Jim O’Brien Quotes – Ohio State Buckeyes
10/14/1998 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
October 14, 1998
On The Jerome Schottenstein Center- “Certainly the new facility is going to go a long way toward our long term future.”
On the Addition of “Scoonie”- “This is something that has been talked about a lot the past several months. Anybody that would have an opportunity to have a player like “Scoonie” eligible to play would have to be very happy. Obviously I know him better than most, I think he’ll be a pleasant surprise for all people interested in following our program. He is a welcomed addition in a lot a ways both on and off the court.”
Will Scoonie’s Role Change- “He may look to score a little bit more, but he is not a kid always looking for his own points. If anything we may look for him to score a little more, but just him playing his game and the things he brings to us is going to be fine we don’t have to ask him to do whole lot more than he is capable of.”
Scoonie the Captain- “The fact that Scoonie was named a captain speaks volumes for the type of person he is. It didn’t take long from when he got here for him to establish himself as one of our team leaders, even during practice when he wasn’t playing. I think more than anything he earned the respect of all the other players on the team, he certainly had the respect of all the coaches. I think he will get the respect >from all the fans. But he had to earn the respect from the players because this was their team and he was an outsider, but it didn’t take very long to have those guys realize that they had somebody that they would really enjoy calling their teammate.”
On the Upcoming Season- “If we can win more games than we lose I will be a happy man. We have five consecutive losing seasons, I think realistically before you start talking about post season play and NCAA Tournaments you have to establish that fact that you need to win more than you lose. It has been a while since we’ve done that, we have a team right now that, with the exception of Scoonie, we don’t have another guy who has been on a winning college basketball team. I think we have to learn how to win some basketball games, there is a lot that goes into it, so I think we have to be cautious about the goals we set for ourselves.”
Off Season Conditioning- “I think it will be obvious that when you see some of our guys that we have gotten a lot stronger, most of our guys have been very, very religious in their approach to getting stronger. I think Sean Shepperd has done a great job in overseeing the whole program. Unquestionably we will be a much stronger team over last year.”
On the Schedule- “When we first put our schedule together we were locked into a certain number of games. We knew we had to play at Vanderbilt, we knew we had to play at Miami of Florida, so your talking about SEC and Big East. We knew we had to play at Toledo, which I think is going to be a very hard game for us. We knew we were going to Puerto Rico and the field there is not easy, we have to play UAB, Conference USA, they are a top 25 team in the nation.
“So we had to get some games that we though would give us a good opportunity to win. In some circles people think our home schedule is less than attractive, but in reality that is what we needed to do for our team right now. Are we interested in upgrading in the future? Yes, but you can also commit scheduling suicide, and we needed to know that we had a chance.
“By no stretch of the imagination are any of those games (gimmes). I think our schedule is very challenging for us right now and I’m hoping that we can get through it, especially those early games. There are a lot of games early in November, it just kind of how this thing fell. We couldn’t do a whole lot during that one stretch because of our trip to Puerto Rico, that virtually killed everything from Dec. 17th through the almost the new year. Knowing that we have to combine that trip to Florida, there was nothing we could do around that time plus you factor in exams, you don’t have as many open dates. So we just have to get them where we get them and I think it’s going to be a very difficult stretch with way to many games early in the season.”
On the Captains- “(Jason Singleton, Scoonie Penn, Neshaun Coleman) They were selected by our staff. I think that they were choices that are very well deserved; Neshaun was a captain last year, Jason is our only other senior, he has been a real solid kid on our team and he deserved an opportunity to be captain, and clearly as I said earlier Scoonie has established himself as one of our team leaders and he deserved an opportunity. “
On the Freshman- “We are disappointed that Doylan Robinson is ineligible, but hopefully they can all come in and contribute right away. Brian Brown and Slobodan “Boban” Savovich will give us much needed depth in the backcourt, something we didn’t have last year. I think George Reese is going to be a pleasant surprise for a lot of people he is really going to challenge for a lot of minutes up front at the forward position. Will Dudley is a guy with the potential but may not be as ready and with him it is just going to a matter of strength, his future is going to be very bright. We are happy will all four of those guys and very excited about the future. “
On Michael Redd- “More than anything we don’t have to protect Michael as much. By playing so much zone, worrying about fouls and worrying about fatigue last year we needed to have him as much as possible, as close to 40 minutes as possible. We are going to be putting a lot more demands on Michael with regards to other aspects of the game. I think he has a chance to become a much more well rounded player. he is not going to have to shoot nearly as much, I don’t think he’ll take as many shots, hopefully he is not going to score as much this season as he did last year, we have a lot more fire power this season. He will become a much better basketball player, I think by scoring fewer points.”
