Oklahoma State University Athletics
OSU Basketball Media Day
October 22, 2001 | Cowboy Basketball
Oct. 22, 2001
Head Coach Eddie Sutton
On Maurice Baker
"I do not think anybody on our coaching staff would have believed that he (Maurice Baker) would have turned into such a fine basketball player in such a short time. I am not sure that he will have the same numbers last year. He may be a better player, but teams will be keying on him more. From what I have seen in practice thus far, he is playing every bit as well as he did a year ago."
On the style of play
"Two of our new players have been on the injured list. Cheyne Gadsen has not even practiced yet and Aaron Hill was out last week. We always like to run with the basketball when the opportunity is there. Our additional depth is the biggest plus and there will be more players that can step up and give you quality minutes. Victor Williams and Maurice Baker played more minutes last year than any other guard combination since I have been coaching. Gadsen and Hill will help from that stand point."
On Maurice Baker1s confidence
"Success will do that to you. He realizes that he is a very fine basketball player. The one thing that that does is it rubs off on his teammates. They know that he is capable of going out there and taking the game over. That kind of confidence is a big factor with new players or even with some of the younger players."
On Cheyne Gadsen
"He has a chance to really play a lot. He is a complete basketball player. He handles the ball well, he can shoot from the perimeter and he can penetrate. He is just a good basketball player."
On the early schedule
"We will be tested that first week. Cincinnati will be tough and then some of those teams in Las Vegas will be pretty good. Providence will be a very good challenge. We have such a difficult time getting teams to come in here, and getting Cincinnati to come in here for national television is something that we could not turn down. That gives us a lot of games that week. We should have a good idea of what we need to work on after that."
On the Big 12
"From top to bottom, it is the best it has ever been. I do not know if there is a top ten team in our league. Missouri and Kansas might be, but if you look at those two teams and then Oklahoma, Texas and our ballclub, those are all very good basketball teams. Iowa State and Colorado are not that far behind either. Colorado might have the best team they have ever had. The lower half of the conference will be better too. This will be a terrific league."
On Bobby Knight
"I think he will be a welcome addition to this league. They lost an outstanding coach in James Dickey, but Knight is a hall of famer. There program will quickly get back to where they will contend for the Big 12. He is a great coach and he will get the players to get them back on top."
Maurice Baker
On physical conditioning
"We were getting after it on the second day of school. I think this year coach is putting a lot of pressure on us being conditioned because he wants to press a lot and get after people."
On opening up with Cincinnati
"We want to play better competition this year. We1re real excited about playing Cincinnati."
On new additions to the back court
"Coach brought in a lot of guards this year. We can get a little rest and have more energy coming off the bench. Bringing Cheyne (Gadsen) and Aaron (Hill) in is going to help us a lot. They can shoot and Cheyne can handle the ball a lot."
Fred J?nz?n
On being a vocal leader
"I1m going to try to be more of a vocal leader. I1m not a very vocal person. We have Victor who is a very vocal leader. That is going to be very important for this team. Maurice and I are both quiet guys and we need to work on that."
On loss to USC carrying over to this year
"It really did. In the locker room after the loss to USC we told ourselves that we have to have a great preseason leading up to this season. We all want something different than what happened last year. We1re all excited about that."
On starting the season anew
"Last spring, after the plane crash, we didn't really have a good practice. We just tried to get the season over with. This year is a whole new season. We have some new guys. This is my last year and this is Maurice's last year, we don1t want to let this one slip away. We are really pumped about this year and getting a new start."
On what the new guys are bringing
"We've only practiced a week so you can't really tell that much. We're going to be a very fast team like we were last year. We have more depth at the guard spots. We added Cheyne Gadson, who isn't healthy yet, who will be an asset to our team. We also added Aaron Hill who is a great spot-up shooter, which is going to help us against zones.
On playing on the Swedish National Team this summer
"I played almost 25 games this summer, that's almost a whole season. I think that helped me tremendously, to play internationally against some of the top teams in Europe. Anytime you play 25 games in a summer, its a good thing."
On playing Cincinnati
"Its great. I've never played in a big time non-conference game at home. We all know how hard it is to get quality teams to come here. Its a great way to start the season."
