Akeem Miskdeen at Michigan Media Day

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he played at a big program at UAB, but they didn't have as much depth as we have. So he's gotta guard all different sizes.

You know, some days he's guarding Elliot Cadeau, some days he's guarding Aday Mara. So he's getting better at guarding different type of players, which I don't think he had that every day in practice at UAB and maybe not even in the league. You know, I think he guarded mostly forwards and fives in that conference, but now he'll be able to guard 1 through 5.

How have you seen L.J. grow from year 1 to year 2? And I guess just where have you seen him make the most strides? I think his biggest growth came from USA camp. I think he went to the camp, he didn't make the team and he had a chip on his shoulder.

But he learned so much from not making the team and the guys that made the team, how they approached the game. He brought that same approach coming from USA. But he's gotten much better at taking care of the ball. That's his biggest thing that he's gotten better at.

What are your expectations for this group? Just to come here and get better every day. I think I said it with Brian, I think we have lofty goals. Everybody knows that.

We can't think about that. We just got to think about getting better every day, you know, making the right next play on offense or defense. Like today, we got to communicate better. You know, we got to transition.

When we miss a shot, we got to get back on defense. Like we think about that stuff, then all those lofty goals will happen if we continue to get better at that stuff.

That's huge. That's huge. If you can keep rotating guys in and like, to be honest, we have starters that may not start for us. So if we can bring one of the guys that may not start for us, who we still consider a starter here, can come on the floor and play against us.

A second team's big man, I mean, you'll have the advantage. So we have guys that will, you know, if we get in foul trouble, we won't get nervous. You know, last year, Danny and Vlad got in foul trouble, we were a little nervous. I don't think we'll be as nervous this year.

We had guys in and out of practice so far this season, this fall and summer, and sometimes we didn't even know because our depth in the frontcourt. So it's a blessing to have all these big guys, and we gotta try to keep those guys fresh, and we will this season.

I was impressed in our game, and I know he didn't play that many minutes. He drew 2 fouls on Vlad. He got an offensive rebound on Vlad. Now Vlad drew a couple fouls on him too, and Vlad looked like Shaq against UCLA last time.

But yeah, I'm surprised how he moves. You know, I only saw him for one game against us just scouting. He didn't play as much until the end of the year, but he moves, he runs up and down the floor pretty good. He's one of the best passers I've seen in a long time for his size.