. Something that we’ve heard a lot on the recruiting trail or on the 3SSB Circuit is how good of a shooter Cooper Koch was. I went out and saw him this last year at his high school. He seemed like a three-level scorer.
FRAN McCAFFERY: A lot of times when guys are great shooters, that’s what they’re called. He’s a shooter. What you were referring to, the 3SSB Circuit, maybe I think he was the best shooter statistically of all of those teams, which is incredible when you think about it.
I remember I went to see him out west, and he had eight threes in a row, that kind of thing. You remember, he is 6’8″, so he can score inside. He does offensive rebound. He can post up.
So he is a three-level scorer. He had surgery this summer, so he has done amazingly well coming back from that. I was blown away that he was able to maintain the intensity level that he has from the minute he came back.
He was out for six weeks. Six weeks and one day he was sprinting the floor and competing.
Q. In your reviewing of film of Thelwell before he came here, what did you see from him like in the conference tournament or down the stretch in the games that mattered the most?
FRAN McCAFFERY: You know, we watch those games that you are talking about, but you look at that kid, and when you are the all-time winningest player in a program’s history, that’s an incredible statement. I mean, they won 27 games last year, and he was the point guard.
So now you’re watching. Okay, first of all, how did they play? How does he fit? They ran a few more sets. We’re a little more free-flowing, but he clearly had the athleticism to play fast.
Does he make plays for other people? Does he engineer victory? And he did that. And he shot the ball well enough. I think he was a little over 34% from three-point range, and he fared pretty well against the Power Five teams that were on the schedule.
Q. What’s the next step for Payton as he continues to evolve?
FRAN McCAFFERY: I think for Payton we all have an expectation, you know, when your best player comes back and lead the league in made threes, well, he’s going to make more threes and he’s going to get more rebounds.
The thing I’ve been impressed with is he was a really good rebounder last year. He’s a special offensive rebounder.
A lot of shooters just don’t do that. They hang around on the perimeter, and that’s that. Throw me the ball, and I’ll shoot it in the hole for you.
He does that, but he’s done more off the dribble. He’s done more passing to open people and reading situations, which is what you would expect from a senior.
Think about him. Freshman year he played a lot. He was on the Big Ten Championship team. Sophomore year, Rookie of the Year in the league. Last year led the league in made threes, was an All-League player.
Now, I think how do you go from being a second- or third-team All-League player to first-team? Obviously it’s consistency of effort and performance, and he is going to work harder.
Q. Last season, what was this team’s biggest weakness and what has been done to address that in the offseason?
FRAN McCAFFERY: I thought last year’s team was impressive in a lot of ways. We had a lot of different guys that could score. We competed. We lost a couple of games that we didn’t close. A couple that stand out in my mind.
You always go back. If we had just won that. We should have won that game. We didn’t. If we did, we would have been in the NCAA Tournament. That’s how close I think we were.
Q. What are your expectations for this team now especially in the expanded Big Ten this year?
FRAN McCAFFERY: We expect to be really good. We expect to win a lot of games. We expect to go to the NCAA Tournament. We expect to contend night in and night out in a very difficult league.
It’s unique in the sense that a lot of coaches really don’t know a lot about the other teams. Especially the ones that have eight or nine new players.
So we’ll get into it and figure it out.
Q. What does Carter Kingsbury bring to the program?
FRAN McCAFFERY: A veteran guy that physically is capable of playing more than one position. Really good 3-point shooter, but really tough guy and smart.
Q. You mentioned on Big Ten Network that you feel like this is your deepest team. I’m curious, is that in terms of how many guys are capable of playing? Is it versatility?
FRAN McCAFFERY: It’s both. I think that’s the key. You’re right. I legitimately have 13 guys I feel comfortable playing and playing a number of them in different positions and relying on them to be productive in those different positions because they’re smart, and they’ve been around.
There’s a little bit of a learning curve with our new guys, the two freshmen and two transfers, but everybody else has been here.
So I feel very comfortable. You’re in a late-game situation, you have to run a press attack, you don’t have a time-out, you run a side OB, you run in your late-game package. All of those guys can run that effectively without having to take a time-out and explain it over and over.
Q. Will you get to see Butler in person this year?
FRAN McCAFFERY: I will try as best I can. It’s going to be hard. I think there’s one game around Thanksgiving that I might be able to get to. It’s hard. It’s a 5-hour-and-20-minute drive, but I’ll do what I can.
Q. When you talk about closing out games, what’s key to doing that, especially with the guys on this team?
FRAN McCAFFERY: You can’t make mistakes, and you have to execute. If you’re running sets, if you’re running out-of-bounds plays, if you’re protecting a lead, you can’t turn it over. You have to make sure the right people are getting fouled. If you are fouling them, you are fouling the right people.
Know time in score. Know if you are in the bonus, if they’re in the bonus, if you are in the double bonus or not, if you have time-outs left. Everybody thinks if you’re 10-20 or 20-10, one team is good, one team stinks. It’s a fine line. You have to win five-point games, two-possession games, and that comes down to intellect.
