Coach Slessinger's Comments Heading Into Wednesday's Game At UMass

On playing against a storied program and the plans for the extended trip
"It's pretty cool. You look up and you see Dr. J's jersey number hanging up in the rafters. That's pretty neat from a basketball perspective. We're excited to take the team to the Basketball Hall of Fame on Thursday before we fly out. That's a neat opportunity for them to see all your heroes, everybody whose been involved in the game and learn about them. That's a great life lesson for us. The basketball game is a great opportunity for us to really think about how we can turn the corner and the things we can do to become better offensively, continue to guard at a high rate and even get better defensively than we've been the past few games. It's yet another road test to see what can get revealed out of us so we can get it fixed."
 
On the challenge UMass presents
"They're really talented offensively. They've got three talented guards that can score at a high, high rate. They've got a center that is just a massive human being. He's just a huge man who is very skilled and can do a lot of things. They also have some forwards that can step out on the floor, play and attack from the perimeter. They've got a good, balanced group. They've hit a tough stretch here in being able to finish out games, but they're very talented. They've played a very good schedule up to this point."
 
On his team's effort last time out and the lessons learned
"We knew that was a good team, especially us as coaches. We knew they were a very well coached team and we knew they were going to come out with a good game plan. It was nice to see our guys be able to make adjustments, make counters to what they were doing, take the lead and hold onto it the rest of the way. There are still some things offensively that we have to clean up. We're just not finishing at a high enough rate. We're shooting free throws better than we did in the first few games, which was good to see. A lot of that is just reps and guys getting reps to be able to feel comfortable shooting it. On the other side, we're getting better offensively. It's just not coming as fast as I'd like and I don't know that it ever does. We're guarding at a good rate and as long as long as we can stay solid defensively, I'll feel pretty good about our chances long term."
 
On what UMass likes to do on defense
"They're going to change defenses. They're going to play zone press with some traps in it. They're going to be man-to-man with some traps in it. They're going to run some half-court zone. They're a very opportunistic defensive team. They really look to try and get steals and turnovers. They really try and be aggressive in the passing lanes. We haven't seen a team like this in a while and I hope that we're prepared for it. I hope that we can be advantageous in how we attack this because we haven't seen a team in a while that plays this way."
 
On what his team needs to do to come out on top
"We can't get off to a slow start offensively and we have to take advantage of the opportunities that are there. If they do trap or they do press, we've got to take advantage of the numbers, push it and have some advantage plays. We've got to keep guarding at a high rate and keep rebounding at a high rate. Those have been our steadies so far this year and we've got to be good at those."