A week of postponements offered Wichita State an opportunity to recharge and refocus. Head coach
Isaac Brown met with local media this afternoon to preview Wednesday night's matchup with UCF.
ISAAC BROWN....
… Opening statement:
"UCF is a good basketball team and a big challenge for us. We're just so excited to be back, number one, and to be having two games this week…. UCF has two big-time non-conference wins, one at Miami and they beat Michigan. They've got a really good team with size and athleticism. They can really shoot it from the three-point line. They changed their style of play. They play more like Memphis now, where they just press the entire basketball game, and they try to make it an up-and-down affair. They've got two really good guards that can really score. It'll be a big challenge for us. We've got to get back on the winning side. We need to play well, and the guys are excited about coming back."
… Last week's workouts after the postponements:
"We practiced last week. Our practices never stopped. We just had guys that were out, and they did it out of caution. We had one guy out today from practice, but other than that, we'll have 12 guys (today)."
… How the players have responded to a week without games:
"We were shorthanded a few practices, but they got in early and stayed late getting up shots. You can just see the way their energy is, the way they're talking in practice, talking about the upcoming opponent, UCF, and the next game, Tulane, and they're just excited just to be back in the gym again off of COVID protocols. Those guys are ready to go."
… Whether or not there is a silver lining to the stoppage; the chance to hit the re-set button after an 0-4 conference start:
"I hope so… I feel like our guys are still all together. They haven't made any excuses. We've had a good couple of practices this week. Yesterday was really good and I'm excited about today to get ready for tomorrow's game."
… How he spent his down time last week:
"I think about our offensive struggles, so I went back and watched a lot of games that we played last year, games that we played early on in the season when played out in Las Vegas, the games that we won against Missouri and Oklahoma St. I went back and I watched a lot of those and a lot of the actions that we ran against those teams. I tried to put it in the last two games when we came up short. Just going back and looking at a lot of different things. We lost the game at home to Kansas St. We wanted to do a little bit more continuity where the ball was moving side to side, but I think it's best for us when certain guys get the ball in their hands and everybody else just plays the roles. We'll see. We've just got to start winning."
… His message to the players this week:
"Just talking to the guys about going through adversity and facing tough times like this, being 0-4, and the only thing you can do is keep working. Nobody in this conference is going to feel sorry for you. It's a tough basketball league, and on any given night, somebody can beat you, so the only thing we can do to change things is go hard in practice, get better, learn from our mistakes, get in the gym on your own get up extra shots, and just keep working."
… Combatting UCF's talented shooters:
"We've got to be locked in on the perimeter. We've been a good defensive team for most of the year, so I do think we're going to defend. With Mahan and Green, you've got to do a good job of being there on the catch. You can't allow those guys to get wide-open shots. Any time they shoot jump shots, you've got to contest it. You've got to make those catches hard to get because both of those guys are more than capable of making 8-10 threes in a game. We've got to do a better job of attacking their press, we've got to make sure we don't turn it over and we've got to make shots on the other end. We've got to take care of the basketball, we can't turn it over and we've got to be able to make wide-open shots."
… How they simulate that press in practice to prepare:
"In practice, we've been putting six guys on the floor at times. We've been running and jumping a lot, so every time in the full court, if somebody like
Craig Porter Jr. is handling the ball, we make the forward for the other team run and jump. When they throw it back to the big guy, we run him down, and when they throw it to the other guard, we run and jump, so we try to simulate it like that. Today we'll probably put six guys on defense to go against five guys on the offense to make it hard. I think the harder we make it in practice, the easier it'll be in the game."
… The parity in the conference:
"Everybody in this league is more than capable of winning games. Everybody's got size and athleticism, and it comes down to which team can take care of the basketball, which team defends at a high level, and I think the difference is right now is Houston is always defending at a high level, and they're not turning the basketball over. So other teams, we've got to do a better job of just not making mistakes, defending at a high level and making shots in every game."
… If he liked having the 10-day break to reevaluate or if it was aggravating:
"A little of both. We needed that time in order to go back and watch a lot of film. We had some coaches that weren't at practice, so they were able to watch a lot of film and echo what they saw to the coaching staff. I'm definitely excited that we're back because you can practice, practice, practice, look good in practice, but eventually you've got to go do it in a game, and I think this break really helped those guys. Number one, we got most of the guys back, we watched a lot of film over the break, those guys have seen all the mistakes, and now's it's time to go out and play Shocker basketball and get back on the winning side."
… His challenge to the players this week:
"These last two games at home we've gotten double-figure leads, and for some reason we took our foot off the gas and allowed teams to get back in the game, so we try to simulate that a lot in practice in something we call 'late-game', where in practice you're up six with 1:30 and you've got to execute and do exactly what you need to do and win that game. Then sometimes in practice we'll be down six with two minutes to go, so I think just learning from being up ten and not being able to close these games out, we've got to figure out a way to win these close games in the end. Now everybody's here, we're healthy and we've just got to go out and take care of business."
… If there was any rust to work through during the break:
"They didn't feel like they missed a beat because we were still able to practice; we were just shorthanded, so for the most part, we had a lot of guys. There may be a guy here or there that missed one day, but he came back to the next practice. Overall, I thought it was good. I thought we got a lot of stuff in and got to go over all our offense, go over all our breakdowns, go back to our defensive concepts making sure we got better at rebounding. We got up a lot of shots, stationary shooting, a lot of ball-handling shooting, and overall I felt like we got better during this break."
… What gives him confidence that the team can turn it around and reach their potential:
"We've been in every game. The two games we lost at home we had double-figure leads, we didn't make plays in the end, we didn't get enough stops when we needed to, we had two or three turnovers at key moments in the game and I just feel like both of the games we could have won had we executed down the stretch. We've just got to get back on the winning side. We've had a great practice. The guys have been really energetic. They're getting in early, staying late after practice getting up shots. We've got guys coming in and watching film, and they're excited to be back, and it's just time to play a game and get back to the winning side."
… Availability for tomorrow's game:
"I anticipate at least 12 guys being back. There's a chance one guy may be out tomorrow. I'll find that answer today, but overall it's been good. We've been having good practices. Those guys that were out came back and seemed like they didn't get out of shape. They were still executing all our plays, our defensive stuff. It's been a good 10 days, so now it's just time to play basketball games. We've got a lot of games here back-to-back, so we've got to be ready to play at a high level."
