Southern Illinoise University Athletics
MVC Basketball summer update
06/28/2016 | 12:57:00 | Men's Basketball
Q: Where do you stand with your non-conference schedule?
Coach Hinson: I learned a long time ago, I think Dana Altman had it down to a science when he was in the league, if you can hold on from August until even September, you can get a great game out of it. We are holding one game right now, to of all things, play a game on the road. We're going to hold it and if we don't get what we like, we'll play one less game. We've already got 30 games schedule with our non-conference done with only one game left. If we don't find what we think is conducive for our program or our league, then we will just elect not to play the game.Â
Q: Have you ever had a time where it didn't pay off?
Coach Hinson: You can play chicken a little bit easier this go around. When I first got in the Valley, you couldn't play chicken because all your MTE events were either two games or three games. Now you can play a four-game MTE and it gives you an opportunity now to do that. You can play chicken all you want. The greatest story of all-time is Mark Turgeon at Wichita State — they held out and Syracuse bought Wichtia State, they paid for their charter, Mark and them went up there and won in the Dome. I'd like for Tinkerbell to come down here and spread a little of that magic dust on us, but as of right now we're one game shy and we're not ready to release our non-conference schedule. We have an agreement with a couple of schools that we won't release it until they release it.
Q: How much pressure does it put on Sean O'Brien and the other bigs with Bola Olaniyan gone?
Coach Hinson: I don't think it puts any pressure on these guys at all. These guys, so far,  have had great summer workouts. Shoot, I'm fired up about those guys. They're committed to the program, they're committed to being here every day. They're committed to getting better. Sean O'Brien's leadership has been unbelievable this summer. I know everybody's undefeated and everybody's excited in summertime, I've really been impressed with Sean. Thik Bol is going to be like any other junior college player, he's going to have a transitional period, there's going to be times when he's going to struggle. He's done two things that we've not had a presence of — he can block shots and he can dunk anything around the basket. He gives us a really good different look. Let's not forget about Austin Weiher, let's not forget about Rudy Stradnieks, we feel very comfortable with our basketball team.Â
Q: Where do you feel Sean Lloyd's biggest improvement has been.
Coach Hinson: I think his biggest improvement has been the healing of his foot because he's been out since February. This young man is the type of player who can get downhill, can attack the basket and can finish. His biggest challenge is stamina and obviously skill development. He's got the natural ability, much like Thik. No one's going to go out and teach Thik how to block shots. Nobody can teach Sean Lloyd how to go downhill. He just does it naturally. His skill level has to improve dramatically, but I like what I've seen so far.
Q: Have you gotten any report on how Rudy's doing over in Latvia?
Coach Hinson: The only report we're concerned with right now is he's got an on-line class. Coaches have talked to him through Facebook and I think Skype. They're up in the mountains training and he's getting better. I've always been impressed with everything I've seen that they've worked on with basketball. He just needs to make sure he takes care of his academics.
Q: I know Anthony Beane has been the guy for you for the last few years, who do you see stepping up and giving you that perimeter scoring?
Coach Hinson: I think it has to be done by committee. I like our committee. I think Michael Rodriguez right now, in fact our whole team, we work out early in the morning, and our first morning workout wasn't great, it took us a while to adjust, it took us a while to adjust to summer mode. Since then, every workout we've had, it's been like we've been running out of a Pentecostal tent with our hands up in the air. With Michael and Armon Fletcher, and Tyler Smithpeters, and Leo Vincent, those guys can really play well on the perimeter, and that doesn't scratch the surface of what Sean O'Brien can do, and Austin can shoot the ball. I think we'll shoot the ball better from the perimeter than we have. We may not be able to beat people off the dribble like Anthony could, because he was so good in 1-on-1 situations, but I do think our percentage will go up on the offensive end.
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Q: Do coaches now feel the season ends and they have to re-recruit guys on the team and have to be vigilant throughout the summer because of transfers?
Coach Hinson: Yeah, it's really changed. I'm reading about the kid at Nebraska, who was at Kansas. So he's the leading scorer and he takes the most shots on the team and plays a lot of minutes, and he starts, and he's still transferring? I don't get it. We had our little kids camp last week and I talk to all of the parents. I got up and told the parents that kids are not different these days. The kids are still the same. The kids want to be loved, they want to be discipline, they want to be taught the game. The thing that's changed are parents. They've changed dramatically. Whether they're out of whack or whatever. A lot of times they end up ruining young men and women's career, or opportunities to get better, based on personal expectations. I think it's epidemic proportions. Jeff Goodman said we're at the 650 mark with transfers. Last year, we really got hit hard. We had five. We were fortunate this year with just one. You just got to get through it. I agree with the term re-recruiting. I'm a little disappointed, not speaking mainly from experience, but mainly when a kid has a little bit of adversity, he doesn't want to fight through it and everybody starts chirping in his ear that they're doing you wrong, this and that, and if you go here or there. It's a problem with our society right now. We don't want to handle adversity, we want to take the easy way out, the road less traveled. What we should do is get off a little bit and figure out, we're becoming a helicopter-parent society. That's driving me nuts.
Q: When did that start to change?
Coach Hinson: I think this all started gradually with social media. I think it started happening with social media, everything was instant gratification, emphasis was put on celebratory instead of failure. I tell our players every day when they come into the gym I hope you make some mistakes today, because if you don't, you're not going to learn, you're not going to get better. I think we have to change our perspective, but I don't see it happening any time soon. The NCAA can help us, but they don't want another lawsuit.
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