Dusty May’s Monday press conference previewing Rutgers

I mean, obviously cool for the attention of your program. We're always recruiting, selling, messaging. So it's great for all of those things. But internally, like I said, we've got to continue to— whatever analogy you want to use— build a fort around our locker room, build a moat around our fort, whatever the case.

We have to continue to just, you know, take it all in stride and understand that all glory is fleeting. This could be gone Saturday. So we never get too high or too low. And when the world's falling because we only beat a Big 12, good Big 12 team by X number of points, the world's not falling in our locker room and it's not falling, you know, it's— and we're not we're not screaming from the mountaintop now.

Our temperature rarely changes. It's what— our gym yesterday before practice was the capacity of guys in there working with intentionality to get better. And so that's— those are the things that I care about.

I don't really have any explanation other than we did feel like we were, you know, we used the bamboo analogy. We felt like we were on the cusp, that we had planted the right seeds, we were harvesting the right way, and we felt like there was going to be a breakthrough. Whether we were going to leave Vegas 0-3, 3-0, we felt like in our near future there was going to be, or somewhere in between, we felt like there was going to be a breakthrough soon.

We're too talented not to. We were starting to see some, I guess, signs or glimpses in practice that it was coming. But there's no explanation for that. Looking back on it, I've watched all those games now multiple times.

And our spurtability is impressive, and I think our depth has a lot to do with that. And also, you know, we talked to our guys yesterday about what changed throughout. And one of the things that I think Elliot Cadeau said was that when you defend and rebound like we are right now, it alleviates any stress or pressure on your shots. You know that if we're doing what we're supposed to do, we're going to get 40% of them back.

And then having the confidence that you're going to get a stop on the other end anyway, it's not going to be detrimental if you miss a shot or miss a free throw, whatever the case. So I do think that they all— it all goes hand in hand. And, you know, the rhythm of the game dictates that. But no, I didn't see this coming, especially with the caliber programs we played.

I have so much respect. I mean, those are 2 of the 3 winningest programs in the last 10 to 15 years in San Diego State and Gonzaga. And then obviously Auburn is one of the most talented teams in the country.

Did I identify and bring Yaxel Lendeborg in to be a role player? I think everyone has a role. I mean, yes, absolutely. Luka Dončić's role is to go get triple doubles every night.

Kobe Bryant's role was to lead the Lakers to a championship and do whatever necessary to win. Michael Jordan's role was— so yeah, he— yes, we brought him in to be— we brought in everyone on our team to be a role player. Roles look a lot different. We played pick-up a lot at FAU, and we had a couple of really good players on our staff.

And KT's with us now, and Todd Abernathy, and Church and I, we take a lot of pride in connecting the group. And so we would tell those guys after every win against the managers and GAs that they had— they played their role extremely well that day. They scored 90% of our baskets. And so yes, he has a role on our team.

Was he being aggressive enough? No. He was coming off of an injury. He didn't believe in his 3-point shot as much as the staff did early on.

I think he has a lot of confidence now in his 3-point shot. So Yaxel Lendeborg is never going to be a guy that just hunts baskets. He's going to make the right play. Now we have to continue to do a better job of putting him in position to attack so we can create those advantages.

He's getting better and better as a basketball player. And so I think that helps our team morale as well when your superstar guys are really, really unselfish. So we're going to encourage him to continue to do that. But yes, he has a— we brought him in to be a role player.

Those are his words, not mine. No, no, he's right. Hell yeah. We brought everybody to play a role on this team. It's just each role looks a lot different. Charles. Yeah.