GAME ADVANCE
On opening the season on Friday in Lakefront Arena
"It's amazing how fast time flies and how quickly this first game has gotten upon us here. Now, we're about to start the season and the guys are excited – I know our staff is – to play in front of our fans and see how much we've improved from our offseason efforts."
On his Privateer team
"We're very excited to have four, good, quality seniors this year. When you add in a junior class that is very solid, features guys with experience and bring in two new guys in that class as well who I think will be impact-type players. To have eight or nine guys in that upper class is huge in the big picture of how we've been trying to build this program and move forward."
On the LaGrange College Panthers
"They've got an amazing program. Kendal Wallace has done an incredible job of building a perennial NCAA Tournament team there. They've been to three straight NCAA Tournaments. They bring back two really accomplished scorers in Vanderbrook and Bonner. Those are two guys that are really good players. They're Division I players. They are a program that is accustomed to winning. They run really good stuff. Their junior class has a plethora of talent. They're a really, really good team."
On the progress his team has made in the offseason and preseason practices
"Offensively, we've taken some good steps forward. We've tweaked some things that will help us with our personnel. We should be able to score the ball at a more efficient rate. Defensively, we're going to play some really solid man to man. We'll adjust a few things within that to make us more efficient in the half-court defense. I think it's going to be good."
On what he wants to see from his team in the season opener
"I want to see us go out and play sharp, I want to see us come out with good energy and be able to take a step forward with where we're at in our overall execution. I like and I'm really proud of the work that our team has done. They've done some really good things. The leadership has been good internally and our culture has been really good coming off the end of last year and moving forward."
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