On what he likes out of Jordan Springer and Keon Johnson defensively:
“They both have the ability to guard the ball one on one, and they’re certainly going to get challenged with that tomorrow night. Both of those guys can rebound the ball. They have the ability to blow it out and go with it in transition, which I think really helps a lot. I think offensively, we’ll watch them grow up in front of us. One thing we expect out of both of them is to come in and guard the ball and we hope to create some havoc there.
On how important guard play is at the college level:
“It’s like playing baseball without a pitcher, catcher, shortstop, second baseman and center fielder. You’ve got no shot if you’re not good up the middle. You’ve got to have guys that know what they’re doing but also can break out and make plays when they have to. You’re going to compete every night against guys who can play. In our system, we put a lot of pressure on our point guard. We expect him to do a lot of reading, we expect him to get the ball where we want him to get it, and we expect him to attack space on the floor where we want to get the ball to start with. It’s important that those other guys get where they need to go so he can do his job. So, it’s not just the guard play. It’s everybody doing what they need to do so they can help each other all the time. You’re never going to look like you’re well coached if you don’t have good guard play.”