Dupree McBrayer is still day-to-day. He went through non-contact activities in Saturday's practice. He's lost a lot of weight. It's an infection that sidelined him where he couldn't really do much of anything for a while. He played through it against Alabama and the next day it got worse. He didn't practice Friday.
Didn't have great chemistry against Miami, not in a tension way but in terms of being used to play with one lineup and then missing Dupree. It's not Isaiah's fault. He was thrusted into some meaningful minutes.
Couldn't put Isaiah at the 2 against Miami because he didn't know the plays. They've now had more time to get him up to speed.
Pick and roll defense against Miami was maybe the worst he's seen in four years. Missing Dupree maybe took the team out of its flow but there's not excuse for the defense. Reggie may have struggled to move his feet, but the pick and roll defense wasn't necessarily Reggie's fault. It was an effort issue, guys on the weakside showed no effort.
We went into the Miami game and thought the elements -- home game, national TV, etc. -- would get us over the hump. Tells the guys all the time: when you play at home, sometimes you lose focus. Against Alabama, they were locked in and it was at a neutral site on Facebook. We weren't locked in mentally against Miami.
Really strange that Big Ten play is starting early this year. One of the reasons he put together a tough non-conference schedule was because of the early start of conference play.
Thought the crowd against Miami was the best crowd he's had since he's been here.
Gets why the Big Ten is wanting to have more of a presence in New York City. With that being said, he thinks the Big Ten is a Midwest conference. Took his wife to Chicago this summer and it was amazing to see so many pedestrians wearing the gear of so many Big Ten schools on Michigan Ave. You don't have that in NYC. Loves NYC and Jim Delaney is very smart, but also not excited to lose a home game to play in NYC.
This will be the best Rutgers team that he's played since he's been here. They rebound, defend, and are tough. It will be a toughness game.
17 shots was too much for Isaiah. It's a learning process. Are you taking good shots? There were a few he wasn't. We evaluate which ones are good shots and which ones are bad shots, and he'll learn. The difficult part of coaching that game was that you couldn't really put him on the bench but did so in the second half anyway.
I told Isaiah and Jamir that Amir, Nate, and Jordan all had a lot of bad games as freshman.
With Isaiah, he has the whole Jellyfam thing and then he has reality. I think that whole aura is maybe not what everyone thinks it is. He's a freshman that's eager to learn and doesn't have a big ego. He just wants to win. Our guys all love him, just like Jamir. Older guys teach the young guys and that's the way it needs to be.
Why isn't Davonte Fitzgerald getting more minutes? Murphy's playing really well, and Fitzgerald is still getting a feel for things.
We do run an offense, which people may not think.
Thinks the program has done a good job of identifying talent. Jordan Murphy and Nate Mason were three-star guys. There have been a lot of guys that we've evaluated well and we've worked. Everyone thinks that teams that outperform the rankings have this skill development program that really works, but no, it's identifying talent and making them work in your program.
