Media Day Report Part Two - Jeff Jones Telling It Like It Is

So I was a little bit of a fanboy when I first met Jeff Jones. After stammering my name, the name of the blog, and why I was bothering him, there was kind of an awkward pause before I asked, "So, do you want to maybe, uh, sit down and answer some questions?" Luckily for you, Coach is very forgiving of young pseudo-journalists and was more than generous with his time. What follows here are excerpts from what we talked about.

I started by asking Coach what the starting line-up would be if the Randolph-Macon game was today (last Thursday). His response: "I honestly don't know." JJ indicated that at this point there are three starters more or less locked in: Nick Hendra, Stephen Lumpkins, and, surprisingly, Riley Grafft. For the other two spots, there are "young guys battling for spots."

Right now for the point guard competition, JJ says that, "It's not who's the best player. It's who is the oil, who makes things run more smoothly. There's some good competition going on right now. Things have a lot of moving parts for our team right now with young guys learning and trying to figure college basketball out, much less how they're going to fit in [to a lineup]. I would encourage people not to be too concerned with the starting lineup for the Randolph-Macon game."

Well, Coach, sorry, but here in the blogosphere, we ARE concerned about those kinds of things. Even though we understand that the line-up will change, we still want to know who is emerging out of these pre-season practices looking the most promising.

On Vlad the Impaler: "...different players fit into different styles in different ways. Vlad loved GMU. He didn't leave there because he was unhappy with the coaches. He liked the players; he liked the coaches, but that wasn't the right fit for him basketball wise. His skillset fits what we're trying to do, and, quite honestly, we're trying to build around him and give him a lot of responsibility and have other people feed him...Vlad is an accomplished post-up player, not through bulk, but by being smart, being able to use both hands, and being crafty. He's also probably our best perimeter shooter. In the same way we made Garrison Carr the focus of our offense [last year], and then, depending on what the defense did, we created opportunities for other guys built off of that, we're trying to create those same opportunities around Vlad, Nick Hendra, and Stephen Lumpkins...As coaches we have to handle Vlad becoming eligible [midway through the season], it's not a decision I could make right now, it's not a decision I have to make right now."

On the perimeter game this year: "We're not capable of being the same kind of perimeter shooting team that we were a year ago. We don't have Garrison, no one does. Having a guy like [Brian] Gilmore, like Bryce [Simon], we just can't do that this year. We have shooters, but not the same kind."

On the biggest surprise so far this season: "Riley Grafft's performance thus far has maybe been the most pleasant surprise...People will say “wow” that's a big jump [when they see him on the court]...Riley's confidence, hopefully Riley's confidence, is very high. Another thing is Daniel Fisher, he's...a guy that we thought by his junior year might be able to help. He's proven at the very least he's going to be able to get in games as a back-up, I'm not going overboard, but it's something that we didn't expect."

I asked if in two years the Munoz-Jolivette-Snodgrass trio might end up being like the Mercer-Carr-Gilmore trifecta from last year: These three are "different than Carr, Mercer, and Gilmore. [Munoz and Jolivette] are more traditional point guards than Garrison Carr. Snodgrass is more of a wing player than Gilmore. It's important to note that when that class [class of 2009] were freshmen, we went through some rough times...[But] they didn't get crushed, they fought through it, they got better, they got more determined. When those guys were juniors, we were picked sixth [in the preseason Patriot League coaches' poll]. We had lost 90% of our scoring, a lot of our statistics...[but] the hope is the new guys can step in and help...[However,] last time we lost 6-7 players, we filled with juniors, not freshmen, and I don't think our freshmen are ready to step in to that degree...[We're going to have to,] I want to use the term patch together, but I'm not saying that like the Redskins offensive line, it's not a natural fit based on where we played a year ago...We'll be evolving."

On Riley Grafft: "Last year there was no thought that he'd be a guy who could contribute this year. We knew he had athleticism. He's 6'11”, so he's got length. He runs the court very well, but I think the biggest thing, well when we saw him in the recruiting process, he's got some skill that most other guys his height don't have...what he's shown us is to be able to show us some of those skills that we knew about a long time ago [during recruiting]...It's a confidence thing."

On the battle for point guard: "The thought coming in was that one of either Blake [Jolivette] or Danny [Munoz] would come in, and the other would back him up. At this point, Simon McCormack has made it a little bit more complicated, and he's head and shoulders better than where he was a year ago. There hasn't been a knockout" in terms of one point guard emerging as far and away the best. "Practices have been good, we've been doing some scrimmaging. Saturday we will do some scrimmaging situations that probably will determine who starts against Randolph-Macon. After Randolph-Macon, we'll have to take a look after that. Two of those three will get a really long hard look in the Randolph-Macon game." From there, the coaching staff will try to make some decisions to see who will start at point guard. JJ also noted that instead of platooning point guards and playing 2-3 equally, he would "rather have one guy earn the job and the other back him up. So that it's clear to everybody, he's our PG because I think that instills confidence." He also indicated that whoever is the starting point guard will play 25-27 minutes and his back-up will play 13-15 minutes.

I asked JJ if he thought Nick Hendra was ready to stand up and take leadership of the team because in the past he has sometimes opted to make the flashy play instead of the smart play.
JJ: "Frank [Borden, last year] played defense and didn't screw up. That's why he played in front of Hendra...If you look, Nick was in at the end of the games; he was playing more minutes. The maturity, the decisions were still an issue [last year]. He needs to make a bigger step from last year to this year because we're going to have to rely on him. [Last year] I could just yank him [if he made mistakes], we don't have that luxury this year...We had a practice where Nick was aggressive, made some great plays, then made some bonehead plays, and we didn't yank him because we need him to learn that we need the really good plays, but there's a line there, and you can't cross that line...From the time he got to AU until now he's made a lot of progress, but there's more progress [to be made]. In high school, you get volume, you get 30 shots a game. In college, you need to be efficient. It's an important lesson that he's going to need to learn even better...You look at Greg Sprink [from Navy] a couple of years ago. [We're saying to Hendra,] 'We're going to give you chances to do things with the ball, you need to make sure that you make good decisions. If you don't get an opportunity we're coming back to you.'"

On leadership on the team: "We don't believe in captains, we don't nominate captains. Assigning them a title, I can remember as a player at UVA and as a coach, that there were so many times that the team got it wrong because they're either the senior or the popular guy, so I was like, we're not doing that. Leaders lead, our leaders are going to lead, why do I need to put a letter on someone? Brian Gilmore was a vocal leader, Derrick Mercer was the guy everybody looked to, Garrison led by example, those guys were so competitive...They were so competitive, but they led in very different ways, but in very effective ways, but not any one of them was any more of a leader, it was just different ways. Luptak and Matt Wilson are really taking it to heart. Nick is trying to assert himself a little more. Lumpkins is trying to assert himself with his work ethic. Even Vlad, Vlad feels like he needs to be a leader on this team, he hasn't been around that long, he hasn't played in any games, and the guys look to him like 'okay, you're our best player', at Mason he was just another guy."

That's all I've got. Re-posting some of this, it makes me realize there's a LOT of good stuff in here. I want to thank Jeff Jones, though I doubt he reads this, for his candor. One other quote from JJ I want to add is on team motivation: "I made my career out of being pissed off at the other team." That actually made me laugh during the interview.

I'll cut this short now because I think this has already run pretty long, but I want to say I'm pretty surprised about the positive (and rave) reviews on Riley Grafft and Daniel Fisher. Those two, combined with Lumpkins and Vlad when he's available, have the opportunity to give the Eagles an inside game that I thought wasn't going to be possible. That's encouraging.

I think Josh is going to post a preview of Randolph-Macon tomorrow, so look forward to that. I will see you all, I hope, in Bender Arena at 7:30p on Tuesday!

THE SEASON IS UPON US!

PRO DEO ET PATRIA AND GO EAGLES!