Net Gains
Texas Monthly Intern Kyle Adams talks to A&M Coach Mark Turgeon and UT Coach Rick Barnes about what fans can expect in the upcoming season.
(Page 3 of 3)
Every day. It starts a long time before right now. The work that went into this season probably started about a week or so after we finished last year.
Gary Johnson’s status is still obviously up in the air. If he’s able to play, what does he bring to the table?
He’s high-level intensity, he plays really hard. He’s versatile, competitive. He’s just getting started in terms of his basketball skills, what he can do. He’s got a lot of things going for him, and the fact is, he loves it. He loves to play, it means a lot to him, and he has had an effect on our team because they know, I think if you asked his teammates, I think they know that every time he walks out there, he’s going to bring it. Against anybody, it doesn’t matter who he plays. He’s not backing down from anybody.
Talk about D.J. Augustin a little bit. He wore down at the end of the year last year. How was his off-season?
Well, he did get tired. I think the reason he got tired was because when he got here in the summer, he had to drop 20 pounds, and I think his season, from [October] 15th, or whenever you want to say practice starts, that’s not what got him tired. What got him tired was it was a much longer season because of him having to get himself in the kind of shape he needed to get in. Right now, I think D.J. Augustin could play 40 minutes every night, and I can promise you he won’t wear down in March because he’s older, mature, his conditioning is so much better; his body’s obviously changed, but it’s his conditioning that’s really changed.
Has he become more of a leader this year?
He has. That’s the one thing that we’ve talked about—that he needed to talk more, he needed to coach more, he needed to have a presence, he needed to control things for us, and he’s done that.
He was named the Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year. How do you think he’s going to handle the attention?
I don’t think it bothers him. First of all, he’s the most unassuming guy. He could care less about individual accolades coming his way. There’s nobody that’s more real with themselves than he is. I don’t worry about that with him at all.
You’ve talked about turning him into a more aggressive scorer. Is that still a work in progress?
Well, he’s good at it. He scored last year. I think he averaged 14 or so points a game. But he will [score]. I just want him to know that. Again, he’s got such good feel for the game; he knows what he’s got to do.
A.J. Abrams was kind of overshadowed by D.J. last year, but he’s still a junior on the rise. What do you expect out of him this year?
A.J. did have a great year last year, maybe our most consistent year. I know that from start to finish, I’m not sure anyone was any more consistent. He improved. We asked him to give up and do more on the defensive end, and he did that. He can get better there; he knows he can get better there. Offensively, in the off-season, we asked him to add more to his game. He’s great moving without the ball. He’s one of the smartest kids we’ve coached, and because of that intellect, we expect him to be able to evaluate himself and know what he needs to get better.
You mentioned defense. You’ve said throughout the preseason that you expect this team to play better defense than last year’s team. What makes you optimistic?
Well, we’re a year older. These guys last year were learning a lot of things, and—there’s no one to blame but me—we probably didn’t put as much emphasis on it as we should have. We did, but we were concerned with so many things last year with four freshmen and a sophomore that we probably weren’t as physical. But we’re a more physical team [this year]. You look at the size on this team compared to last year, so that has something to do with it. We have a chance just with a year of experience, and D.J. and Justin [Mason] were good defensively last year, A.J. got better. Now I think with some other guys improving we’ve got a chance to be better.
What does Dexter Pittman have to do to become a premier big man in the conference?
Well, he’s got to practice right now. He’s been out the whole pre-season. He’s practiced three days with us, and it’s tough missing this time of year. It’s hard to overcome. As we sit here and talk, I don’t know. We know what he can do. It’s how quickly he can catch up with us and play the pace that we want to play.
You mentioned Justin Mason. Is he going to be a big key on defense this year?
I think he’s going to be a big key, period. His role from a year ago has changed. Justin came in here and made us play the way we played last year. We thought we would be a little bit bigger team in some ways, but Justin, we couldn’t keep him off the floor. We’re not going to be able to keep him off the floor this year. He’s probably our most improved player, and he’ll do a little bit of everything. I think Justin’s another one that we’re going to look to score for us, and he will.
Damion James has become more athletic. Do you expect him to be more of a dynamic player this year?
What we need Damien to do, we needed him to be a guy that’s going to do all the dirty work for us, a guy that’s going to be a master of easy baskets, getting out running, getting his hands on offensive rebounds, screening, playing off these guys. He should want to be one of the best defensive players in the college game and play hard and consistently every night. If we get that from him, we’ll be okay.
You have experience, but you’re still a relatively young team. Is the tough early season schedule (games against UCLA, Michigan State, and Wisconsin) a concern, or do you view it as a way to gain experience?
You talked about consistency. I think programs that are consistently good are willing to go play people. We could stay at home, win more games, but it’s not what we want to be about. We’re not afraid to travel and play. I think it helps us. It’s going to put us in tough situations. Sometimes when you’re in them, you think, “Well, maybe we should have done it differently,” but I don’t know that it’s ever hurt us. I think it makes us better. Even in some of the losses last year. We lost three or four or five pre-season games, but I think we got something out of all the losses, whereas if we’d have stayed at home and played 18, 19, 20 home games, we probably wouldn’t have gotten as much out of it.
Expectations are obviously a lot different this year without Kevin Durant. Do you like being a little bit under the radar?
I don’t care about it. Our expectations never change. I told you when we first started talking what our expectations are. They won’t change with this team. In terms of flying underneath the radar, I don’t care about that either. Where we want to go, it’s the day-to-day work, and you do that and let the results take care of themselves.
Is the identity of this team up in the air right now?
I don’t know about that. We’ve got some loose ends that we haven’t been able to tie up, but I’m sure there are other programs around the country this time of year where people do get nicked up. We’ve just got to take what we’ve got. We’ll find a way to get some things done.
My Library
