University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Head Coach Larry Eustachy Quotes From Annual Media Day
11/6/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 6, 2007
On the team... "The returning guys are way ahead of the new guys, except for R.L. Horton. R.L. seems to hang in there. He blends in pretty well."
On this year's team compared to last year... "We're definitely better than last year. However, do we win more games; I don't know. The whole conference is better. But our non-conference schedule, with games at Cal and Alabama, is tough. We could've gone to a lot of places, but it would've been a lot for this team to handle. I still think that age-wise, we are the youngest team in the conference."
On the non-conference schedule... "We wanted to expose our team to, and build up, our fan base. For this program to get to where I think we can be, we need to get a fan base that gives us a really good home-court advantage. I have an ideal situation when its comes to our non-conference schedule, but its not there yet. I'm an RPI guy, but we're still growing. There's a lot of thought that goes into it. As much thought as we put into recruiting, we put into scheduling. We're got our mix of games that we have a chance to win, as well as games that will be difficult. I like the fact that a few of those are early. Cal is next week and Alabama is a couple weeks after that. We'll find out where we are as a team earlier, and the guys will learn right away how hard we have to work."
On getting to postseason play... "When you think about it, there are a lot of programs that go a long time without winning the first round of a conference tournament, and we've done that the past two years, which shouldn't be taken for granted. We'd like to go deep into the conference tournament, but there's also some luck involved."
On playing Ole Miss... "I recruited Andy Kennedy, and I know that he's a stand-up guy. Where others are afraid to play, he's not. He's given back to this game, and he's trying to create more of an interest in this state for basketball, so I give him all the credit in the world, particularly when it is at a neutral court. I think it's really terrific, especially since it's a big game."
