In part two of our Q&A with men’s basketball head coach Ronnie Arrow, he talks about freshman Viktor Juricek, the preseason Canadian tour and how he sees each position battle playing out.

We open at a major-college opponent for the second straight year – what are the benefits to playing a high-major team so early in the season?
RA: I think that anytime you play a high-profile team, it helps you. We feel like we recruit players that feel like they could be at those high-profile teams but chose to come to South Alabama and beat teams like that. In the past we’ve shown, in beating Arkansas, LSU and Florida, we can go and do that with the players we have. If I had my druthers, I’d rather play them later and start with somebody else, but with the experience we have, I think this is the time to play a school like Florida State.

Viktor Juricek is an interesting prospect – how much do you expect him to contribute this season?
RA: In our pick-and-pop offense, he can shoot the ball and he knows that. The best part about him is he has an appreciation of being in the States, an appreciation of the education that they get, of wanting to work and be the best that they can be, and he fits that mold. He’s in here every day, shooting on his own, wanting to know how to better himself, and works by himself and with other guys. He’s definitely going to be able to be a very good player because of his work ethic, and not just saying, ‘I’m going to be better,’ he goes and does something about it. How quickly can he do it? It depends on how quickly he can adjust to the physicality and the fast pace of the American game. On the trip to Canada, he had a really good game—11 points and 10 rebounds—but he fouled out in eight minutes in another. So he has to adjust physically—one thing about Viktor is, when he commits a foul, it is a foul. He makes his five fouls count. But he plays hard and can run. It’ll just take time and he knows he has to get used to the American game.

How do his skills compare to the other posts on our team?
RA: We don’t have another post with his skills. Aug is getting there. Viktor’s skill level is very good, he just has to learn how to do it against quick guys outside. He should be one of our top three or four best 3-point shooters. We’ll run pick-and-pop so he’ll be open for that. He can run straight, but the lateral movement is what he has to work on. He’ll come in and get a jump rope—he’s come a long way in jumping rope—and it’s helped him get quicker feet. The quickness drills that most kids find boring, he’ll go and do. That’s why he’s going to be a very good player.

We were sixth in the nation in rebounding margin last year – how important is winning the rebounding battle to our success?
RA: Because of the things we didn’t do well—the outside shooting and turnovers—it was vital. Without the rebounding and shot blocking, we don’t win 17 games, and we were right there to win some more.

We only have four true posts on the roster – does our lack of depth inside concern you at all?
RA: Not really because we only play two at a time, so that leaves two on the bench. The biggest thing isn’t games, but in practice. Sometimes last year, with the lack of depth that we had, our post men were staying on the court the whole practice. Now, with (redshirt) Dionte Ferguson, we’ll have five, and Mychal is playing both the ‘3’ and the ‘4.’

What are some of the biggest advantages to going on the tour of Canada over the summer?
RA: The guys had an excellent camaraderie and got to know each other better, both on and off the court. For the new guys, they got a taste of how physical it is at this level and they got to know how our practices are—it’s not a walk in the park—and the way we play. The games that we played weren’t against bad teams and we held one of them to two points in one quarter and we scored a bunch, so we scored off of our defense. Whenever you beat a team bad, it’s not just on your offense, it’s your offense scoring off your defense. That’s what we did in the second and third games we played. We won big against decent to good teams. We strapped it defensively and won by 20 points. So those are the biggest things we got out of it, plus we got to see some of the guys playing in different positions.

Arrow’s thoughts on each position:
Point guard
RA: We played four guys at the point guard spot in Canada. Trey got hurt so he only played one game, but in looking at the stats and the tape, the one that stood out was Dre Conner. He gave us more consistent play. We probably should have played Barrington more, but we saw enough to see what he can do. All of them got to play, but overall Dre came out on top in all three games. If Barrington works hard, then he should be able to play a lot of minutes for us this year. The biggest thing with freshmen is how quickly they can pick up things.

Shooting guard
RA: Our ‘2s’ can play both the ‘2’ and the ‘3’ spots on the court. We’ll be small on paper but we can shoot. If you’re going small, you better be able to shoot and play defense. Antoine and Xavier can both play the ‘3.’ There are times were we could go with four guards, open it up and dribble-drive. So our fans could see two types of teams, depending on how we have out there. Last year when we started, we had two shooters: Xavier and Freddie. When Xavier went down, that left us with only one shooter and that put a lot of pressure on Freddie. Between Antoine, Freddie and Xavier, two of those guys can play the ‘3’ which means we could have two very good shooters on the court. It’s not like we’ll be leaving two good shooters on the bench and if we have Freddie at the point, that gives us three good shooters on the court at one time. In today’s game, you can’t have too many shooters. We struggled with that last year and I think that put extra pressure on our inside guys and teams were able to double down on Aug. That shouldn’t happen this year.

Small forwards
RA: Mychal will play the ‘3’ and Wendell and Trey will play there too. Wendell and Trey both played a lot of minutes for us last year. We brought in two more point guards so depending on how the point guard spot shakes out, that will affect how much Wendell and Trey play at the ‘3’ spot. He played about 94 percent of his playing time at the ‘3 last year so he got a lot of good experience out there. He’s probably one of our better outside shooters too. On the Canada trip, he was our best 3-point shooter. So he gives us another shooter.

Posts
RA: Naturally, the first two that come to mind are Aug and Javier. If we can get Javier to have a whole season, he’ll be an all-conference player. He has to be consistent. When we go to our posts, he has to finish, but rebounding and shot blocking should be embedded in him. He should be licking his chops at the thought of guys trying to go inside and get a shot off against him. Aug has shown himself to be a tremendous talent. He’s gotten better every year. He was the Sun Belt Freshman of the Year, then First Team All-Sun Belt—now where is he going to take it? Is he happy to be first team all-conference again? Or does he want to be an All-American? That’s where he has to take it, and that’s where he has to be ready to play every game and practice. He has to get better every practice. One of the best things I saw from him after he went to the Impact Basketball Camp over the summer was his improvement in getting up and down the court. Last year he was one of the last guys down the court when we ran. Now he’s running the court a lot better. A friend of mine in the NBA told me he has to run the court with the guards and the forwards at his size for the next level. That’s where he has to get. He got around guys that were drafted when he was in Vegas and they showed him moves and they showed him work ethic. What I also hope he got was the leadership aspect of it. We really need Javier and Aug to be leaders. With Gregoryshon and Viktor, it all depends on how quickly they can adjust to the physicality and bring their good traits to the table. For Gregoryshon, it’s shot blocking. Viktor can step out and shoot the ball but he has to get better at rebounding. Gregoryshon has to get stronger to rebound. When they play, they have to bring a Division I physical mentality every day to practice and to games.

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