They Said It: Texas Southern Postgame
Samford Scoop got the chance to talk with Samford head coach Bucky McMillan and Rylan Jones following the 97-82 win over Texas Southern. Jones finished with a season-high 18 points along with six assists.
Q: Today your team did a better job at not turning it over compared to Friday night, what was your assessment of that and the work on the offensive end today?
Bucky McMillan: “Yeah you got to value the basketball and particularly when we play on the road, we have been really good on the road in league play. If you can steal some on the road that’s great, we’ve gone 15-3 the past couple years and that means we have done well on the road. The key to that is great shot selection and low turnovers. Now it’s one thing to have low turnovers and play at a snail’s pace but it is another thing to be able to play fast and have low turnovers. So we are finally pushing the tempo the way we want to push it and take care of the basketball, so it was much better.”
Q: You mentioned playing better defense in the half court, what improvements do you need to see on the defensive end especially with your game (Michigan State) on Tuesday?
McMillan” ”We have got to guard through the clock, it’s as simple as that. We finally got our pressure going and the pace and defense where we want. We still want more full court, traps and dictating the pace, just the mental intensity has got to get even better. That doesn’t mean that in the half court we relax. You got to be able to stop teams all the way through the clock and you saw that late in that game we said it was okay to just get beat off the dribble. I’m tired of watching our guards get destroyed off the dribble. I’ll just say it, that’s a challenge to them.”
“I hope they all watch this. I am tired of watching another team’s guards just cut us up off the dribble. I watched Jacari Lane destroy all of our guys off the dribble up there in North Alabama just over and over. I say that because as a player that would bother me if I was a player. That would bother me. We have got to have more pride in defending the basketball. We can come up with all of the help side rotations we want to, but when can they iso you late and we can't stand in front of the ball, that’s a problem. It was better early in the game but we didn't have the mental intensity or the maturity it takes late in the game to play through to a standard. When you watch teams play, when you think of Duke basketball when Coach K was there. One thing that separated those guys when they were up by 30 points, there was no let up. We played Purdue last year and that is one thing our guys learned from that game. They were beating us badly and they didn’t stop defending, they didn’t stop making the extra pass. You knew that this was a championship caliber team and they were playing for a championship.”
“So we got to learn from that and not be like little kids out there, just hey we’re up, I can relax. I can try to play a little hero ball and then on the other end not lock in to just all the way through the clock, 30 seconds of defense. So, improvement we got to make, we’ve made some and I know you all listening are tired of hearing me rant on this but I’ve coached some teams with a lot of veterans. This group, not as many veterans, not as many returners so I am about to be as hard as I can be on them so we can figure this out but we’re getting better. I don’t expect it to be perfect but I expect steps forward. Today was a step forward.”
Q With so many new guys on this roster from your view how have you seen this team be able to gel on the offensive end especially this early in the season?
Rylan Jones: “I mean every team is different. and you know, sometimes, you know, people click right away, sometimes people click, you know in January. You know, so we're not, you know, we're in November and no, we're we've gotten better every game playing for each other and trusting each other and making the right pass and you know, tonight it all came to. fruition. We know, made 20 I think we made 20 threes, right? Made 20 threes, shot the ball good, and still had a lot of good looks that we missed. It just keeps getting better and then, you know, that chemistry keeps, you know, meshing and going together, you know, the more and more games you play. I mean, we're on game or four or five, right? You know, game six is gonna be better. game seven is gonna be better game, game eight going to better and then, you know, when you get in a conference play, hopefully, you know, it's really good and you know, we're just gonna keep getting better every day.”
Samford is back in action at Michigan State on Tuesday at 7:00pm CT on Peacock.
