by Jake8005 » Mon Jan 24, 2022 3:22 pm
Irvine, California. (AP) - Here at the Big West Conference media day, University of Alaska Anchorage basketball's head coach Carlos Boozer answered questions about his team's upcoming season
Reporter: So Carlos, how do you feel about your preparation for the season.
Boozer: We feel good. They've been practicing hard and learning our system. On offense we plan to play mainly the triange and the princeton, but will use a bit of the high post too. On defense we've been practicing man to man and the 3-2 zone. We also have to learn how to handle opposing zones and how to full-court press if necessary.
Reporter: What do you think of the group of players you have
Boozer: I like who we have. Right now we feel great at guard with Pengelly Omara, and Crosby all playing roughly equal minutes, and Fleming as a great option to step in if one is injured. We like our 3rd string guards too, Strong and Rowell are good players who I wish we had minutes for. We may have to go very small in order to get them and Fleming some playing time. At forward we feel good too, Smiley and Gaither are our likely starters, and Michael Blake is probably going to be the one spelling them off the bench, John Haymon we see being a useful player down the road that may get minutes too if we need him. At center, we're not very deep. If one of Louis or Geyer goes down, I'm not sure who we would play there with the healthy one. Gaither has the skills to play there, but is short for a center at 6'6. However, Matt Louis is 7'1 which is always useful and is a fantastic inside scorer. We have walk-ons at forward, Jacob Cox and Adam Finneman who will be helpful in pushing our scholarship forwards in practice and hopefully can see the floor for a bit this season. We've decided to redshirt our freshman Travis Stokes as we just don't have minutes to give him this season, so we'd rather save his years of eligibility for the future as we really like his potential.
Reporter: So would you say you feel confident the season.
Boozer: We feel good. Everybody knows the challenges associated with transitioning to Division I, but we wouldn't be trying if we didn't think we had a chance. We're gonna go out there on the court and try our best. If we fail, it won't be because we didn't give any effort to succeed.
Last edited by
Jake8005 on Wed Jul 27, 2022 9:52 am, edited 1 time in total.