Nobal Days' contributions for the Tulane basketball team are not showing up on the stat sheet yet, but Ron Hunter and teammates swear by him because he is incredibly smart with a knack for understanding what's important.
As for news, if you don't want to wade through all of the quotes, Hunter said Tylan Pope (ineligible) and Ibby Ali (hurt) would be available for the Washington D.C. tournament Dec. 20-21 after missing the Alcorn State game Monday, so Tulane will finally be at full strength soon.
HUNTER
On Days' hands
"Nobal Days, his hands are unbelievable. He’s not the best athlete, but he’s got some of the best hands I’ve ever seen."
On handling the missed dunk against Utah:
"He wanted to crawl into a hole but his teammates wouldn’t let him, and that’s what was great on the floor. You could hear Jelly (Jordan Walker) yelling at him, Teshaun started getting on him, pick your head up, we’ve got another possession. What was great was we got a stop on the next possession and then we came down and scored. Again, that’s what I’m talking about with adversity. Those are the type plays you can’t create in practice. He had his head down, and if you look when he came off the floor I kind of grabbed him and said, let’s go, we’ve got to keep playing.
"But don’t think I didn’t tease him after the game. I usually don’t text parents, but I texted his family and said, ‘How about that dunk?” But we don’t have the success we’re having if it’s not for Nobal Days. Everybody is going to get the credit, but he’s doing all the dirty work that doesn’t show up in the stat sheet. There was a clip where they had in a four-minute stretch they put two seven-footers and just pounded him and pounded him and he was just coming back every time."
On why he is playing heavy minutes:
"He’s a stud. Sometimes stud doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re getting 20 and 10. He’s one of the smartest coaches I’ve ever coached. I thought my son had the highest basketball I.Q. I’ve ever coached. This kid’s close to him. He understands angles. He understands things. I love how he thinks the game, and sometimes almost overthinks it. One thing I say to him that I don’t say to other guys is don’t overthink it, just play, but he’s been absolutely terrific."
RON HUNTER
On his intelligence:
"I love his basketball I.Q. and I love his demeanor, where he doesn’t get too up and he doesn’t get too down. His coach is up here but he can always kind of stay here. He just understands it. If I tell him something once, he gets it. A lot of times I have to tell guys five, six, seven times. And he’s a great rebounder just because he understands angles and positions. It’s not even close. He’s the smartest guy I’ve ever coached. He just gets it. I’ve done everything from the first day to try to keep him out of the lineup, but because he does things the right way every time, now he’s one of my favorite players."
On only superstar freshmen getting that many minutes for him in the past:
"That’s great company. They’re not usually ready mentally. Physically they’re ready, but they’re not ready mentally, but he is. It’s to the point now that I get nervous when he’s not on the floor. It’s only that company of guys as freshmen that I felt like that. He gets it."
On how much he is helping team:
"The only way you develop is by playing and so the injuries and a lot of things that we’ve had have helped him. Next week might be the first time we’ll have T.Y. (Tylan Pope) and Nic (Thomas) and Ibby (Ali) back. It’s the first time since I’ve been here that we’ve had our whole roster. But that’s helped him. He took advantage of an opportunity, and now I don’t really care what those guys do. He’s going to stay in the lineup at some point. You always talk about next man up, and that’s exactly what he was able to do. We can’t win games without him, especially defensively and the way he moves the ball. It’s funny. Now everybody watches Nobal. Nobal used to be the guy that was watching everybody else. Now guys are watching him because he’s always in the right spot."
On very first impression:
"Great kid. He’s one of those guys that, man, he could marry my daughter. I didn't know if he could play for me, but he could marry my daughter because he’s such a great kid. His first open gym, he’s not athletic so he doesn’t stick out, but every day since we’ve had practice and understanding how to play, taking charges. What I’ve noticed more than anything is every time we had on any team he was always on the winning team. No matter if it was a drill, he always was on the winning team. I got tired of losing against him in practice. I brought him on my team."
On 17 3s by Saint Louis:
"They were coming into the game shooting 30 percent as a team. Our whole game plan, and I told the guy, I apologize because our whole game plan was to stop them inside, and they just lit us up from outside. It was just one of those games, and it was our third game in seven days. We weren’t sharp, but they made everything. Every time we cut it to 5, they hit a 3. They kept it in double digits every time we made a run, and they were threes that were challenged. There were four possessions where there were 50-50 balls they kicked out and hit a 3. Two of them banked in. I’ve never had that. I was watching film of the game and saw an expression where I just folded my hands because there was nothing we could do. But it was good because in the last week we’ve changed some things defensively to guard against that happening again and I think that will help us."
CHRISTION THOMPSON
On Days effectiveness:
"It started from when he first got here. Me and KJ and Teshaun would be in the gym and Nobal would always try to be in the gym with us. He would always say I’m just going to do whatever y’all do. At the beginning when freshmen come in for summer workouts, typically after one day they’re tired, after two days they’re really tired and after three days they are exhausted. Even on the third day Nobal would still be in here playing one-on-one with us getting shots up. He always just did everything he needed to do and kept fighting. He did the little things like rebound and played hard and never took a play off. All that stuff goes a long way especially when you know you have to play a certain role. He knew that he wasn’t going to come in and be the man. He knew he had to do the little things. I think he took a page from my book honestly. I used to talk to him a lot about that, doing the little things, and that’s basically what I did for a long time and it got me here. There’s nothing wrong with being a role player. Guys in the NBA get paid for being a role player."
On his smarts:
"He might make a mistake, but he makes mistakes off of not having experience. It’s what he used to do in the past, but the game is so different from high school. He’s able to always come back and learn from his mistakes."
On missed dunk:
"I remember after that happened, after he was coming back on defense, Jelly was the first one, he was just telling him stay with us, pick your head up. I told him you’re the reason we went on the run we just went on. One play, yeah that looked bad, but the whole game a W looks way better. We were able to pick him back up and he was able to pick himself up like he always does. His game on the stat sheet is not really seen, but if you watch his play his does more than enough."
On Saint Louis 17 3s:
"I came from the Atlantic 10 so we always used to play against Saint Louis. They used to be a pound-the-ball team and that’s what we pretty much expected. Hasan French to do his thing down low. We had a good game plan, had to adjust and didn’t adjust as well as we should have. They made shots, but that’s the thing about this defense. We play it well, but we’re just giving up too many little things. Once we make those adjustments, we’ll be an even better team than we are now."
