight was cancelled and they had to shoot us out on different planes. I think two went through Charlotte, one through London. All I know is when we got there, I had my bags and my wife is much smarter than me. She had a change of clothes in an extra bag, so we were ready no matter what. We were playing the next day against a good team, but it was okay. I think I got there six hours later than planned, one group got there on time and one later that night. Not having the bags was stressful. The first day, I was calling Adidas in Europe trying to find uniforms and shoes. Tyler Davis had put his shoes in another bag and you aren't going to find size 18 in Rome, on a holiday. Fortunately, the next day, the practice stuff started to show up and Tyler had his shoes. Once we had that, we knew we were set.”“The three biggest takeaways were one, it was a great trip. The bonding and relationship of our guys, getting to spend that time together was precious. Great sights, great places and traveling first class like A&M does in everything we do was probably the best part of it. Basketball-wise, it was good to see what Anthony Collins could do. The freshman have been here since June and playing pickup, going through workouts, but then you have a guy who is basically a fifth year transfer at a key position, how is he going to adjust? He didn't come until early July, so to see his personality come out and him evolve as part of our team was a good thing. The last part was seeing our seniors do a good job of leading and our freshman doing a good job of following. A lot of times with all the hype and talent with these freshman, there can be some egos, but we didn't see that on this trip.”
“Our post guys are a threat. We can get a layup, we can throw it inside. Elijah Thomas was really good the first two games. Tyler Davis was really consistent, Tonny (Trocha) was getting better and Jalen (Jones), after the first game, really settled into the role we want him to play. So, we have a post presence and good depth on the perimeter.”
“Being able to mix styles in the post is something that shows me we have options and weapons. In the first game, I think we let Jalen get on the perimeter too much. We had just gotten there, but we learned right away that isn't going to happen. We will tweak that and keep him closer to the basket, but it was good to see in a game that 'didn’t matter'. As a coach with options, you don’t have to worry so much about Xs and Os, you just want to get the right people on the floor, because they can make plays beyond just the Xs and Os and that is when you have a good team.”
“We have never felt like we have had a true post presence. To be able to move Caruso off the ball, that really opens the floor up for us to play faster. That was good to see. We started four different lineups. We started three little guards one game, three big guards one game, started Jalen at the four and each one of the post guys at the five. Everybody got a chance to start and we learned something about our team.”
“Finding playing time for everybody is going to be tough now that Danuel (House) is coming back. He is going to get thirty of the minutes they just played. They don’t realize that, which is probably not a bad thing. We wanted to get them back here and into September, October and let November figure that out. He could have played. He warmed up with us. When we played the Nigerian team, it was a good thing to know that he wasn't playing, because they were so much bigger and more physical than us. They were grown men and half of them played in the NBA at one time or another. That was a great weapon to have. I’m thinking big, we'll have Caruso at the one, House at the two, (D.J.) Hogg at three, Jalen at the four and Tyler Davis at the five. That’s a big, NBA lineup that we didn't get to play. We’ll keep it simple. We’ve got some good players and hopefully we’ll be more balanced scoring than we’ve been since I’ve been here.”
“Anthony Collins just showed me he has experience. I told ESPN this, this is a kid that started every game at point guard in the Big East and then the league changed. Larry Brown and some coaches that I respect told me, 'If you can get him, get him. You can play him anywhere.' When he had good scorers around him like he did his freshman year, he averaged like 16 and seven. They won the Big East tournament, played in the Sweet 16 and had double figures in the NCAA Tournament. We saw that when the game was on the line against a Serbian team that was really good. Now, our team sees that this is a guy we need and a guy that can help us win.”
“Admon (Gilder) is probably our most versatile guard. He can guard the one, two or three. He handles the ball, can play some one. Eventually, I think that will be a position that he could play some more minutes at. Really, he was probably our best perimeter defender, had some steals, made shots and big plays. The play I was most impressed with against the Serbian team was at the end of the first half, he got a steal at the end of the shot clock and went the distance without panicking. He made the extra pass to Tavario (Miller) and we got the layup. That was a play that most freshman don’t make without panicking. He led our team in scoring in the four games.”
“We played fast and we are trying to sell our guys that we have depth, so if you want to play, we are going to exhaust ourselves on every possession and play faster. With that has to come more discipline, because the one thing we did a poor job of was turning the ball over.”
“When you have that level of competition, that’s when you have a chance to be good. A guy can get hurt, but you still have a chance to win a game that you need. We have depth at every position and we have guys that can play. That helps.”
“D.J., defensively, I was really impressed with the things he did. Lots of deflections, lots of steals. The first game he made some threes, but he was trying to figure out where his shots were coming from. The way we played probably didn't suit him early on, just because we will run a lot of special things for him, but with only a few practices, it was hard to get those all in. He is a weapon. We went small when the game was on the line and he was out there. Made a big rebound, made two big free throws, takes the ball out against the press. He’s got a good IQ and is a player that you can use to do a lot of different things. Elijah shot 69% the first two games. He just makes shots and has a knack for scoring.”
“We want to play more guys. We’ll probably play nine guys on a normal basis, but you hope to win and get a cushion where you can get more guys in. Winning will take care of that. I don’t know who won't play today, and that is a good problem to have.”
“Roquan Mitchell, we’re working on getting him into school and getting all the eligibility stuff in line. We feel confident about it, but it hasn't all gone through the process. Because we got him so late, this is a rush for football, so it takes a little longer. But we’re excited about him. When I saw him in Vegas for three days, he is a tremendous athlete and will be the best athlete on the floor when we get him. How he fits in, we’re not sure, but we’re excited about what he brings athletically.”
“Alex and Danuel are the two guys who are the glue. Jalen too, but Alex does everything well. He was the only perimeter player to shoot better than 60%. I told him, 'That’s great. It means you need to shoot more.' He made a big three in the last game and I think getting him off the ball will help him be a better player. He is a big key for us to be good. He knows every position on the floor and where they are supposed to be and our guys respect him. Those four seniors have intangibles. Not only are they talented, but they do other things to help us win. That excites me.”
“Not having to go to Rupp Arena is always a good deal. We have a great home schedule this year. People should be excited about it and about basketball. Coming into my fifth year, I don't believe there has been a better home schedule when you have Kentucky at home, Florida at home, who I think will be really good next year. You have Vanderbilt and LSU who will have the number one pick next year in Ben Simmons. Look at the Big 12 schedule, we have four Big 12 games, three of them at home. If you want to make the fourth a home game, come to Atlantis and watch us play the Texas Longhorns. Getting to open with Texas, we are ready for it. They are good. An NCAA tournament team with four senior starters back, but we are good. This is the year. We’re ready for it.”
“This trip confirmed my beliefs about us being special. With all our pieces last year, we were a tournament team last year. We’ve got more pieces this year, plus the chip from not going. I can always point back to that and getting smacked by the Nigerian national team was good for us. It got our attention again and I think our guys understand that.”
“For now, we’ll push things back a couple weeks because we did so many things in August with the trip. It’s a long season, it’s a grind through both semesters. We’ll pull back a bit and focus on recruiting. We’ve got two committed right now that we’re happy about, so we’re just trying to get one more for next season.”
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