Richard Pitino at Big 10 Media Day - Hollins healthy, NIT championship weird...

Here's the video and the notes:
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An Interview With:
COACH RICHARD PITINO
RICHARD PITINO: Morning, everybody.
Certainly feels better being in year two sitting here
than year one, just talking about it, just knowing
who we have, what we've got coming in as well as
what we had last year, so certainly very excited
about it. Excited to get rolling.
Q. Can you just talk about the
newcomers and how they're doing in
preseason practices this year?
RICHARD PITINO: Yeah, really good. I
think the difference between this year and last year
is our newcomers fit the way that we want to play a
lot more so than maybe last year, and I think that
will help with our defense. It'll help with our press,
all those little things that we're trying to do when
building kind of the brand that we want to play.
Those guys fit that. All of them do. And they're all
guys that if we make a defensive mistake or
somebody is in foul trouble, I'm confident,
defensively, that they can really pick up the slack
there. Certainly, they'll go through their lumps like
all freshmen do and all newcomers do, but all of
them are different, but I think they'll all contribute.
Q. Do you feel like with those
newcomers coming in being able to play a little
bit faster that you're going to run on teams a
little bit more than you did last season?
RICHARD PITINO: I thought we ran last
year. Obviously, you did not. But yeah, I think the
difference will be the defense more so than the
offense. You know, my first year at FIU we were
top ten in the country in steals. We certainly were
not that last year. I think that number will go up,
and hopefully we can create more offense from our
defense.
So yeah, I think we're moving in that
direction, definitely.
Q. What can you share from the game
plan for the season opener November 14th in
Puerto Rico?
RICHARD PITINO: Shocking that you'd
ask that. You know, it's interesting because me
and my dad talk every day about our teams:
How's practice going, this and that, and neither
one of us have kind of, like, backed off the intel,
but I see it coming soon. We start giving so much
information, and we flip that switch a little bit. So
that part is definitely different.
It's hard because I haven't started scouting
them. I watch every game. Normally I go back
and see the games they lost, but I don't want to
watch them lose games, so I've got to kind of
figure out how we're going to approach that game.
And, certainly, in about a week or two, we'll start
doing that, but it's going to be a fun experience for
our guys for sure.
Q. You get (inaudible) and Mo back.
How much will that affect how much you play
out of the post this year?
RICHARD PITINO: You know, you look at
Mo as he was getting going towards the end of the
year was really scoring at a very good rate in the
low post. We've got to establish that. We probably
got a little bit three-point happy. I think we made
the most threes in school history. We also took the
most threes in school history, and that's not always
a good thing. I think everybody wants to establish
that inside-out attack, and we've got to do that.
We've got two veteran bigs with Mo and Elliott,
whoever starts, I don't know, but we need to go
inside of them early because they're very capable.
Q. Dre Hollins has gutted through an
ankle injury the last couple of months of the
year, but he's been a prolific scorer his whole
career. What do you expect from him and how
do you think he'll play off Mathieu now that
they've got two years together?
RICHARD PITINO: Yeah, I think he looks
really healthy. Last year he got hurt in the
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Oct. 16, 2014 2
Wisconsin game, hurt his ankle, and he rushed
back. I think he missed three or four games, I'm
not sure of the exact number, and he rushed back
versus Purdue, and we were only going to play him
a little bit, and then we go into triple overtime. His
ankle really was hurting, and he showed a lot of
guts to fight through that because he wanted it so
bad. Well, now he's healthy. His ankle feels good.
His hip feels good. He looks really good. He's had
a great, great preseason, and I expect him to have
a very good year.
Q. How much do you think the NIT title
and coming off a game like that can
springboard the team this year, and is that
something you feel like guys talked about in
the off season, that they can achieve
something special?
RICHARD PITINO: The NIT, winning the
NIT, it's just a weird -- nobody knows how to
handle it. Do you brag about it? Do you talk about
it? You know, he didn't even put it in the notes, the
Big Ten guy. I noticed that. That's okay, though.
But, certainly, your goal is to get into the NCAA
Tournament every year. We know that. But when
you get in the NIT, it's really difficult, and you're
playing some really good teams with great
competition. So our guys are very proud,
especially of those last two games. You play
Florida State. Again, it was a very good team.
You beat a very good SMU team. They were
certainly very proud of it. But that's not the goal to
be in the NIT, and I think everybody in the locker
room knows that. And it's good in the sense of we
know what kept us out of the NCAA Tournament,
and we know what won us the NIT. So that
carryover, I hope is there, because I know those
guys are pretty focused to get in the NCAA Tournament