 Kevin, coming off of yesterday, just how was today's practice and how good was it just to kind of get another day with the group? It was great to get another day with the group, get them up and down a little bit, kind of go over the different things that we went over yesterday, put in a couple wrinkles and just go out there and play for one another. So it was really good to get back in here and have some sweat equity with the guys. They learning me, they learning, I'm learning them, especially in this new role. So we just going to go out there and do it together and I thought it was a good day today. How did everyone come out of the break and was everyone able to be full participants? Yes, everybody was able to be full participants throughout the practice, so that's a good thing. They enjoyed, they break hopefully to get away and enjoy family and friends and get back to the main thing, the main thing. And it's the business of basketball and how we do on the basketball court and how we do off the basketball court. Taking care of ourselves, recovery, all that stuff goes into the bigger picture of things and that's how you become a professional, that's how you have a professional career, taking care of your business on and then taking care of your business of course on the court too. Of some of those wrinkles, where might we see this team look a little bit, once you get your vision in place, a little bit different than what we saw under JV? Offense, bigger change, defense is the bigger change? We got a couple things in defense that we're changing on our pick and rolls and a couple of things on the offensive, things that we're doing to add a little bit more spacing. But the biggest thing is playing for each other and making the right plays, not being selfish, getting the ball to the guys that they need. We need to get the ball to in the right spots where they can be very successful but playing the right way and we need to do that more consistently. So that's not a scheme change or anything. That's just playing better basketball, doing simple better and I like to use that term. You do simple better and we got to continue to do that. How does the relationship with the guys change moving over, as you said, 18 inches on the bench yesterday? It don't change. Of course my voice is prominent a little bit more. But at the end of the day I have some great relationships with these guys and I don't want that to change because I'm a head coach now. I want those to even get deeper where we can have vulnerable conversations. I can get them to know them a little bit better. That's my goal is to build on these relationships. My plate is a little bit fuller where I have to do a little bit more things but I have to be intentional and very deliberate at my time building relationships with these guys and not get caught up in all the everyday things and people tugging at me but that's the most important thing is building relationships. So I got to make sure I check myself each and every day about that and spending time with the guys on and off the basketball court because I played this game for 13 years and I know basketball is one thing but you got life too. And I want to make sure they know I'm there for them on both ends of the spectrum. When you talk about being unselfish obviously this team very unselfish from Ben's on the court without Ben the ball isn't finding as many guys. How do you kind of change that or marry that I guess to make sure that unselfishness carries over when you have a player who's very unselfish but when he's off the court that tends to be a little bit difficult with this offense. Yeah we got to keep standing on our standards. That's our standards is sharing the cake. Everybody got our piece of the cake and if you open you need to get the ball and that's my job as a coach as a manager of effort. My manager of effort and energy and my manager being a manager of playing the right way. If it's a violation and that type of violation and you playing selfish basketball I have to make sure they accountable. And then our team their teammates got to make sure they accountable. So that's the job of the coach that's the job of the coaching staff to make sure you know we're doing more possessions where we have a free flow plan unlock basketball then plan stuck basketball and we just locked. So I want to make sure it's unlocked basketball and plan with freedom moving the basketball and moving yourself and getting to the open spaces and that's playing with pace as well. But we have to do that for us to win. We don't have a bunch of guys that can go ice old basketball and win games. We got to do it together. We got to cut more. We got to pass more. We got to play off each other more and we got to make the right plays. And when you do things simple it usually work. You get too complicated. That's when it that's when it starts getting muddy a little bit when you're trying to do it on your own. We have to use all of our resources and all of our players all of their minds because all of all of us we got great basketball minds we got to use them together for this ship to roll in the right direction that we want to go into. It seems like fully healthy for the first time this season. Just is it going to be difficult for you to flush out a rotation given there's so many guys here that have been contributors you know with all the various injuries. Yeah. I don't like to use the word difficult. I like to use the word challenging because in challenge I feel like it's a championship opportunity. It's a championship opportunity. We want to be fully healthy. We want to have that if you say problem to have and that's my job to figure it out. That's our job and the whole organization to figure it out and we're going to play the guys that go out there and play winning basketball and play hard and play unselfishly and stands for our standards which is hunting. It's playing together. It's playing connected playing the right brand of basketball. So I look at that as a challenge and that's a championship opportunity in that and it's going to be changes but we have to learn how to sacrifice because that builds when it happens. If we sacrifice and builds winning habits and that goes into us all winning you know on the court and off the court what we're trying to do in life. Kevin you mentioned just about building the relationships with the players when it comes to just your coaching staff and that bond and that relationship that you guys have built in these last couple of months. How much are you leaning into the group that you have? Oh I'm leaning into them a lot. We got a bunch of smart guys and if you're in this business a lot is two type of coaches one that's a coach that's humbled and one is about to get humbled. It's a lot of ups and downs in this game so I've learned that. Been on the mountain tops and been fired so you know I understand that and I have to lean in those guys. They're a smart group. We got some smart great coaching staff that got some masterpieces inside so I lean on them a lot. You know on me we've been doing that the whole season and we're going to continue that but I think that's a great thing when you can lean on smart individuals to be talented and then empower them to be great. There's a story a couple days ago about the NBA head coaches that can still dunk a basketball you know Mathew Williams, Willie Green. Can we add you to the list? No you can't add me to the list. Yeah I used to throw the lives I throw it to AI when he was when he wanted to score so no I wasn't the big dunker guy but I'll get you a sis here and there. You mentioned yesterday just about the experience you've had from playing to coaching. Cam Thomas just talked about how he's looking forward to playing for you and even brought it back to the UConn days and the UConn teams and how he liked watching those games with those groups. How has your experience coaching wise especially in the college helped you in this NBA coaching world? It's chaotic. I think that's the biggest thing you know what's coming at you and you have to understand it's about being in the unknown and living in it and learning from it. Like I say it goes back to building relationships in college. You was able to build a relationship. Now you don't have the opportunity to build relationships a lot with the NIL but here you know back then you have to build a relationship over two years and then you finally get the guy so that was a beautiful thing building a relationship and seeing them having them as young men and then seeing them ten years later and they got families they got their husband now and just seeing how they matured over the years so that's always been good and you know this time is precious. You don't get time back and I just thank God for all the opportunities I've been through. UConn and the ups and downs with that I've always learned and I'm going to take those experiences from that as lessons and not losses and the wins I'm going to continue to praise them and have them be a part of my life that I can look back on and say I won a national championship so those are great experiences as well so I don't discount those because it's very hard to win in this league it's very hard to win in this league and then when you have success you've got to understand that success is not all about you so I've learned to handle that very very well. With Ben being back him and Nick were starting alongside one another in the last few games that he was in just what do you make of that pairing and is that a pairing that you envision playing significant minutes together moving forward? Yeah we just got to be healthy in playing those minutes I think those two guys are valuable parts to our team so hopefully we can have them healthy and hopefully they can continue to grow and play with one another and be successful out there as a basketball team but also on the defensive end I think they are incredible and we want him to continue to get back to that point where he's on the all defensive team. You talked about spacing some of your concentration on the offense is making sure the spacing is good with that particular tandem though Ben and Nick how much of a focus is spacing because neither of these guys are known particularly shooters? Yeah you're exactly right so you have to be able to space you have to be able to cut you have to play together and get out and rebound and get stopped so they can play with pace and play in a transition offense so all those things count but when it gets bogged down in a half course situation we haven't had that situation where one's up and one's down and how they play off of each other is crucial so that's why it's so good for practice time we don't have a lot of practice time but anytime we have a shooter around we're always going to be talking about that when they're with their individual coaches talking about how those two can play better together you talked about getting Ben back to where he was defensively as a player do you think that's better suited in the drop or is that better suited switching the way you guys have been switching? It goes, it varies I think Ben is a great on the ball defender and I think us ball pressure and more getting in gaps more and being assertive having him use his arms I call them eagle arms and Stills is a big part of our basketball team and we want to get better at that so I think his ball pressure picking the ball up, being in a frame which I call it will allow him to do a lot of things that he can get back to and we see the progress it's not like he's reinventing something we just want him to continue to get better each and every day and empty his tank like we want all our players to do