On Dez Wells gaining immediate eligibility:
“We are obviously thrilled for Dez. I am very proud of my administration. You choose jobs for a number of reasons – number one its Maryland basketball. [Director of athletics] Kevin Anderson and his staff were phenomenal through the whole process. [Senior associate athletics director for compliance] Dan Trump, [senior associate athletics director/SWA] Lori Ebihara in particular were great, along with my basketball operations [director] Dustin Clark was tremendous in the whole process. I really didn’t have much to do with it other than I don’t like the word no or to lose. Those guys deserve all the credit.”
“I thought Dez was great throughout the whole process. I thought he handled it very well. He never got too high or low. The reason Dez won’t be available today is because it is very emotional. There were a lot of people crying this morning, adults included. He went through a lot of things so it was very emotional. We want to protect him today.”
On if they have been practicing as if Dez Wells would be eligible:
“We were preparing like he was going to play until we heard no. We have prepared with him. He has practiced pretty well. He will be a different animal now that he knows he will be playing. We will have to see how he handles that. I was practicing a certain way but now we have more depth. We can stay big lineup or go small lineup with four guards. We haven’t been able to branch out knowing he was going to play because I didn’t want to waste time. We just worked on what we have been working on. In the next few weeks we will change how we play a little bit but we can’t do it before Friday. It will give us a chance in the future to do that.”
On how emotional it was when he told Dez Wells:
“It was emotional. When I first told him he just smiled and gave everyone in the room that was a part of the process a hug and told them thank you. Then he started to make phone calls and that’s when he got emotional. He called him mom, his sister and people who are really close to him. That was when it got very emotional. It was three to five months worth of emotion coming out.”
On if Dez Wells’ eligibility changes the expectations:
“We were 17-15 last year and still have a lot of young kids who are going to play. Going into Friday’s game, Kentucky is still rolling out players that we couldn’t even get involved with. We need to be realistic. Do I expect us to be a very good team at some point this year? Yes I do. I think the young kids will grow up quickly, I think we have great depth. If we get unlucky with an injury this can help us endure that a little bit easier. It gives us a chance because this is a long season and you have to go through a lot of things. This gives us a chance to be a better team than we would have been without him, that’s for sure.”
On if he thought he could turn around the team so quickly:
“When the season ended I didn’t think we could turn it around so quickly. We have been so blessed and fortunate to add the pieces since the season ended. Charles Mitchell committed to us the last week of the season. We added Logan Aronhalt, [Evan] Smotrycz, and then Dez Wells. There is no way I thought that could happen. To add those guys and have good chemistry like we do, it gives us a chance. We have put in a lot of work. I have great assistant coaches who are really good at what they do and they work hard. They deserve a lot credit for helping us to get these players here.”
On the opportunity of playing Kentucky:
“We are excited about the opportunity and we were excited about the opportunity before this morning. I said before that John [Calipari] could have called anyone in the country but he called me and asked if I wanted to play in this game. We both knew that we were going to have young teams going in. I thank him for giving us this opportunity. The publicity that we are going to get from playing in this game is big for our program, win or lose. “
On if the expectations have changed with the addition of Dez Wells:
“I think it changed. We have experience and depth now. We were excited about the year anyway. We thought we had the chance to be pretty good. We thought we were a team that was going to get better and better. We expect to be good and be in some type of postseason. We just try to get better every day; for the most part we have done that. We had a bad week but the players have responded pretty good since that.”
On Dez Wells’ role against Kentucky and if he’ll be limited by conditioning:
“He is in great shape. He has been practicing every day. How much, I don’t know yet. It depends on if he stays out of foul trouble and how we, and he is playing. He is a major part of the game plan moving forward.”
On how the team matches up with Kentucky:
“I thought we matched up before the news this morning. They [Kentucky] are playing seven and a half or eight guys. We are playing nine. They can go small or big. We can go small or big as well. They have good players. They make scoring look easy, they just throw it up to the rim and guys dunk it. Size wise, and our player wise I think we match up pretty well.”
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