Greg Gard after Michigan

You can earlier in the year, and I don't like to compare because every team's different, right? I mean, I got 2 or 3 guys that have been on the court that are in our locker room this year that were there last year, right? So I don't like to get into comparison this group to that group. That group had a lot of guys back, okay?

So they were able to hit the on-ramp a lot faster, right? And obviously we had Tanje, but that was the only guy that had to adapt. Everybody else had been there, done that. So we were were able to hit a higher level sooner.

This group is taking longer because we don't have as many, you know, instead of having 7 guys back, we have 3 guys back that played. So it just takes time. As you know, I've said I'm not patient. I'm not real patient, but I've learned to be a little bit, a little bit of patience, but still demanding and set expectations high.

We've told them we're not lowering the expectations and standards of this program, you're going to have to meet them. And we met them today.

Yeah, I thought we got our footing. Defensively. I think we figured out some things. I think getting him in some foul trouble was important.

That always can help with the game. But I thought we figured some things out. We got some— we had some defensive footing to us. Small lineup really didn't hurt us that much.

And, you know, we're really active. We really fly around when we're small. And we cover for each other. You know, so I said just the combinations of guys on the floor, and the biggest common denominator was everybody that stepped on the floor had a lot of fight to them.

That was the thing that regardless of how many minutes, how many points, everybody came ready to compete.

Well, I think there's just, you know, I'm still learning some of those new guys of when. And the thing with Braeden is he's been in situations, he's played, and he's been around the track, right? This isn't his first year. He's had a lot of experience and he gives us a dynamic offensively.

He's a terrific rebounder for his size and he's got, you know, he's got competitive toughness to him that I think has blossomed and grown in the last few weeks. It's gotten better. But like I said, the experience is a big— that's why we brought him in. We wanted to have another experienced backcourt player that could help us.

And obviously, he just made plays, drove, got fouled, rebounding. I mean, you could tell the experience showed. The experience showed in those situations.

Would JB be here, and then would the other guys outside the locker room? Would you slide over one chair to stand up here? It's all wet.