On how much fun he’s having playing with his teammates…
“It’s always a blessing to be able to play ball. Being able to play with people I call brothers makes it 10 times better. I love playing with them, practicing with them, all the meetings — I just love being around them.”
On how driven he is to make a run in the NCAA Tournament…
“Tyler and D.J. tell me it’s amazing, honestly. They say it’s way better than the SEC Tournament. It’s something that’s unbelievable, so I really want to get there.”
On growing up watching basketball…
“My dad, whenever there was a basketball game on TV, my dad was watching it.”
On his father…
“He thinks he can still beat me one-on-one. He’s just a cool guy. He’s pretty straightforward with me, telling me when I’m messing up, what I need to do to fix it. So, it’s kind of a tough love thing between us, but I respect it.”
On his dad’s basketball background…
“He played in high school — he was good, supposedly, from what he told me, from what I heard. Every time I ask him if he has any film or anything like that, he says my grandma’s house burned down, and I’m like, 'You’ve got to show me.'”
On when he could beat his dad one-on-one…
“I think I started beating him when I was like 12 or 13. I had to get some size on him because he can shoot — I remember that, yeah, he can shoot. I had to get size on him, and I finally started beating him.”
On where he got his jumping ability from…
“I don’t even know. I don’t know if my dad can jump. I don’t think my mom can jump. I don’t know where it came from.”
On his mother…
“She’s a cool lady. She’s a mother that she always has my back, but when I’m wrong she’s not covering up for me. She’s pretty straightforward. She tells me when I’m wrong. She tells me what I need to do fix it just like my dad. I feel like I relate to my mom more than my dad. We just both have the same mindset. We have the same attitude, all that.”
On growing up in Oil City…..
“You know everybody so it’s not big like it is around here. I’d say that’s kind of an upside and a downside. But it’s doing adventures with your friends, doing adventures with the people you hang with everyday. It’s just repetition. We do the same stuff every day — school, basketball, eat. It was fun, and we loved it. We knew nothing other than Vivian Oil City. It was great.”
On how he spent his time after school in Oil City…
“After school we just walked to Pizza Hut, Sonic or something. Eat, just chill for a little bit then just play basketball the rest of the day. It was every day repetition.”
On when he started loving the game of basketball…
“I think I fell in love with the game my freshman year of high school. My freshman year I wasn’t really getting a lot of playing time, and it was around the same time my grandma passed and I just was trying to find a way to generate the anger and put it into that.”
On how close he was to his grandma…
“She was my mom. It was my mother’s mom. Every day I got out of school I was going over there and every weekend — she practically raised me. I just try to remember her when I play. She actually never saw me play a game. So I just keep that in the back of my head. She sees me now.”
On what she would say if she came to a game….
“Rebound some more. She loved the game all of my uncles played, but she never got to see me play. I’d come home after games my freshman year of high school and tell her I did this, I did that. She was like, ‘I’m going to come to a game. I’m going to come to a game.’ I was always so excited to tell her.”
On when he became a great basketball player…
“After my grandma passed, I was like, 'Alright' – anybody I saw on the court I was like, ‘Alright you’ve got to face Robert. You’re going to have to face me.’ I don’t even know. The summer before my senior year of high school I went to this Nike camp, and when I got back from there, I felt like I’ve got something I could run with. And this may sound even crazier, but I didn’t know I could jump that high. I knew I could jump, but I’m like okay there’s millions of people in the world like there has to be people that could jump like this, but people around me kept stressing if you work at this, you could make some money off of this. One of my old AAU coaches, he started working me out and his son used to work out every morning. The hops just came.”
On the moment when he realized he could do something special with basketball…
“To be honest, I still don’t see what’s so special about it if I’m being 100-percent honest. I just feel like you just gotta jump, and that’s it. Well my jumping ability and my wingspan is just a blessing from God. Not a lot of people have it, and people would kill for it.”
On his decision to come back and turn down the NBA last season…
“It was just a decision that had to be made first by me and the people around me that I love, and we came to the conclusion. I actually told my mom – I was like, ‘I don’t think I’m ready on the court.’ And then last year I was telling her there were games where I sat down mentally like, ‘I don’t think I'm ready for that. I don’t think I’m ready for the league.’ And she kept telling me, ‘Don’t listen to others, even sometimes don’t listen to family members. Do what you feel like you need to do.’ So I talked to my mom after the SEC Tournament last year against Vanderbilt. I told Coach, ‘I think I’m coming back, and I want to come back and be here.’ So we just talked it out and got it situated.”
On how tough the decision was to come back to Texas A&M…
“Obviously it was tough turning down millions. But just knowing that I still have the opportunity in the future and knowing that I was coming back to work on things that I really needed to work on like on and off the court, just basketball stuff I felt confidence in my decision.”
On how his decision to come back turned out…
“Even though our season might not show it, I think it was a great desciion to come back because I honestly grew in a lot of places that I didn’t know I was lacking. And I honestly got those things from Tyler —just watching Tyler every day, watching how he acts, what he does in front of us and how he leads by example. Now he’s starting to come up to me and like, ‘Hey, bro, I like your fight. You’re not giving in anymore, that was great I.Q.’ little taps on the back, things like that — just letting me know I’m here and I’m picking it up slowly, just trying to soak it all up.”
On if he’ll come back…
“Another year? No comment.”
On how prepared he is for the NBA…
“I feel like I’m 10 times better prepared mentally for the lifestyle. Like you said, it’s a grown man’s league, there’s no time for games up there. On and off the court, I feel like I’ve prepared myself.”
On why he choose to come to Texas A&M…
“Actually I wanted to go to LSU, but they didn’t offer me. They didn’t offer me until they heard I committed here, I think. But I just liked it here, when I came I got to chill with D.J., Admon and the guys — we got along great. And it’s pretty close to my dad too. And I kind of think the 12th Man is like – I don’t think any other school has anything like that. Like that’s really amazing, the 12th Man the scenario and all that."
