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“Aztecs Basketball-Can It Continue to Be Good?”

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It’s a changing of the guard at San Diego State. A new season has begun with preseason workouts, and Coach Brian Dutcher faces a different set of challenges.

He has a young team, and maybe the youngest bench ever, as his team tries to find answers to questions.

He returns 1-big man, with NBA hopes, a couple of 3-point shooters, and a bench full of green freshman.

Comments from his camp press conference quotes..

Aztecs open practice with healthy team
42-workouts scheduled-all hands on deck

Biggest questions…how quickly the freshman come along
We 8-freshman or sophomores on roster…3 are experienced
We have 3-really tested veteran players

Freshman need to get experience and grow their IQs
Our freshman have to play in non conference games
We want to build our resume-but we want to win games

Need to teach young players how to play within our offense
We have to do a lot of teacihng
Defense for freshman is tough learning curve
Come to college-game is all physical-have to learn to do it-not play egg shells
Freshman excited to play against guys with same size.

Excited to have Jalen McDaniels back-he got noticed a lot last year
Want him to take more 3’s this year
Great went thru NBA draft workouts…knows what competition is like
He got a lot of nuggets from NBA coaches

He has to play within our system and his abilities
He has worked hard on his skill level…he plays with great energy-emotion
Will run more plays for him this year as a sophomore

Confidence with young players is huge-we teach that
Unfair to compare anyone to Kawhi Leonard-our guys watch him put work in

Matt Mitchell-good first year…need turnovers go down-assists up
Needs to play like Trey Kell-grow as a player

Hemsley-Watson could both be in starting lineup this year
We need good ball-handling guards on this team
Our ball skills with guards really strong.
We will spend a lot of team on our defense…defense travels all games
Expect Hemsley to have great senior season-started-off bench-knows game

Changes in coaching staff makes this a different team….need them to spread wings

I promised guys we’d play big games…ACC-Big 10-Big 12-
We get Duke-Xavier-get chance with Arizona-Gonzaga-in Maui Classic.

Philosophy of team of young players-share the ball-play the right way.

We have a lot of jumping jacks and athleticism-not worried about not having bulk in the big man department….we will be strong at defensive end.

Have not appointed a defensive coordinator yet-Rod Palmer handled that at Long Beach State.

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