Dusty May press conference after win over Rutgers

Yeah, yes and no. Obviously if we can get our defense set, then we're going to be tough to score on. We're really big. We're athletic.

I don't think we have a position where you could just line them up and go at the guy. And so, and then we, I think we have really good rim protection. I thought Rutgers actually shot, it seemed like they shot the 2 today much better than most teams have against us. I thought they had some floaters and some tough finishes.

Credit them. But no, we had been making some poor decisions in transition. It wasn't, most of the time it wasn't a lack of effort, it was a lack of execution. And we were all doing it.

So anytime all of our guys are doing it, then it's something we haven't taught very well. So we just went back to reteaching it through the film, through practice drills, and then through 5-on-5 execution. And when you have a really intelligent group that has basketball character and basketball IQ, they can fix these things in a day or two.

And that's what they did tonight. So I didn't know that they had zero until Brian told me afterward, but that's pretty good.

How much time do we have? I can go until the hockey, until the game starts talking about Morez if you want me to. Man, I, we, and his teammates, we really appreciate that guy, man. He's, I mean, when you look at our good possessions in Vegas, a lot of times we got layups and dunks because of his size.

Seals, because of his screens, because of his rim runs. He just— he does a lot of extremely visible and invisible plays. And for him to knock down the threes, it's a testament of his work. As you can see, when he raised up into it, I don't think there was anyone thinking, "Oh, don't do it," or, you know, we've seen him shoot in practice.

And as long as he's shooting step-in threes, I think everyone's confident. And both times Elliot Cadeau put pressure on the rim, on the paint, and drew the 5, so it wasn't as if he had to make a split-second decision. And I think that if teams have to be a little more skittish towards helping at the rim, then Elliot Cadeau's going to get more layups and Yaxel Lendeborg's going to get more layups, as you saw in the second half.

So there's a chain reaction. We want all 5 guys on the court to be capable of knocking down 3s. And even the guys that don't shoot them now in games are shooting them in practice every day because we're always thinking the end goal is to be the absolute best teams and be able to win in any situation. And so to do that, we've got to have a whole Swiss Army knife of weapons, and we're still developing that. Steve.

I mean, we talk about it internally that when we defend and rebound at our, at the top of our game, then when we make shots, it's, it's going to simply determine the margin and the size of the margin. And the Knights, they don't go in when everything's going wrong and we're not finishing around the rim, and we're missing our free throws, and we're missing our threes, that if we can hang our hat on all the other things, the intangibles, then we'll still be able to find a way to win.

Because those nights are coming too. I mean, we're going to have some games when we just don't make shots. And it's a tricky game, and the ball squirts out. I mean, you see it every day.

You see 90% free throw shooters miss free throws. So it's just that— that's on the horizon as well. We don't know if it's Tuesday, Saturday, much more Saturday. Those days are coming as well.

And so we're simply trying to prevent losing with all the other things and not letting a bad bounce come into play. And so I like the mindset of our group right now, especially for early December, but we have a long way to go, especially with some of the teams we have on our schedule. You know, we don't get Purdue at home and we don't get Illinois at home.

We don't get some high, high-level teams at home this year, so we've got to be, even tougher to go on the road and win against some of the best teams in the country. Yes. Dusty May, how unexpected and beneficial is it to have had these 4 games where you've been able to get the deep rotation minutes in the last 10 minutes of each game? Yeah, we just talked about that as a staff, that we're developing our bench in live play.

And the one thing about our program, you know, when we win, when we lose, it's still about the growth and the development and improving. We have a group in there lifting weights now because we have a quick turn to squeeze in a lift. So, and there was zero resistance when we suggested let's get a post-game lift. That way tomorrow is not such a long day as we prepare for Villanova.

We can practice a little bit. We can get our film work. And then these guys also have a big week academically as well. So, I don't know why I went on to a tangent outside of the question.

Question. Did I answer what you wanted? But yeah, we have a group that enjoys work, and I think we've just once again got to keep the blinders, earmuffs, whatever you want to call it, and stay focused on the process of getting better because every team's going to look a lot different in 3 or 4 months than they do now.