Brian Gregory: It's going to take some time

TAMPA, Fla. (Feb. 9, 2020) – On the eve of South Florida's first game in 31 days USF (7-5, 3-3 AAC) head coach Brian Gregory held a media availability via Zoom. The Bulls host No. 6/7 Houston Wednesday night in the Yuengling Center.

USF has not played since defeating East Carolina on Jan. 9. Houston (16-2, 10-2 AAC) has won nine of its last ten games and has the No. 1 scoring defense in the nation.

Here's everything Gregory had to say about his team and Wednesday's game (reporter's questions are in bold.

Brian Gregory's opening statement...

It's been 28 days in shutdown mode with approximately three to four skill sessions with three or four players on the court. Today will be our second full practice with 10 guys. You know, it's so different than, like, when you start practice in the fall, or even when you start your fall workouts. Guys have been working out all summer long, or you've had your fall preseason. You know, we we've had guys who didn't touch the ball for 12 to 14 days during that stretch, so it's very different, but we knew it was going to be different. So we’ve gone out and tried to get their wind back or basketball legs back, try to prepare as best we can. But also understand that this is going to be a process of coming back.

How do you keep your players sharp? After a month of this how do you keep them, you know, kind of together and still motivated after so many stops?

Two big keys that you said in there. How do you keep them motivated and obviously, the communication piece is big. In terms of having constant communication with them even when we couldn't practice or workout or anything like that. We pride ourselves on our depth and everybody's got to be ready to go. But I think you hit a big thing. Because of this the team kind of gets disjointed. They're accustomed to seeing and being with us every day and we're accustomed to seeing and being with them every day. As teammates, they're accustomed to having 13 guys in the locker room 13 guys on the court being around each other every day, that's been halted. You know, that stopped, it's been two guys in the gym at one time, and, you know, all these different things, going back to their apartments and trying to stay as separated as possible, all those different things. So there's a lot outside of basketball that has created just an unfamiliar daily approach to things. And I think that's one of the biggest challenges, because when you get to February, you want a really tight knit group that have battled through different things. Now, this is obviously a different thing, and we're battling through it, but it's not really what you prepare for, because those battles usually are on court, this once occurred off to court.

Not that you guys take anything for granted but is there an added appreciation and excitement for you, the staff and the players about resuming your season knowing the challenges you have faced the past several weeks?

You would hope so I know I have it, the staff has it. I've felt it gradually increase as we were able to get two guys on the court and three guys on the court. And all of a sudden we got five. It was like we threw a party. You know what I mean? You could actually run something, you know, offensively or defensively.

I think this last 12 months, has made you appreciate the opportunities and the blessings that you have on a daily basis. Even though our guys are younger, and I think it's one of the challenges as a young man or young woman that truly understand and appreciate the opportunities in front of you. Because 18 to 22 year olds think it's going to happen every day. Well it's a stark reality that it isn't going to be out there every single day. And you want to take advantage of it, you want to make the most of it, you want to, you know, now you get to go out there and play, you'd hope that you'd you know, spill it on record every single, every single night. And we got pretty, we got pretty good guys that do that for the most part anyways. But I do think Russ, you touch on a good point that this kind of drives that home and you know, in a real world setting.

On concerns about any regression by the players due to the long layoff…

When we were about 10 days into it we were preparing to play that the next game because we had seven scholarship players available. Then kind of the second and third wave hit us. Today will be our second full contact practice that we've had in the last 28 days. Saturday we had eight guys available for the first time. We were able to do some four on four and three on three. Yesterday was the first five that we've done during this during this pause.

Is there regression? Yeah. Yesterday, the first practice of five on five. We've had four days of individual skill work. Prior to that, that was it. Four full days where we had anywhere from four to five to six guys on record in smaller groups. Now some guys are getting back and they were doing some conditioning and different things like that. But we have a whole protocol set up in terms of the amount of days once a guy gets back. That's that that's one of the misnomers. I think that's out there. Wait, once you get off, once you get out, you just can't come back and play the next day. You know what I mean? It's not safe for the guys.

You got to go through three, four or five days, especially if you had it and had symptoms. Now we were very fortunate guys. Very mild symptoms for our guys, which we're very, very fortunate of. Some guys had no symptoms whatsoever. But even with that, it still kind of knocks you on your butt. You know what I mean?

And being cooped up and locked up for 10 to 14 days doesn't bode well for when you get back on the court. It's going to take some time.

On scouting the number five team in the country or just playing against somebody else…

We're always a very detailed in our preparation. But really these first couple weeks, we’ve got to just get back to getting out there and playing hard. Trying to play at the pace we want to play at. We're going to have to play a lot of guys. Guys that maybe haven't logged as many minutes got to be ready to go. Because so many unknowns. How long can a guy really go?

You know what I mean?

Can David Collins, who's averaging 31 minutes a game, first game back play 31 minutes? I would think probably not, you know what I mean? So guys have to look at it as an opportunity.

We're going to be rusty and not in sync as much as you would like on February 10. But the one thing that we're going to have to do we still have to play with great energy. We got to play really hard. We got to play physical. If you don't in this game, you're in big trouble anyways. It doesn't matter. You could have practiced for a year and a half but if you don't do those three things, it doesn't make a difference.

Maybe simplify some stuff. Keep your offensive package a little tighter. Your defensive preparation a little tighter, maybe, with just one or two adjustments ready to roll within the game.

So, all those things and just give our guys opportunity to go out there and really compete hard.

What do you think about this whole thing in terms of moving forward teams getting to the tournament, and some teams maybe not getting the shot they deserve?

I think we're gonna have to live with that.

I was talking with some coaches in our league yesterday. I think there's a perception, you look at the standings, and you got some teams, you know, 6-5, or 2-6 or whatever and you say, well, there's some teams that aren’t very good. Our league is better than it's been in the three previous years that I've been the head coach here. From top to bottom. The floor is remarkably different. You know, us and East Carolina that had been on the bottom for so many years, it’s just, you know, different. You have Central Florida who beat Auburn who beat Florida State. I think they got two wins in the league, maybe three wins in the league now.

We have a great opportunity to continue to improve our numerical resume with playing Houston twice, playing SMU, playing Memphis, going on the road to Temple, on the road to Central Florida road. Road games count more and different things like that.

I saw the other day in the in the NET rankings, there was a team that had played four games. They played no non-conference games, they played a total of four games and they were 15th in the NET. And they were from a much smaller conference.

On Prince Oduro’s struggles, what Gregory is hoping to see from him, and what his role might be the rest of the season…

Well, you know, obviously, the role is always determined by the player in terms of how he plays and then when he gets an opportunity if he plays well. I think Prince and Russell, a little bit, fall into the category that I kind of talked about, we didn't have our normal summer instruction and fall instruction. Where we're able to spend a lot of time with them. The preseason was much different than so some guys that are new to the program have had a harder time getting traction and Prince is one of those guys. But I like his work ethic. I like the fact that you know, obviously he was shut down a little bit, but he's coming back pretty strong. We need him to give us solid minutes in terms of rebounding and defending, scoring around the basket.

Sometimes you just got to keep working and keep believing in yourself so that when you get the opportunity you're ready to go.

We're playing Houston and Justin Gorham is one of the best rebounders in the country. Leading the league in rebounding. One of the best offensive rebounders in the country is having just a phenomenal, phenomenal year. When we played them last season he was averaging 1.9 points, eight minutes a game and 1.3 rebounds as a junior.

I remember telling our guys there's going to be some guys that come out of nowhere, because they're going to use this time when everybody's around watching video games to go and work on their game. They're gonna get stronger, they're gonna do different things, and they're gonna come out of nowhere.

And he's one of those.

Now he's a first team All-League and guys can make that jump, but it doesn't happen overnight. There's a lot of people that may notice him overnight, but there was a lot of work done before that.

I think Caleb had a hip injury that he was playing through and David was playing through a shoulder injury. How are those guys doing?

All good. All good. You know, obviously you get that rest and some of those bangs and bruises kind of heal up. So both those guys are 100% ready to go.

On might USF have to tweak its offensive game plan for Houston that you typically wouldn't have to adjust for because of the rust?

The biggest area we need to improve on all offensively is we got to do a better job of taking care of the basketball.

Just too many turnovers. Some of it due to trying to make plays when they're not there and some of it just due to not making the right read and the right decision. That's something that we have to get better at. You can't have those empty possessions.

You know when you're off a month, Nathan, and you've played six conference games you get to spend a lot of time watching those six games over and over and over and over again and you got to figure out some different things that you can come up with because you can only watch them so many times. Our defensive field goal percentage in the half court would be number one in the conference.

But the problem is, our turnovers are leading to easy baskets and breakaways on the other end. So, now that raises your defensive field goal percentage. So, half court defensively, we've been really good.

So, our issue on offense that then affects our defense as well. And that's one thing, we have to dramatically improve in. But I'm also not going to say, okay, we're going to walk it up, and we're going to play slow. Because that's not the way we play. To be honest with you, a lot of our turnovers do not occur, because we're trying to push the ball, they occur in that in the half court.