On the status of Dai Dai Ames...

“Alright, he practiced today. He’s going to be a game time decision. I think he thinks he can play, we’ll have to talk as a staff, see what we saw out there.”

On the emotion in playing against his former team and head coach Drew Scott…

“Yeah, well, last year is the first game, right? Remember they had lost the first two games of conference so if we win that's a third loss in a row and I know what that does to the team, how the media gets after it and all of that and if we lose that's not a good thing, right, so there was just like it wasn't a good feeling going into that. Coach [Drew] used to tell me in practice all the time, you know, we play basketball games against each other. These are competitors, you hate that it turns into L and it's a career thing or W, or whatever it is and so it's not how you prefer to do it but it's not like that was a reason to build up to it. The second time, them dudes are rolling, I mean they played the best 20 minutes of the season against Kansas in the first half, the second half they didn't play well, end up losing the game, but they were rolling, you knew that they were going to the tournament, that everything was fine. So it was like, you know, we want to win at home and it was a lot better the second time. This time both teams are doing well, they’re a top 10 team in the country, I don't care what they’re ranked, they’re ridiculous and we got to play really really well. So, once again, it's no fun but I got to see him last night and hang out for a little while, they just signed a big time recruit, they’re feeling really good. We got to win the game, that’s what that thought process is.”

On where the team needs to improve in conference play...

“I told you all our word this year, we’re forging, take a piece of metal, turn it into a weapon, and I think if you look our last three games you’ll say man ‘they turned into something,’ right, but we're not finished. We're not as sharp as we need to be, so there's a process. Our wall up there says ‘iron sharpens iron.’ As iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Now it's time for them to start helping each other and sharpening each other and holding each other accountable, that's the process. When players start holding each other accountable, taking ownership of it you improve a long way. We felt like we gave one away to Texas Tech and I think when they watched the film they see and so they coach each other through it and talk about it. And when they're, as a team, they are willing to take it from each other, that says a lot. And in the sharpening process, we've done the forging pounding, you know, heat and all that process, but now it's the sharpening, like tightening things up. In that process, the blade loses a piece of itself, you got to get rid of some of that metal to get a fine tip blade, you gotta get rid of some of yourself in order to be as sharp as you need to be. And that's the process we're in right now and so it hopefully, results in us defending a little bit better with better communication and us not turning the ball over by hitting singles. And then finishing plays with two hand rebounds, that we don't get tipped away, all the details of it. So I like where we're going and I think we're headed in the right direction. I like where we're at right now. And you can do all those things in this league and still not win, so that's part of it.”

On Baylor ranking first in 3-point percentage...

“Well they got really good players and then they get the ball to the paint and then they find the open shooter, they make the defense shrink and find the open shooter. RayJ [Dennis] is as good as a point guard as there is in the country, Ja’ Kobe Walter’s is the top five projected pick, Langston Love makes shots and [Jalen] Bridges is shooting the ball way better, and you got [Jayden] Nunn who's I mean, they've got dudes, like, multiple of them who can do it. But they do a really good job of taking the right shots, right? They move the ball and take the right, they rarely take out of character shots. That's what helps them.”On learning from the mistakes playing against Texas Tech...“Yeah, that's all part of it, you wish you could do it through a win, you know, learn through a win, that was a great road environment, right. I think that was the first time we'd really faced a real road environment and I loved how our guys responded, we were down, the crowd was going crazy, we locked down, got focused and made a great run. Every time in the second half they made a run at us we responded, you know, quieted the crowd, we just didn't finish thelast 3:20 that we were supposed to. And so yeah I saw there was definitely a lot of growth there. But this league just does that to ya, like the coaches, players, you have to keep getting better and I feel like we are doing that.”On being able to go on a 20-0 run after 11 shot attempts and 10 turnovers against Texas Tech...“We just calmed down. The turnovers were an error of commission, right, they were trying to make a play, the home run play, instead of just hitting singles. I thought in the run that we had, we were just taking what was there and we're allowing our defense to create some offense for us too.”

On the process of the players and coaches watching game film...

“It’s a combination of all the above. Really good guys who are really addicted to this game, as soon as it's over they're on their iPad, you know, on the flight back and they're watching the game and they're watching it to see how they could have done better. That's the first thing we'll all look to see, ‘okay, what can I have done differently to impact the game.,’ And then we break it down and staff and we watch what we want to watch with the team together so we can get whatever points you need to get across and then the staff divides up guys, and we watch them individually with them the different aspects of coach [Rodney] Perry with offense, coach Ulric [Maligi] with defense, just coach through the rebounding just different things and I bring probably multiple guys in together that I feel like need to hear each other's point of view and things so that we can all be on the same page”

On the advancement of Baylor’s Yves Missi as a freshman...

“You know, we always talk about 13 feet spacing and he [Missi] might have 15 feet spacing, his ability to get off the ground and his second jump, I mean, just go catch lobs. So he's putting pressure on the rim every time he moves, so you got to have somebody there, which then creates an opening for somebody as a two on one somewhere. John Jacobs would say that guy that’s guarding two on one is screwed, right, on film he’d say ‘Hey, who's the guy that screwed,’ and we just got to find the right one. So yeah, he puts a lot of pressure and then defensively he's such a rim protector, man, he does a terrific job and he loves the floor, he’ll get in the passing lane. I'm thinking of that play against Auburn, where he got the steal and went down and dumped the and one, it changed the whole game and so man, he's a terrific talent. They've done a great job there, coach [Alvin] Brooks and coach [Bill] Peterson work with the bigs down there, they’ve done a terrific job.”

On the home environment in Bramlage Coliseum...

“Oh, I am fired up. Man, our people are back. I hope the snow didn't stop all of them from getting in but I know them and they're here. They're in their dorms or apartments right now, fueling, hydrating, getting carb loading tonight and they are going to be ready tomorrow. I know that, I have no doubt in my mind our students are ready. We need our alumni or season ticket holders to do whatever they got to do. Y'all need a place to stay? Come on over, I got some extra beds, like if the hotels are booked we got you. This week we need everybody in it's got to be the best. We have the best home court environment we want to take it to a whole nother level tomorrow. When they leave we want them to leave and say man I never want to play in that place again it's on fire.”

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