Here is my interview with Tulane basketball coach Ron Hunter, whose 13-player scholarship roster has only two guys who played a second for the Wave last year. Anyone who thought he would tone down his optimism as he settled into the job was very mistaken.
You went through all the offseason workouts with the team. What were your thoughts when they were done?
“It’s funny because I took 10 days off to kind of reflect and I told the story to my athletic director (Troy Dannen) the other day. My wife asked me the other day do I feel I made the right decision. It’s weird because she’s never asked me that on any job before, and so quickly I said yes because I really believe the way we were able to flip this roster has been nothing short of a miracle. And not only to flip it but not even lose one APR point. Tell me any place in the country that can bring nine new players in and not lose one APR point. So it just all worked together. It’s almost like this is the ultimate job for me. I have been trained for this position, what we did at IUPUI or Georgia State, and we’ve applied all that, too.
“I have really enjoyed these guys. If you thought I was excited for the press conference. Just to show you, we had 10 days off and I told my wife, listen, we didn’t have a vacation (after last season) because we went from the NCAA tournament here, and by the fifth day she said you’ve got to go back because I was so excited I couldn’t stop thinking about what we’re doing and that. I love this team, absolutely love this team. I still don’t even know how we did this. I don’t. Looking at some of the guys we have and the talent we’ve got, I’m really excited about it.”
I was just told a story about your meeting with a booster club, and you asked somebody when was the last time they’d been to a Tulane basketball game. They said they went to maybe two last year, and you responded by telling them to come to the opener against Southeastern Louisiana and you’d pay them $500 if they didn’t have a good time.
“Yeah, I’m dead serious. If he will come to a game and come to my office the next day and say he didn’t enjoy that game, I will give him $500. I was dead serious about that.”
And then another guy said he had not been to a Tulane basketball game since 1973, and you told him you would buy him dinner if he came to a game.
“I couldn’t even remember if I had been born then. You know, it’s fun. I have really enjoyed the city. I’ve been around speaking to different people and the biggest surprise is there are people in this town who really want Tulane basketball to take off. It’s been enjoyable, but more importantly we’ve got to win. When I talked (boldly) at my (opening) press conference, I believed it, but you don’t know what you’re getting into. Knowing what I know now, I’m going to probably be even a little bit more boisterous because I really like this team. I love this team.”
You have 14 scholarship players listed on the roster. Which guy won’t be there since 13 is the max?
“That’s going to be Bul (Ajang). His knees are just, he had surgery, and he can’t get it done. We’ll get a D.Q. by the NCAA. He’s on scholarship (with an injury hardship) and what he’s going to be is a coach. He’s going to stay on scholarship and be my personal assistant coach. I just don’t think you should run kids off because of an illness or something like that. He’s going to be with us until he graduates here and if he wants to stay with us after he graduates.”
Is Ibrahim Ali, the transfer from Arkansas, going to be eligible this year?
“He and Teshaun (Hightower, a Georgia transfer), we filed waivers for them. We’re waiting for the waivers. I’m hoping to here something any minute now. We finally got everything all cleared and we worked with the previous schools and so we’ll wait and see. I’m crossing my fingers. If both of those kids are playing for us, then my excitement continues to go up.”
With Ajang not playing, you have only two guys who played a second for this team last year in Kevin Zhang and Buay Koka.
“And that’s nothing discouraging about the previous team or the previous staff, but they went through a tough time, and one of the things the night after the press conference, the only thing I was concerned with is when things go bad, will those kids go back into that failure again. Well, I don’t have any of those kids anymore. I don’t have anyone on staff who did that. People talk to me about the things at Tulane, but I don’t know about it. My staff doesn’t know about it, and now the players don’t know about it. So for us this is just if you look at the success these players have had in their career, a lot of these kids just know about winning.
“Nic (Thomas, a transfer from Norfolk State) was talking about he was disappointed they won a championship (MEAC regular season) but they didn’t get to the NCAA tournament (when they lost in the MEAC tourney). But they won a championship. The same thing with K.J. (Lawson) at Kansas. These guys have won. Christion (Thompson) was at Rhode Island, and they went to the NCAA tournament his freshman year. So these guys know what it takes, and that’s what I really love. That’s the things we talked about. As a group, we will be disappointed if we don’t go to the NCAA tournament. My staff, we’ve been the last three of four years. What are we doing in March if we’re not in the tournament?
“We had a meeting yesterday and the associate AD Rob (Bernardi) was shocked we had the meeting. I brought him and talked about, hey, on championship Sunday, we’re playing in the (AAC) championship game, how are we going to get back? He’s like we never had that conversation. I’ll have to get back to you. But you have to prepare that way. We spent the entire day yesterday talking about selection Sunday and we’ll be in the championship game that’s played at 2 o’clock, where are they going to watch the (selection show) an how are the kids going to get back to New Orleans so we can make sure we can start preparing. I talked to the players about that. That’s our preparation, and so that’s not going to change. That’s what I love about these new guys. It wasn’t like, coach, what are you talking about? They all said, yeah, what are we doing coach, how is this going to work for us? So I’ve got to change the mentality in here (the athletic department) a little bit because it’s just never happened before.”
The non-conference schedule came out recently, and it’s pretty light. You had said right off the bat your guys needed to learn how to win.
“Learn how to win. That’s the key—learn how to win. It’s weird because I’ve never had a schedule where it was kind of part of what they put together in the past and then what we wanted to get done. Right now what we have to learn is not so much these guys have to learn how to win, they’ve got to learn how to win together. I’ve got a lot of winners here, but they’ve never played together and I’ve never coached them, so that’s what we have to be able to do. I wanted to play more home games if we could. Right now one of the things that we do, sometimes a guy will cut and he should have stayed there. I tease our guys because they really hadn’t seen me coach yet. I’ll say, K.J., I’m not the guy at Kansas. I don’t sit down with a pretty tie. I’m not going to do that. I coach a little differently, so they’ve got to get a feel for that a little. You’ve seen me more than probably what they have, and so just those type of things. Shootarounds, normal kind of things, those are the kind of things we have to catch up with, but the playing and all that and I put the system in and the kids understand the system, that’s the part I was really happy with when I went home, that everyone in my program understands the system now.”
With all the NCAA allows you to work on in the offseason now, how much harder would it have been to come in 10 years ago and have them this comfortable before the start of preseason practice?
“I couldn’t have done it. When I took over at Georgia State we didn’t have the summer (practices), so we had to start Oct. 15, so we got off to a slow start. The rules now really help you, and not only those rules but the recruiting rules. Grad transfers you didn’t have back then. Having transfers eligible you didn’t have. The transfer portal. As much as I complained about the transfer portal, I think it’s a wonderful thing now. The portal saved us, it really did. Without those things, you just can’t flip a roster. You can’t do it. I feel like a general manager. I talked to (Pelicans G.M. David) Griffin yesterday and I said, man, I’m just like you. I used my transfer portal. We just have to make a few deals here. I teased him. He said are you done and I said, no, I’m going to make one more deal. He said what do you mean, so I said I’ll give you that walk-on for Zion (Williamson). He’s got three years left. He didn’t take it.”
Does Lawson have two years of eligibility left?
“He could, but he’s a one and done. He’s trying to be a pro. He came here to do that, and I’m OK with that. Now if he was to come back, we’ll take him. But we have an understanding. He just got married this summer and it’s time. He needs this great year, and I told him I was OK with that when we recruited him. But if he wants to come back, he has that option.”
You went through all the offseason workouts with the team. What were your thoughts when they were done?
“It’s funny because I took 10 days off to kind of reflect and I told the story to my athletic director (Troy Dannen) the other day. My wife asked me the other day do I feel I made the right decision. It’s weird because she’s never asked me that on any job before, and so quickly I said yes because I really believe the way we were able to flip this roster has been nothing short of a miracle. And not only to flip it but not even lose one APR point. Tell me any place in the country that can bring nine new players in and not lose one APR point. So it just all worked together. It’s almost like this is the ultimate job for me. I have been trained for this position, what we did at IUPUI or Georgia State, and we’ve applied all that, too.
“I have really enjoyed these guys. If you thought I was excited for the press conference. Just to show you, we had 10 days off and I told my wife, listen, we didn’t have a vacation (after last season) because we went from the NCAA tournament here, and by the fifth day she said you’ve got to go back because I was so excited I couldn’t stop thinking about what we’re doing and that. I love this team, absolutely love this team. I still don’t even know how we did this. I don’t. Looking at some of the guys we have and the talent we’ve got, I’m really excited about it.”
I was just told a story about your meeting with a booster club, and you asked somebody when was the last time they’d been to a Tulane basketball game. They said they went to maybe two last year, and you responded by telling them to come to the opener against Southeastern Louisiana and you’d pay them $500 if they didn’t have a good time.
“Yeah, I’m dead serious. If he will come to a game and come to my office the next day and say he didn’t enjoy that game, I will give him $500. I was dead serious about that.”
And then another guy said he had not been to a Tulane basketball game since 1973, and you told him you would buy him dinner if he came to a game.
“I couldn’t even remember if I had been born then. You know, it’s fun. I have really enjoyed the city. I’ve been around speaking to different people and the biggest surprise is there are people in this town who really want Tulane basketball to take off. It’s been enjoyable, but more importantly we’ve got to win. When I talked (boldly) at my (opening) press conference, I believed it, but you don’t know what you’re getting into. Knowing what I know now, I’m going to probably be even a little bit more boisterous because I really like this team. I love this team.”
You have 14 scholarship players listed on the roster. Which guy won’t be there since 13 is the max?
“That’s going to be Bul (Ajang). His knees are just, he had surgery, and he can’t get it done. We’ll get a D.Q. by the NCAA. He’s on scholarship (with an injury hardship) and what he’s going to be is a coach. He’s going to stay on scholarship and be my personal assistant coach. I just don’t think you should run kids off because of an illness or something like that. He’s going to be with us until he graduates here and if he wants to stay with us after he graduates.”
Is Ibrahim Ali, the transfer from Arkansas, going to be eligible this year?
“He and Teshaun (Hightower, a Georgia transfer), we filed waivers for them. We’re waiting for the waivers. I’m hoping to here something any minute now. We finally got everything all cleared and we worked with the previous schools and so we’ll wait and see. I’m crossing my fingers. If both of those kids are playing for us, then my excitement continues to go up.”
With Ajang not playing, you have only two guys who played a second for this team last year in Kevin Zhang and Buay Koka.
“And that’s nothing discouraging about the previous team or the previous staff, but they went through a tough time, and one of the things the night after the press conference, the only thing I was concerned with is when things go bad, will those kids go back into that failure again. Well, I don’t have any of those kids anymore. I don’t have anyone on staff who did that. People talk to me about the things at Tulane, but I don’t know about it. My staff doesn’t know about it, and now the players don’t know about it. So for us this is just if you look at the success these players have had in their career, a lot of these kids just know about winning.
“Nic (Thomas, a transfer from Norfolk State) was talking about he was disappointed they won a championship (MEAC regular season) but they didn’t get to the NCAA tournament (when they lost in the MEAC tourney). But they won a championship. The same thing with K.J. (Lawson) at Kansas. These guys have won. Christion (Thompson) was at Rhode Island, and they went to the NCAA tournament his freshman year. So these guys know what it takes, and that’s what I really love. That’s the things we talked about. As a group, we will be disappointed if we don’t go to the NCAA tournament. My staff, we’ve been the last three of four years. What are we doing in March if we’re not in the tournament?
“We had a meeting yesterday and the associate AD Rob (Bernardi) was shocked we had the meeting. I brought him and talked about, hey, on championship Sunday, we’re playing in the (AAC) championship game, how are we going to get back? He’s like we never had that conversation. I’ll have to get back to you. But you have to prepare that way. We spent the entire day yesterday talking about selection Sunday and we’ll be in the championship game that’s played at 2 o’clock, where are they going to watch the (selection show) an how are the kids going to get back to New Orleans so we can make sure we can start preparing. I talked to the players about that. That’s our preparation, and so that’s not going to change. That’s what I love about these new guys. It wasn’t like, coach, what are you talking about? They all said, yeah, what are we doing coach, how is this going to work for us? So I’ve got to change the mentality in here (the athletic department) a little bit because it’s just never happened before.”
The non-conference schedule came out recently, and it’s pretty light. You had said right off the bat your guys needed to learn how to win.
“Learn how to win. That’s the key—learn how to win. It’s weird because I’ve never had a schedule where it was kind of part of what they put together in the past and then what we wanted to get done. Right now what we have to learn is not so much these guys have to learn how to win, they’ve got to learn how to win together. I’ve got a lot of winners here, but they’ve never played together and I’ve never coached them, so that’s what we have to be able to do. I wanted to play more home games if we could. Right now one of the things that we do, sometimes a guy will cut and he should have stayed there. I tease our guys because they really hadn’t seen me coach yet. I’ll say, K.J., I’m not the guy at Kansas. I don’t sit down with a pretty tie. I’m not going to do that. I coach a little differently, so they’ve got to get a feel for that a little. You’ve seen me more than probably what they have, and so just those type of things. Shootarounds, normal kind of things, those are the kind of things we have to catch up with, but the playing and all that and I put the system in and the kids understand the system, that’s the part I was really happy with when I went home, that everyone in my program understands the system now.”
With all the NCAA allows you to work on in the offseason now, how much harder would it have been to come in 10 years ago and have them this comfortable before the start of preseason practice?
“I couldn’t have done it. When I took over at Georgia State we didn’t have the summer (practices), so we had to start Oct. 15, so we got off to a slow start. The rules now really help you, and not only those rules but the recruiting rules. Grad transfers you didn’t have back then. Having transfers eligible you didn’t have. The transfer portal. As much as I complained about the transfer portal, I think it’s a wonderful thing now. The portal saved us, it really did. Without those things, you just can’t flip a roster. You can’t do it. I feel like a general manager. I talked to (Pelicans G.M. David) Griffin yesterday and I said, man, I’m just like you. I used my transfer portal. We just have to make a few deals here. I teased him. He said are you done and I said, no, I’m going to make one more deal. He said what do you mean, so I said I’ll give you that walk-on for Zion (Williamson). He’s got three years left. He didn’t take it.”
Does Lawson have two years of eligibility left?
“He could, but he’s a one and done. He’s trying to be a pro. He came here to do that, and I’m OK with that. Now if he was to come back, we’ll take him. But we have an understanding. He just got married this summer and it’s time. He needs this great year, and I told him I was OK with that when we recruited him. But if he wants to come back, he has that option.”