On if he thinks this year’s roster has a chance to be his most athletic roster since his time at Tennessee began:
“I think that would be a fair assessment. I think we have a chance to be a terrific defensive team when we get everybody to buy into it. I think we’re going to have the ability to do a lot of different things defensively. Some things that we haven’t done in the past. Offensively, with what we’ve done and where we are, we can be better there too obviously. This group is athletic. I go back and I think of John (Fulkerson) and I think of Yves (Pons). It’s important that they step up and be the leaders because I think that your best teams are going to come when you’ve got great leadership from them. Both of those guys aren’t the most outgoing people on the court, but John has gotten much better and Yves has too. That’s a step that those guys have to take for us and help those young guys understand what we’re up against and help them make that quick adjustment. We’re going to need the young guys as we get into it to play the way we want to play. That’s a lot of pressure from start to finish, both ways. You want to play a 94-foot game both ways and we can.”
On what growth and development has been seen from John Fulkerson this offseason:
“I think what happened a year ago, everything with Lamonté’s (Turner) injury and then Santi (Vescovi) coming in and the fact that we had to make ourselves up and over so many different times. Then, we decided that we’re really going to play through John and Yves. I think that helped him more than anything. For some reason, toward the end of February, the light went off where he became a different person. His approach really changed. I actually asked him about it a couple weeks ago, ‘John how much did that injury in your freshman year set you back?’ He said, ‘A lot more than I thought.’ I could never understand why he was holding back, but I think with the way he finished and if we had another month to the season, I’m not so sure he wouldn’t have been Player of the Year in the league. He carried that over. Even though we weren’t here, we stayed in touch with our guys every day and he worked at it. He’s been back on campus and he’s really working at it. We’ve told him, he’s going to have to expand his shooting ability, to step out further, which he’s capable of doing. He just has never really put the time in to make it a big part of his game, but he’s doing it now. His body, if you look at him, he’s gotten bigger. There’s no rhyme or reason to how that happens. Some guys just take a little bit longer, but he is starting to get the kind of strength that you want to have. He’s very focused. I do think he’s added some things to his game. He’s a guy that we trust with the ball. He’s a guy that we think can make plays with the ball. We’ve just got to keep getting better. That’s what we do with all of them, but he’s hungry for it right now. He and Yves are both guys—and I’d put E.J. (Anosike) and I’d probably put Olivier (Nkamhoua) in that group of guys—that are really after it right now. They really want to make a difference. Josiah, we’ve worked with him on some things, but we’ve got some guys that really want to get after this, so that’s a good thing.”