RON HUNTER
Tylan Pope had signed with Stephen F. Austin before signing here. What allowed him to get a release?
“When they signed him, he was a non-qualifier and then he qualified. I’m not sure what happened, but he go out of it. I know there were a lot of schools in our league trying to get him. For us it was a great pickup late.”
The word on him is extremely physical and a hard worker without a ton of athletic ability. How good of a fit is he for your system?
“He’ll be perfect. We need that. We brought a lot of skill guys in and you have to be that guy, especially in this league on that backside to rebound and do what we want to do. I couldn’t imagine we could get a guy of his talent that late. Just to add to the guys we brought in, he was kind of the final piece for us.”
Eight of your 13 scholarship players are newcomers and only three played last year. How do you like the makeup of the team?
“I love it. To be honest with you I cannot imagine after my press conference and watching these guys the first day that all of a sudden the transformation would have happened so quickly, but it looks like one of our basketball teams. This week we’ve had our first workouts and it looks like one of my teams. I really like the energy of the team. I like the balance of what we’re doing, but the athleticism and shooting are two things that we had to improve and we did that.”
You thought Samir Sehic might return but he is not back. What happened?
“Again, what happens at the end is whether a guy really wants to do it or not. That’s one thing. You have to really want to be here, and if not, then you should just leave. I gave him some time to really think about that. Especially when you graduate, do you really want to come back that fifth year with a new coach, new system and then, more importantly, you have to earn minutes. Right now, I don’t know who is going to start. Everybody has a clean slate from the walk-ons, everyone. He decided to go elsewhere, and it’s probably best for him. It’s been good for us because it allowed us to pick up (Tylan Pope) what we picked up. This is something we were going to try to recruit next year. Being able to pick Pope up has been great.”
How healthy is Ray Ona Embo?
“He’s probably right now about 75 to 80 percent, and I just say that in a sense conditioning-wise. The knee (patellar tendinitis) is a 100 percent, and he looks really good. He’s bouncy out here right now. He’s gone two hard days. I wanted to kind of see if he could get through that and he did, so his is just mostly going to be conditioning, but he’s a really good player.”
What are your overall impressions after two days?
“I’ll be honest with you, I’m trying to contain my excitement. I really am. I didn’t believe this was the team I was going to coach in June based on what we have. What I love is we’ve got a lot of older guys. A lot of times you come in here and there’s a lot of deer in the headlights. We don’t have that. You got K.J. (Lawson), who’s been here before. Christion (Thompson) from Rhode Island has been here. Ray and a lot of those guys have been through this stuff before, so they are helping the freshmen through it. Although the system we’re putting in is new for a lot of the guys, they’ve been through this before, and so that really helps.”
I know Zhang is with the Chinese national team. Who else isn’t here?
“Nobal Days gets here Friday. He graduates this weekend, so he’ll get here this weekend. The same with Tylan. He’ll get in this week also. The high school guys have to finish up.”
What do you like about Christion Thompson?
“He just knows how to play. He’s built like a middle linebacker. He’s got the toughness of a middle linebacker. I just absolutely love the way he plays. I could play him at four or five different positions. He’s an unbelievable, great kid. I’m trying to find a way to get him another four years. He’s really good.”
So no particular position?
“He’s a basketball player. That’s what I love about him. I’m going to play him at 1, 2, 3 and 4. He’ll play all over the place. You have to have guys who are scorers, but you gotta have that one guy that’s a glue guy. I probably won’t take him off the floor. I can play him at different positions and do a lot of things with him. That’s what I love about him. He’s so versatile.”
What about Nic Thomas?
“One thing we had to do is this team was probably one of the worst in the country at 3-point shooting. That won’t happen next year. With Nic and Christion and K.J., we’ve got some guys who can really make shots. That’s what Nic does. Nic is a specialist. He can really make shots and is another tough kid. All of these kids have a chip on their shoulder like their coach. They practice wih a chip on their shoulder.”
The last time K.J. Lawson was in the AAC, he was named rookie of the year (at Memphis in 2016-17).
“What’s great for K.J. is he feels he has something to prove based on what happened with his brother (Dedric) and his dad and him. He had such a great start to his career and then in the middle it kind of got a little muddy and so now he gets to finish it where it started.
When will you know whether Teshaun Hightower (who transferred from Georgia) will be eligible this year?
“We’ll start that process probably sometime next week. I feel good about it, though. I feel good about it, though. To be honest with you, I’ll be shocked if he’s not (granted immediate eligibility), but that’s a process. We probably won’t know that until September just with the way the NCAA looks at those things.”
What do you think enabled you to attract this type of talent so quickly?
“It’s funny. I was thinking the other day, from five weeks ago to now, just the transformation. You can get nine new players, but nine really good players that fit the system and fit what we want to do this late in the year? My staff did a great job. I’m not taking credit for this. They did an unbelievable job. Kevin (Johnson) did an unbelievable job of getting those guys. My staff was big time on this.”
K.J. LAWSON
What are your thoughts coming back to the AAC after playing at Memphis?
"When I was here a couple of years, it was a different conference and I’m just glad to come back and be a part of an up-and-coming organization. I’m just glad to be here and reinvent myself and be a new player. It’s just great to be under coach Hunter."
What was the main attraction of Tulane for you?
"I knew that my strengths could be made perfect and weakness, a lot of people probably thought I would go and join up size and go to the big schools like Oregon or Arkansas or even stay at Kansas, but it wasn’t really about the basketball at that time. It was about me being happy and about me choosing a place where I can go and show people what I really can do. I didn’t really want o be one of many. If you look at my interviews from the past, even with the 10 great me tos in Memphis, that’s what I always said. That’s why I didn’t choose a Louisville or another big school because I really wanted to go somewhere I could develop and be a player and not get lost in the mix."
You didn’t get as much playing time as you expected at Kansas, but how did the year go for you?
“It was a great year. I took a lot of learning experience from it and they definitely got me better. It’s a lot of credit to them. I’m KU alumni and I love their program, but it just wasn’t a perfect time for me. I couldn’t fit in the program because a lot of young guys and I was the odd man out. The cards fall that way some time. You just have to take it and move on.”
What were the other schools you considered the most?
“I was just considering schools where I could go and make an impact, and I really looked at going and playing. I was looking at San Diego. I wanted the schools that wanted to say that I was their guy and they weren’t recruiting a secondary guy. The academic institution here, that I really didn’t know about, drove me to come here, too.”
How would you describe your game?
“Now I would describe it, I’m a three-level scorer. I can play on both sides of the ball. Long, agile, can play multiple positions, high I.Q, can guard multiple positions. I have more feel now, more experience, am a more polished player, can shoot the ball well, can shoot mid range, got mid post. I really feel like I’m a complete player and I just really have to show it and go out there and prove it.”
What do you think about your teammates?
“They are just a great group of guys, from Jordan Walker to Nic Thomas to Christion Thompson to Ray (Ona Embo), to all the guys that transferred in here. They had a big deal for us to come here and want to do it together and get on one accord. It’s great being with people who embrace each other’s game because we all can do it individually, but doing it as a team is what’s going to add up.”
Tylan Pope had signed with Stephen F. Austin before signing here. What allowed him to get a release?
“When they signed him, he was a non-qualifier and then he qualified. I’m not sure what happened, but he go out of it. I know there were a lot of schools in our league trying to get him. For us it was a great pickup late.”
The word on him is extremely physical and a hard worker without a ton of athletic ability. How good of a fit is he for your system?
“He’ll be perfect. We need that. We brought a lot of skill guys in and you have to be that guy, especially in this league on that backside to rebound and do what we want to do. I couldn’t imagine we could get a guy of his talent that late. Just to add to the guys we brought in, he was kind of the final piece for us.”
Eight of your 13 scholarship players are newcomers and only three played last year. How do you like the makeup of the team?
“I love it. To be honest with you I cannot imagine after my press conference and watching these guys the first day that all of a sudden the transformation would have happened so quickly, but it looks like one of our basketball teams. This week we’ve had our first workouts and it looks like one of my teams. I really like the energy of the team. I like the balance of what we’re doing, but the athleticism and shooting are two things that we had to improve and we did that.”
You thought Samir Sehic might return but he is not back. What happened?
“Again, what happens at the end is whether a guy really wants to do it or not. That’s one thing. You have to really want to be here, and if not, then you should just leave. I gave him some time to really think about that. Especially when you graduate, do you really want to come back that fifth year with a new coach, new system and then, more importantly, you have to earn minutes. Right now, I don’t know who is going to start. Everybody has a clean slate from the walk-ons, everyone. He decided to go elsewhere, and it’s probably best for him. It’s been good for us because it allowed us to pick up (Tylan Pope) what we picked up. This is something we were going to try to recruit next year. Being able to pick Pope up has been great.”
How healthy is Ray Ona Embo?
“He’s probably right now about 75 to 80 percent, and I just say that in a sense conditioning-wise. The knee (patellar tendinitis) is a 100 percent, and he looks really good. He’s bouncy out here right now. He’s gone two hard days. I wanted to kind of see if he could get through that and he did, so his is just mostly going to be conditioning, but he’s a really good player.”
What are your overall impressions after two days?
“I’ll be honest with you, I’m trying to contain my excitement. I really am. I didn’t believe this was the team I was going to coach in June based on what we have. What I love is we’ve got a lot of older guys. A lot of times you come in here and there’s a lot of deer in the headlights. We don’t have that. You got K.J. (Lawson), who’s been here before. Christion (Thompson) from Rhode Island has been here. Ray and a lot of those guys have been through this stuff before, so they are helping the freshmen through it. Although the system we’re putting in is new for a lot of the guys, they’ve been through this before, and so that really helps.”
I know Zhang is with the Chinese national team. Who else isn’t here?
“Nobal Days gets here Friday. He graduates this weekend, so he’ll get here this weekend. The same with Tylan. He’ll get in this week also. The high school guys have to finish up.”
What do you like about Christion Thompson?
“He just knows how to play. He’s built like a middle linebacker. He’s got the toughness of a middle linebacker. I just absolutely love the way he plays. I could play him at four or five different positions. He’s an unbelievable, great kid. I’m trying to find a way to get him another four years. He’s really good.”
So no particular position?
“He’s a basketball player. That’s what I love about him. I’m going to play him at 1, 2, 3 and 4. He’ll play all over the place. You have to have guys who are scorers, but you gotta have that one guy that’s a glue guy. I probably won’t take him off the floor. I can play him at different positions and do a lot of things with him. That’s what I love about him. He’s so versatile.”
What about Nic Thomas?
“One thing we had to do is this team was probably one of the worst in the country at 3-point shooting. That won’t happen next year. With Nic and Christion and K.J., we’ve got some guys who can really make shots. That’s what Nic does. Nic is a specialist. He can really make shots and is another tough kid. All of these kids have a chip on their shoulder like their coach. They practice wih a chip on their shoulder.”
The last time K.J. Lawson was in the AAC, he was named rookie of the year (at Memphis in 2016-17).
“What’s great for K.J. is he feels he has something to prove based on what happened with his brother (Dedric) and his dad and him. He had such a great start to his career and then in the middle it kind of got a little muddy and so now he gets to finish it where it started.
When will you know whether Teshaun Hightower (who transferred from Georgia) will be eligible this year?
“We’ll start that process probably sometime next week. I feel good about it, though. I feel good about it, though. To be honest with you, I’ll be shocked if he’s not (granted immediate eligibility), but that’s a process. We probably won’t know that until September just with the way the NCAA looks at those things.”
What do you think enabled you to attract this type of talent so quickly?
“It’s funny. I was thinking the other day, from five weeks ago to now, just the transformation. You can get nine new players, but nine really good players that fit the system and fit what we want to do this late in the year? My staff did a great job. I’m not taking credit for this. They did an unbelievable job. Kevin (Johnson) did an unbelievable job of getting those guys. My staff was big time on this.”
K.J. LAWSON
What are your thoughts coming back to the AAC after playing at Memphis?
"When I was here a couple of years, it was a different conference and I’m just glad to come back and be a part of an up-and-coming organization. I’m just glad to be here and reinvent myself and be a new player. It’s just great to be under coach Hunter."
What was the main attraction of Tulane for you?
"I knew that my strengths could be made perfect and weakness, a lot of people probably thought I would go and join up size and go to the big schools like Oregon or Arkansas or even stay at Kansas, but it wasn’t really about the basketball at that time. It was about me being happy and about me choosing a place where I can go and show people what I really can do. I didn’t really want o be one of many. If you look at my interviews from the past, even with the 10 great me tos in Memphis, that’s what I always said. That’s why I didn’t choose a Louisville or another big school because I really wanted to go somewhere I could develop and be a player and not get lost in the mix."
You didn’t get as much playing time as you expected at Kansas, but how did the year go for you?
“It was a great year. I took a lot of learning experience from it and they definitely got me better. It’s a lot of credit to them. I’m KU alumni and I love their program, but it just wasn’t a perfect time for me. I couldn’t fit in the program because a lot of young guys and I was the odd man out. The cards fall that way some time. You just have to take it and move on.”
What were the other schools you considered the most?
“I was just considering schools where I could go and make an impact, and I really looked at going and playing. I was looking at San Diego. I wanted the schools that wanted to say that I was their guy and they weren’t recruiting a secondary guy. The academic institution here, that I really didn’t know about, drove me to come here, too.”
How would you describe your game?
“Now I would describe it, I’m a three-level scorer. I can play on both sides of the ball. Long, agile, can play multiple positions, high I.Q, can guard multiple positions. I have more feel now, more experience, am a more polished player, can shoot the ball well, can shoot mid range, got mid post. I really feel like I’m a complete player and I just really have to show it and go out there and prove it.”
What do you think about your teammates?
“They are just a great group of guys, from Jordan Walker to Nic Thomas to Christion Thompson to Ray (Ona Embo), to all the guys that transferred in here. They had a big deal for us to come here and want to do it together and get on one accord. It’s great being with people who embrace each other’s game because we all can do it individually, but doing it as a team is what’s going to add up.”
