Quick Hits: Huggins Offers Thoughts on Newcomers, Replacing Deuce + More
Where the inside scoring comes from
"We're probably going to end up playing four out. We're just trying to spend a good deal of time with those bigs to see if we can get one of them that can score it some in there. They rebound it. They rebound it and they block shots, I just think with some more work, we can get them to score it around the goal."
What Isaiah Cottrell brings to the table
"He's every bit of 6'10" or 6'11" and he can step outside and make shots. He's not Taz [Sherman] or Sean [McNeil] but he may be our third-best shooter. Just drawing bigs away from the goal will really help us. He's been great. From a standpoint of being able to run and jump, it hasn't affected him at all."
Challenges of having 15 guys on the roster
"Last time I had 15, I was at Walsh College. Obviously, guys are going to want to play. I don't think we'll have attitude problems but you will have guys sitting there who want to play and get in the game. Everybody feels better when they play. I just don't think with our guys and their personalities and the way they get along with each other that we'll have any issues with bad attitudes with that."
Possibility of who could redshirt
"I'm not sure we redshirt anybody. We really only have one guy that conceivably could but maybe, we'll have to see and we're probably going to need him. I just don't see where we redshirt anybody."
Thoughts on newcomers
"Well, hopefully, they can get a rebound or two. We're going to have enough people I think and the biggest surprise has been James [Okonkwo] is really playing well. He's far and away the quickest guy off the floor and gets to a lot of balls. I think the more and more I watch him, I was pretty well set with we were going to bring him in and redshirt him and get him bigger and stronger for the following year but he's playing really well. Dimon [Carrigan] led the country in blocked shots a year ago, so he's very capable of blocking shots, he's very capable of rebounding it. Pauly [Paulicap] is probably as quick off the floor as anybody is. We just don't have Derek Culver. We don't have a big strong guy that we can throw the ball to close."
The difficulty of replacing Deuce McBride
"Well, again, I think we can score. What Deuce gave us is someone we could iso. We've got guards. We're going to miss Derek [Culver] more than we're going to miss Deuce. Derek could get hard rebounds Derek was big and strong - people couldn't move him. He got clutch rebounds and big rebounds at the end of games. Not that we won't miss Deuce, we will. We don't have a 6'10", big strong guy anymore."
Early take on freshmen guards Seth Wilson and Kobe Johnson
"I think Seth, at this point and time of his career, is much better off the ball than he is on the ball. Kobe handles it a lot better than what we imagined that he would. He may have as good of ball security as anybody we have on our team. He passes it well and he's another guy that can make open shots. His body build, the physicality he can bring to the guard position, he's far and away the best in terms of being physical and being strong with the ball."
If Malik Curry will have similar success getting to the basket as he did at ODU
"Playing at Old Dominion is a whole lot different than playing the people we line up and play against on a daily basis. He's got really good foot speed. He's started to shoot it a lot better than he shot it when he first got here."
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