Dusty May and Yaxel Lendeborg preview Howard

Yeah, just obviously, you know, you watch him and we went back and looked at Synergy, his national team stuff. Like, you know, when we— when we narrow— when we zero in on someone, it's like a 24-hour, like, just all in on trying to gather as much information and just see that— see them at their best, see them at their worst, and just try to get a clear picture of who they are.

And then once we started The recruiting process was a couple weeks. Once we started talking to him, I fell in love with him as a person, like literally. You know, we recruit a handful of guys. There's probably 5 guys that we were recruiting for that one spot.

And it was his— just the way he makes people feel when he's around them. It's impossible not to feel better about yourself because of how engaging he is, how warm he is. And he really, really cares about other people. I mean, even his passing, I love the comment that he made, "The assist makes 2 people happy."

And so it was more that than anything else because, I mean, at the end of the day, he had talent. Everyone for the last 10 years has known that he's had talent. But how do you unlock that talent? We didn't— we weren't sure we could.

We did feel like we had the system in place where he could— we could maximize what he does well. But yeah, even to be honest, I was talking to his agent recently and I didn't even know how much he made. And I knew there's the range because that was never— it was one of those things where it's like, Okay, let's just figure out a way to make this work for both parties. And so we did.

Well, we weren't very good early. We found a way to win. And that's kind of how our season was majority of last year, where we weren't near as good as our record, but the last 4 or 5 minutes of games, our guys could turn into these superhuman rebounders and— playmakers, and we could generate dunks and layups. So we kind of had a secret weapon where if we just knew we were close, we could find a way to win.

This year we had so many blowouts, we weren't in very many close games. So we didn't get to learn as much about ourselves as we did in the Big Ten Tournament. And, you know, obviously we're still doing deep dives in when we've played well and when we haven't and what's been the difference. And I think we've been getting 15 to 20 possessions less over the last month of the season than we got before that.

And so teams have slowed down tempo. Teams have tried to restrict our freedom of movement. They've tried to get more physical with us. And so we haven't adjusted to that rugged play as well as we need to if we're going to be as good as anyone in the country.

But I think our consistency is just the number of capable players we have. And we always talk about it that no one plays great every game. If you're going to have a bad night, I'm going to have a bad night. There are guys— but our team has been deep enough where someone's had an off night, someone else has been more than capable of coming in and carrying the load.

And those guys that are more than capable don't get an opportunity to do it as often as they probably deserve. I think anytime you turn on TV and watch any really good team, that's the case. So that sacrifice, that ability to stay ready when it's not going well for you, I think are probably the biggest things.

Yeah, you know, to be honest, we could promote from within. We could hire an older established coach. We're going to put a lot of thought into what this group needs. And to be honest, I really want to wait until after the coaching carousel calms down so I can see the full picture and then analyze what the team needs.

And then also it's just like the players. I mean, you talk about, you know, coaches get up and say they got outbid, you know, someone outbid them for this player, whatever the case. We all have a choice to use our resources how we do. So to see what the resources look like, to see what the staff needs, to see where we are, and then make those decisions or decision.

But yeah, just casting a big net right now. But I'm not spending any time on that at this moment because we have a very capable group that— and he's still with us, but we have a group that everyone's going to pick up the slack a little bit more and pick up when— because he's obviously going to be taking calls to fill his staff and things like that.

He's going to be preoccupied at times, but I'm not sure yet. I definitely want to hire someone that's going to make us better coaches.