Baylor’s Apu Ika: ‘Practice’ is Pivotal to Turning Around Season
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Mark my words: Apu Ika is going to be a phenomenal head coach one day.
Ika met with the media on Tuesday and had plenty of commentary about practice, the upcoming game against Kansas, and his life as a music star under the pseudonym Jack Fish.
"It's great," Ika said when asked about the atmosphere at practice this week. "Everyone’s excited to be back. It’s another day to get better, so that’s always exciting."
So how does Ika feel the Bears need to improve as the season rolls on?
"I feel like we’ve just got to play faster, get back to playing green, playing like us," Ika said. "I feel like during practice when the lights aren’t on and pressure isn’t built, it’s easy to play fast and say this and that, but we’ve just got to do it when the lights turn on."
That starts, and ends, with the defensive line.
"We’ve just got to get better," Ika said. "D-line, we’re one of the older position groups on the team, so obviously got to get a little bit more from us in all aspects."
Looking back at last Thursday's heartbreaking defeat at West Virginia, Ika views losses such as that as learning experiences.
"Obviously it’s something you can use as a learning point, but as a turning point as well," Ika said. "Learn from the things that happened but at the end of the day, what happened, happened, and like I said, today is a new day to get better."
Where, exactly, does the team need to start in order to begin making forward progress?
"Practice, for sure," Ika said. "I feel like that’s where it all starts for everyone. How you practice is how you play, and I feel like that’s something we just need to get better at. Loving practice, practicing faster. Love practicing with our teammates being here."
When asked about how the Bears can get to the point of truly trusting everyone around them, Ika again referenced the importance of practice.
"Not to sound repetitive, but practice," Ika said. "We are a young team, especially on the back end of the defensive side of the ball, but I feel like just in practice, we’ve got to practice faster, practice making the plays that we need made on Saturday. I feel like we just need to put ourselves into positions and work as a defense."
So how about Kansas?
"It’s not the same team as last year, and we’ve ran into some trouble like that throughout the season," Ika said. "It’s going to be like that for the rest of the season. A lot of these teams that we see now aren’t the same team that was seen last year. And same as us, we’re not the same team that we were last year too. Definitely going to have to make some adjustments and practice hard."
The media also poked fun at Ika's life as a music star, often referenced to as Jack Fish.
"Jack Fish is worried about Saturday and Kansas," Ika said. "I do actually have a couple of singles out. Just under Jack Fish on Apple Music, Spotify. Working on some stuff but like I said, I’m worried about Kansas."
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