Underwood: Took yesterday off so it's another one-day prep. NCAA rules force you to take a day off even when we're not in school.
Underwood: I scheduled Augustana game because I've known coach for entirety of my coaching life. "There's a reason they win, and they win at extremely high level."
Underwood: Take away the name on the front of their jersey, and they play as hard as any team you'll see.
Underwood: It'll be a great challenge for us. It'll force us to grow. We'll have to be good offensively because they compete at high level defensively.
Underwood: Worry more about preparation of team. You can play some very poor non-DI teams and you get nothing out of it. Tomorrow, we're going to get something out of this.
Underwood; I have tremendous trust in Te'Jon. He's our quarterback. Need him to stay out of foul trouble.
Underwood: Te'Jon very dialed in defensively. rarely out of position. Won't ever be a big scorer, but we need him to make FTs, run our team, make right passes and QB our defense.
Underwood: Different style for Mark Alstork playing a lot more off the ball. First game, he was aggressive because he got easy opportunities and got to FT line. When he's in attack mode, he gets fouled a lot. Still learning what we do offensively.
"I'm very vanilla with what I have put in so far." Worries about that with B1G games just 10 days away.
Underwood: "Hard" to get team prepped quickly.
Underwood: We've been very vanilla defensively. A few things put in, but we spend a lot of time on game prep.
Underwood: Wants to do "a lot" of full-court press. "Make every second of the opponent against us under some duress or stress. We want them stressed."
Offensively, we're trying to play with pace. But also has to be a sense of when not to do that. Not quite there yet.
Underwood: Identity is trying to become a hard-playing defensive team. Not quite sound yet in those areas, but we're getting there.
"When you have pride, then I can really coach you. ... He hasn't touched his ceiling. He doesn't know that yet."
Underwood: Nichols has tremendous pride. He cares not just about he plays, but his teammates.
Underwood: Nichols can be an alternative dribbler, can post up, can get a 3 from. Need consistency from him every day and from defensive end.
Underwood: Frazier has always been a scorer. Never been froced to lead and run things. Gives a different look. He was "electric" in practice today. Gets
Underwood: No drop off from Lucas to Frazier on defense the other day.
Underwood: I don't play you if you don't practice well. Kipper was getting to point where I was going to give others opportunities over him.
Underwood: "Da'Monte is a great listener, incredible listener." Always looking at coaches when they're talking. "That's very rare."
Underwood: Da'Monte understands what his strengths are, what he can do for this team. His maturity level and coachability are ahead of what I consider for most freshmen.
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