Speaker 1: Six, seven hundred wilw R L Kerry Or Sports Talk
Speaker 1: presented by Kelsey Chevrolet. I'm Lance Pacallis. You're happy to
Speaker 1: have you here. Let's talk some hoops. My next guest
Speaker 1: ready to officially embark on his first season at Xavier
Speaker 1: when the Musketeers played Marist on Monday night, seven fifteen
Speaker 1: at Sentas. What a pleasure to welcome in the head
Speaker 1: coach of the Xavier Musketeers, Richard Patino Coach Lance McAllister.
Speaker 2: How are we doing doing great? Lance? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Great catching up with you and hearing your voice. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's walk through this. You were hired March twenty fifth.
Speaker 1: It's been a whirlwin of moving parts since. Are you
Speaker 1: looking forward to finally just tossing the ball up and
Speaker 1: coaching a game that counts?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean year one is always a little bit
Speaker 3: challenging for obvious reasons. You know, when you don't inherit
Speaker 3: a player who's made a basket, that could be a
Speaker 3: little bit challenging from last year. We so we did
Speaker 3: our very best to certainly put together a staff, us
Speaker 3: put together a roster, you know, and just build kind
Speaker 3: of from scratch.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's a fun group.
Speaker 3: They're really good guys, they're easy to coach, they work hard,
Speaker 3: they've got great attitude, and yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: one of the reasons I took the job was just,
Speaker 3: you know, the Cintas Center is such a cool building.
Speaker 3: The Zavior fan base really really cares, you know.
Speaker 2: So we're excited to play in front of them.
Speaker 1: Twelve new guys. As you alluded to, first time a
Speaker 1: Xavier coach has not had a single returning scholarship letter
Speaker 1: winner in program history. Coach, I don't have to tell you,
Speaker 1: but I'll tell the fans. That's an awfully difficult recipe
Speaker 1: for success, especially in the Big East.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you have to explain the fans.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's a slippery slope because you don't
Speaker 3: want to sound like you're complaining.
Speaker 2: But it's a new profession.
Speaker 3: You know, the last four or five years when the
Speaker 3: rules changed, and you know you've got transfers that can.
Speaker 2: Be eligible right away.
Speaker 3: Normally, when there's a coaching change, you are lucky to
Speaker 3: inherit you know, a couple of players from the past
Speaker 3: regime where in the past you inherited a roster. Then
Speaker 3: you kind of try to figure out who you wanted
Speaker 3: to keep, who you wanted to you know, maybe move
Speaker 3: on or whatever. Where now it's you're starting over. So
Speaker 3: you know, it's all good.
Speaker 2: It is what it is.
Speaker 3: You know, we're going to coach our butts off on
Speaker 3: Monday and see when you're at the When.
Speaker 1: I was struck by something you said recently to Paul Frichner,
Speaker 1: and you said, what's happening today in the game isn't recruiting.
Speaker 1: It's free agency. And it really truly is, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't want to sound like disrespectful to
Speaker 3: people when they bring up the past, but I just
Speaker 3: think it's very very important. And you're seeing it in
Speaker 3: football right now. I mean, you're seeing programs like Vanderbilt
Speaker 3: be really really good.
Speaker 2: Texas Tech.
Speaker 3: You know, schools that may not have been good in
Speaker 3: the past are now elevating their spending in the NIL space.
Speaker 3: They're getting really really good players. You know, the players
Speaker 3: are making different decisions now on what you know, why
Speaker 3: they're choosing a program. It used to be facilities, it
Speaker 3: used to be private planes, nutrition or whatever. But you know,
Speaker 3: it really really comes down to investment more than anything.
Speaker 3: And you know the cost of winning is high, and
Speaker 3: you know, I know Xavier wants to have a great
Speaker 3: basketball program, but it's very very important that you know,
Speaker 3: we all understand what that is moving forward and what
Speaker 3: the most important thing is. And what I can tell
Speaker 3: you is, you know, and everybody knows this, when you
Speaker 3: have a winning basketball program, especially at a place like
Speaker 3: Xavier in the Big East that doesn't have football, you're
Speaker 3: you're going to get the return on the investment, whether
Speaker 3: it's through marketing, whether it's through packed houses, all those things.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean times have changed.
Speaker 3: You're seeing you know, the number one recruit in the
Speaker 3: country is from Boston. He went to my high school
Speaker 3: actually where I went in Boston, and he's going to
Speaker 3: be hy you that's not an not going to be
Speaker 3: yu program. But it's just guys are making different decisions now,
Speaker 3: more so than they ever have before.
Speaker 1: You've had an exhibition game against Murray State, scrimmage against Toledo.
Speaker 1: Were they productive? What would be a takeaway or two
Speaker 1: from those opportunities?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were really productive.
Speaker 3: You know. I mean, I think moving forward, what I'd
Speaker 3: like to be able to do.
Speaker 2: Is play one at home, play one on the road.
Speaker 3: You know, to you get the jitters out to the
Speaker 3: best of your ability. You know, I think people are
Speaker 3: still trying to figure out how to take all these exhibition.
Speaker 2: Games and so on.
Speaker 3: But for us, it's it's just an opportunity to play
Speaker 3: with the lights on, play in front of fans, see
Speaker 3: where what we're doing well, see what we need to
Speaker 3: work on, and you know, there's a bunch. I mean,
Speaker 3: we've had some good moments, we've had some sloppy moments,
Speaker 3: but I think it shows you more than anything like
Speaker 3: this is going to be really really competitive and we're
Speaker 3: not to scratching claw to get a win. But as
Speaker 3: I said before, both both games were valuable in different ways.
Speaker 3: But what I've loved about the team is the attitude
Speaker 3: is terrific.
Speaker 2: Right now, when.
Speaker 1: I talk to people about your team, in most instances,
Speaker 1: they quickly bring up the name Trey Carroll, the transfer
Speaker 1: from Florida Atlantic. Tell listeners about your impressions of Trey.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you never know with players are they you know,
Speaker 3: are they gamers?
Speaker 2: Are they not?
Speaker 3: And that's probably the most positive takeaway from the two
Speaker 3: exhibition games was he just seemed to turn it on to,
Speaker 3: you know, to another level. You know, in these game situations.
Speaker 3: He's pretty skilled. He can make the three and go
Speaker 3: in the post. He could score to his left hand,
Speaker 3: his right hand.
Speaker 2: He's older.
Speaker 3: You know, he came from a really good program at
Speaker 3: FAU that they've gone to the final four. So you know,
Speaker 3: we're very, very lucky to have him. He competes his
Speaker 3: butt off, you know, he really really you know, he'll
Speaker 3: die for a loose fall. He'll block a shot and transition.
Speaker 3: You know, he's got a very high bass like you.
Speaker 3: So he's absolutely been very, very impressive in the first
Speaker 3: two exhibition games.
Speaker 1: Xavier fans have been accustomed to seeing that pack line
Speaker 1: defense over the years, over a couple of decades. In
Speaker 1: a perfect defensive world, what will they see from your defense?
Speaker 2: Well, we were fortunate in New Mexico.
Speaker 3: We had you know, I'm not sure the exact number,
Speaker 3: but we were top twenty defensively in every year of
Speaker 3: the last two years and went to Amstabody tournament. We
Speaker 3: were able to generate turnovers. You know, that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: like we're going to be flying all over the place
Speaker 3: like bad men, but you know, the best way to
Speaker 3: score is to get out on the break, and the
Speaker 3: best way to do that is to have a great defense.
Speaker 3: So I'm not anti the pack line by any means,
Speaker 3: but we just have kind of a different style to
Speaker 3: what we try to do. You know, we feel that
Speaker 3: it works. You know, obviously it's going to be a
Speaker 3: work in progress with the personnel, but I guess the
Speaker 3: difference is maybe a little bit more aggressive, maybe a
Speaker 3: little bit more disruptive. But there's there certainly are a
Speaker 3: million different ways to skin a cat. But what's been
Speaker 3: funny is just kind of hearing the differences because for Xavier,
Speaker 3: although they've had a bunch of different coaches, they were
Speaker 3: all really part of the same family, you know, Tree
Speaker 3: coaching Tree, and they all kind of did it the same.
Speaker 3: Where we do it differently doesn't mean it's better or worse.
Speaker 3: But you know, we built really really competitive championship defenses
Speaker 3: the last couple of years, and we've got to do
Speaker 3: the same year.
Speaker 1: On the other side, I think you guys averaged over
Speaker 1: eighty points a game last year, second most fast break
Speaker 1: points of game last year, so you push the pace.
Speaker 1: Do you have the personnel and bodies this year to
Speaker 1: do that as well?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: I mean, we certainly built our best team in year
Speaker 3: three and year four, and you know that'll be the goal,
Speaker 3: you know, obviously Xavier moving forward. But yeah, we want length,
Speaker 3: we want athleticism, and you know, we were second in
Speaker 3: the country. Like you said in fast break points, A
Speaker 3: lot of that had to do with good defense, you know,
Speaker 3: So we're all about defend, lead, disruption, getting deflections, blocking shots.
Speaker 3: You know, that's something that I think Xavier didn't really
Speaker 3: have in the past, was shot blocking. That would probably
Speaker 3: be the biggest difference, although we didn't block a lot
Speaker 3: of shots last game. But certainly we want no we
Speaker 3: want rim pressure, we want disruption at the rim. And
Speaker 3: if you're get to pressure the ball, you know inevitably
Speaker 3: it's going to funnel it into the lane, and our
Speaker 3: goal is certainly to disrupt it once it gets in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know you're incredibly busy. I appreciate you making time.
Speaker 1: Best of luck and the opener and the rest of
Speaker 1: the way, and I hope we can catch up again soon.
Speaker 2: All right, thank you for having me appreciate it, right.
Speaker 1: Take care there you go. Coach Richard Patino, Xavier Musketeers
Speaker 1: Monday night, Maris seven point fifteen from Sintas Center. By
Speaker 1: the way, Xavier Athletics is celebrating opening week at Cintas