Kentucky Assistant Coach Barry Rohrssen
“In recruiting these guys, they’ve been very receptive. It’s nice when you’re ranked number one in the polls. It’s a nice way to have a conversation going into somebody’s home.”
“You don’t exactly know if it’s going to be limited. That’s to unfold next season. If we’re talking about this season, Kentucky is very well received no matter where you go and whom you speak with. It’s nice to have that royal blue “UK” on your chest when you’re walking into a high school or a home.”
“Chemistry and combinations. For some people, even like myself, chemistry was the hardest subject. You want to continue to work on that and improve on that, just the blend of new players and the guys that have returned.”
“We do have some very fast players. Their strength is getting the ball up the court. Offensively any team could push the ball up the court and beat your opponents down court and have an advantage numbers wise. Any time you can play two against one, three against two, five against four, or something like that, you want to do it. These guys take it upon themselves to do it and it really is being encouraged by Coach Cal to get the ball up court quickly.”
“Well one guy that’s improving rapidly and on a day-to-day basis is Devin Booker. He’s really made some very good strides since he’s been here on campus like most of the freshmen. It’s really nice to add Trey Lyles to the mix as well. Devin is just finding things a bit more comfortably now like getting up and down the court a lot quicker, using some of his athleticism, moving well without the basketball, and releasing his shot a lot quicker.”
“Personally speaking, my radar screen kind of goes to the defensive side of the basketball. Transition defense is something that is always going to stick out to me first and foremost. You’ll find that bad defensive transition teams jog back. Good teams run back and great teams sprint back. We have got to make an effort every time defensively in transition not to let the ball get behind us, beat us down court or get pushed down our throat. We have to be able to get back quickly. We want to play with five guys on defense.”
“Well, I can only really speak on what my own eyes have seen. (All of those) guys have been very good. They are in a position right now where they are the veterans on the team and they should be providing the leadership for both themselves and for pushing some of the new guys along.”
“Just continued improvement, it was nice to get that one game under your belt. One of the things you like to do going into a regular season is have some scrimmages or exhibitions. In college football you do not have that, you just go right out there and play the first day. One of the things that is nice about college basketball is that you get a chance to go out there, simulate game days, go through a shoot around or walk through in the morning the day of the game and having your pregame meal with your team, just to get in a rhythm and comfortable especially for the new guys. When you first arrive on campus for any freshman, you will find that the most difficult adjustment any regular student has to make in college is their freshman year when you think back at it, so now put the demands that go along with being an athlete. So it is good to get some of those exhibitions under your belt which is another step towards our improvement.”
“Yes that is why those summer exhibitions tours, for any team that is fortunate enough to do it, it is a help. It is an advantage. It is really nice that they let you do it once every four years. If they found a way to maybe let you do it maybe every two years, where you have some new guys coming in and they all can take part in it instead of the once every four years, but it is a nice way to get a head start, jump start on your season. It gives you those 10 additional practices during the summer and then put some competition under your belt going into the fall.”
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