Maybe the most shocking number to me is Tulane's home record in AAC games, which s 6-39. They've averaged basically one conference win a year at home. How much do you plan on turning that around?
"When you first said that stat, the first thing that came to my mind was the second home conference win we have this year, I'm going to celebrate and ask for a raise. Like I told the players, those are bad. I'm glad I wasn't coaching. That's all I can think because that's not going to be us, if I've got to put a uniform on and play. We're not going to allow that to happen. And these kids want to win. It's not through the lack of talent. At first I thought maybe these kids are so bad, but it's not a lack of talent. What's happened is they keep hearing these type of things, they keep hearing these numbers and all of a sudden it just grows. You know how many games I watched of Tulane playing down 4 and playing well and the next thing you know it's 20. I've watched eight games in the last seven days--4-point game, down 20 and what happens? As soon as something bad happens, they (fell apart). That's what's happening in this program. It's one of the reasons why I couldn't keep anyone on the previous staff. Everything had to be different. It's why I joked about changing the seats (where Tulane sits) and we have been.
"I have to change the whole vibe of what's happened so we don't have to worry about those things. There are going to be bad things that happen, and how we react to it is going to be the key, and that's why I want half my roster new, so the new guys can go back and say we'll just keep playing. This summer I'm going to put them in situations that are going to be bad, that they've got to react. I want to put them in bad basketball situations. Hey, we're supposed to get up at 9 and we'll get them up at 5:30. Just that quick change and we have to be able to perform at 5:30. We'll be doing a lot of those things this summer because it's just the mentality. We have to erase some of that, especially the guys that have been here more than two years, but there aren't many of them, and that's why flipping the roster as quickly as we can is important."
How many more openings do you have for players this year?
"It's a very flexible number (laughing). That number changes every day. Even today I got four calls from guys from Power 5 schools who want to transfer. It's unbelievable the number of kids that want to come here, so getting players is not (hard). Sometimes I'm hoping a guy walks in here and says, 'Coach, this is just going to be too much for me." I expect I will know my complete roster (in a week). That's my goal, and I'm pretty sure we'll get to that."
You mentioned in your press conference that this team needs to learn how to win. Is that going to influence your non-conference scheduling philosophy for your first year?
"Yes, scheduling is going to be a big part of that. Our league is tough. We have scheduling requirements from the American (to make sure teams don't load up on RPI-killing bottom feeders), but I have to teach my guys to win. Once I get my guys here, I'll play anybody, anywhere, any time, outside on a park, LSU, you want to play, let's go play. If LSU wanted to play tomorrow, I'll play tomorrow. Put this in. I want to play LSU. I want to play them anywhere. If they call right now, I will get out of a game and I will play LSU any time, anywhere. That's what I want. My goal is I want to be the best team in the state of Louisiana, and to be the best, you've got to go play the best, so that's one game I will never run away from. As long as it's fair. We are nobody's stepchild. If you play us at home, we'll play at your place."
Any plays for playing UNO?
"No because one of the things I'm trying to do is I want the best. UNO has done a great job and we'll play them, but my sights are I want LSU because of what they can do for recruiting in the state. I want to be the best team in Louisiana. We're not there yet, but while I'm here, that's a goal of mine. We want to be the best team in the state and I want to go to the NCAA tournament. Those guys my staff knows every day. That's no disrespect to the other schools in this state. They are doing a tremendous job, but the best is LSU, and that's who I'm going to get. I went to a Catholic school in the fifth grade. My mom took me out of public school and put me in a private school, and I'll never forget that. I felt like the very first day I had to go fight my way. I wanted to get the biggest bully and I said I'm going to fight the biggest bully. Then I don't have to worry about the rest of the guys. You beat up the bully, you beat up everybody else, so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to find the bully, and if I beat the bully, then all the rest of them will fall in line. So please let them know that. I've got great respect for LSU, great respect for their program, but man, I'll play that game tomorrow with the team I've got right now. I'll play that game with last year's team if you let me play them. That's what I would like to have."
Tulane beat LSU in a preseason scrimmage on Halloween two years ago.
"Don't let me do that. Oh, there will be signs all over the city and I'll have billboards."
You are the first coach Tulane has hired in ages who has a proven track record of winning in college. How much will that help you?
"That's the thing. It's one thing that's funny. I'm not doing anything different than what we've done before. This job fits right up the alley of an urban institution in Indianapolis, an urban institution in Atlanta. You see these books I have here. Every job that I've had, I've written down the first 100 days what I've done. This is my New Orleans book. I'm doing the same thing. I've never been to a school as a head coach that has this type of foundation. I just haven't."
What got you into coaching in the first place?
"When I played in 1986, Ron Harper and I went to high school and college and we were good friends. Ron had gotten drafted (by the Cleveland Cavaliers) and we were getting ready to play in the NCAA tournament. My coach asked me I wanted to play overseas, and at that time overseas wasn't a big deal. He said what I think you should do is coach, and I'd never thought about it. He said you can be a G.A. for us next year. That conversation made me think I'm going to do this. Instead of playing overseas, and I had a job at Proctor & Gamble right in Cincinnati I could have worked at, but I decided to do that (be a G.A.) and it was the best decision of my life. I was a G.A. one year and became an assistant at Wisconsin-Milwaukee and it just kind of took off. I haven't worked a day in my life since then. It's been fun.
"I can't stop smiling at this job. It's been under-appreciated, but all those things are what happened in my life. No one expects us to win here. We're ready. I love it. The underdog role, I'm eating this up. We had our conference meetings yesterday in the American, and I'm looking around and see Kelvin Sampson and I see Penny (Hardaway) and I see all these guys and I'm listening to them, and all I'm thinking is I can't wait. I wanted the season to start right then, man. I'm just listening to all the guys sitting there and just looking at them. It's funny. I told my wife, I'm just moving into a house this weekend, and I want to put the head coaches' pictures in my bedroom so I wake up every morning and see those guys because I know that's what we've got to be. So I was excited. Everybody thought I was crazy at the meeting yesterday. They were saying why is this guy so happy? This is the perfect timing."
"When you first said that stat, the first thing that came to my mind was the second home conference win we have this year, I'm going to celebrate and ask for a raise. Like I told the players, those are bad. I'm glad I wasn't coaching. That's all I can think because that's not going to be us, if I've got to put a uniform on and play. We're not going to allow that to happen. And these kids want to win. It's not through the lack of talent. At first I thought maybe these kids are so bad, but it's not a lack of talent. What's happened is they keep hearing these type of things, they keep hearing these numbers and all of a sudden it just grows. You know how many games I watched of Tulane playing down 4 and playing well and the next thing you know it's 20. I've watched eight games in the last seven days--4-point game, down 20 and what happens? As soon as something bad happens, they (fell apart). That's what's happening in this program. It's one of the reasons why I couldn't keep anyone on the previous staff. Everything had to be different. It's why I joked about changing the seats (where Tulane sits) and we have been.
"I have to change the whole vibe of what's happened so we don't have to worry about those things. There are going to be bad things that happen, and how we react to it is going to be the key, and that's why I want half my roster new, so the new guys can go back and say we'll just keep playing. This summer I'm going to put them in situations that are going to be bad, that they've got to react. I want to put them in bad basketball situations. Hey, we're supposed to get up at 9 and we'll get them up at 5:30. Just that quick change and we have to be able to perform at 5:30. We'll be doing a lot of those things this summer because it's just the mentality. We have to erase some of that, especially the guys that have been here more than two years, but there aren't many of them, and that's why flipping the roster as quickly as we can is important."
How many more openings do you have for players this year?
"It's a very flexible number (laughing). That number changes every day. Even today I got four calls from guys from Power 5 schools who want to transfer. It's unbelievable the number of kids that want to come here, so getting players is not (hard). Sometimes I'm hoping a guy walks in here and says, 'Coach, this is just going to be too much for me." I expect I will know my complete roster (in a week). That's my goal, and I'm pretty sure we'll get to that."
You mentioned in your press conference that this team needs to learn how to win. Is that going to influence your non-conference scheduling philosophy for your first year?
"Yes, scheduling is going to be a big part of that. Our league is tough. We have scheduling requirements from the American (to make sure teams don't load up on RPI-killing bottom feeders), but I have to teach my guys to win. Once I get my guys here, I'll play anybody, anywhere, any time, outside on a park, LSU, you want to play, let's go play. If LSU wanted to play tomorrow, I'll play tomorrow. Put this in. I want to play LSU. I want to play them anywhere. If they call right now, I will get out of a game and I will play LSU any time, anywhere. That's what I want. My goal is I want to be the best team in the state of Louisiana, and to be the best, you've got to go play the best, so that's one game I will never run away from. As long as it's fair. We are nobody's stepchild. If you play us at home, we'll play at your place."
Any plays for playing UNO?
"No because one of the things I'm trying to do is I want the best. UNO has done a great job and we'll play them, but my sights are I want LSU because of what they can do for recruiting in the state. I want to be the best team in Louisiana. We're not there yet, but while I'm here, that's a goal of mine. We want to be the best team in the state and I want to go to the NCAA tournament. Those guys my staff knows every day. That's no disrespect to the other schools in this state. They are doing a tremendous job, but the best is LSU, and that's who I'm going to get. I went to a Catholic school in the fifth grade. My mom took me out of public school and put me in a private school, and I'll never forget that. I felt like the very first day I had to go fight my way. I wanted to get the biggest bully and I said I'm going to fight the biggest bully. Then I don't have to worry about the rest of the guys. You beat up the bully, you beat up everybody else, so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to find the bully, and if I beat the bully, then all the rest of them will fall in line. So please let them know that. I've got great respect for LSU, great respect for their program, but man, I'll play that game tomorrow with the team I've got right now. I'll play that game with last year's team if you let me play them. That's what I would like to have."
Tulane beat LSU in a preseason scrimmage on Halloween two years ago.
"Don't let me do that. Oh, there will be signs all over the city and I'll have billboards."
You are the first coach Tulane has hired in ages who has a proven track record of winning in college. How much will that help you?
"That's the thing. It's one thing that's funny. I'm not doing anything different than what we've done before. This job fits right up the alley of an urban institution in Indianapolis, an urban institution in Atlanta. You see these books I have here. Every job that I've had, I've written down the first 100 days what I've done. This is my New Orleans book. I'm doing the same thing. I've never been to a school as a head coach that has this type of foundation. I just haven't."
What got you into coaching in the first place?
"When I played in 1986, Ron Harper and I went to high school and college and we were good friends. Ron had gotten drafted (by the Cleveland Cavaliers) and we were getting ready to play in the NCAA tournament. My coach asked me I wanted to play overseas, and at that time overseas wasn't a big deal. He said what I think you should do is coach, and I'd never thought about it. He said you can be a G.A. for us next year. That conversation made me think I'm going to do this. Instead of playing overseas, and I had a job at Proctor & Gamble right in Cincinnati I could have worked at, but I decided to do that (be a G.A.) and it was the best decision of my life. I was a G.A. one year and became an assistant at Wisconsin-Milwaukee and it just kind of took off. I haven't worked a day in my life since then. It's been fun.
"I can't stop smiling at this job. It's been under-appreciated, but all those things are what happened in my life. No one expects us to win here. We're ready. I love it. The underdog role, I'm eating this up. We had our conference meetings yesterday in the American, and I'm looking around and see Kelvin Sampson and I see Penny (Hardaway) and I see all these guys and I'm listening to them, and all I'm thinking is I can't wait. I wanted the season to start right then, man. I'm just listening to all the guys sitting there and just looking at them. It's funny. I told my wife, I'm just moving into a house this weekend, and I want to put the head coaches' pictures in my bedroom so I wake up every morning and see those guys because I know that's what we've got to be. So I was excited. Everybody thought I was crazy at the meeting yesterday. They were saying why is this guy so happy? This is the perfect timing."
