bleedCrimson.net Weekly Coach Menzies Interview

bleedCrimson.net spoke with Aggie basketball head coach Marvin Menzies to talk about this season's schedule which was announced on Wednesday.

View the 2008/2009 Men's Basketball Schedule

bleedCrimson.net: Talk about the schedule overall.
Marvin Menzies: We're very pleased with the final schedule. The team that we have this year will be very young. No seniors, just one junior going into the season and we've got a lot of growth ahead of us, a lot of development that we're anticipating. We wanted to create an opportunity to have different types of looks. SOme road games, some very high-major teams as well as scheduling some teams that we feel pretty confident that if we play well we can beat them and give them a nice blend with a competitive edge to it so that they can be fully prepared going into our regular conference schedule.

bleedCrimson.net caught up with Aggie basketball head coach Marvin Menzies at the end of last week and Coach Menzies shared his thoughts on the rule change that has the three point line moving back a foot, gave a little insight into next season's schedule and talked about the one-and-done freshmen.

bleedCrimson.net: One of the rules changes this year in college basketball is the moving of the three point line back to 20 feet 9 inches from 19 feet 9 inches. What impact will that have on the college game and what impact will it have on the Aggies?
Marvin Menzies: I don't think it'll affect us much because I like to get guys to step all the way to the line when they shoot but unfortunately we weren't always able to do that and I think several times we shot too far behind the line. But after having a full season behind me I was able to identify things that I want to do in terms of correlating how many threes we want to take in a game and who I want taking threes and just having a comfort level coming into this season. I think that foot that's been added onto the three point line isn't going to be significant where it's going affect us in any demonstrative way. As other guys handling and how teams are going to handle it I'm not sure, some guys might strategically shoot less because of that, some guys might feel like that's going to go to their strengths if they have more shooters. I think for us, we're going to be business as usual and hopefully we're going to shoot a higher percentage because of our team development and the new players we have but I don't think it'll have anything to do with the added distance.

bleedCrimson.net caught up with Aggie basketball head coach Marvin Menzies this week and Coach Menzies shared his thoughts on the season, talked about some of the offseason improvements that his young players need to make and shares his pick for the NCAA tournament.

bleedCrimson.net: Now that you've had a couple weeks to digest and look back, what are your overall thoughts on the season?
Marvin Menzies: Obviously it was an up and down year in the very beginning but then things started rolling a little bit when started to get our chemistry together both with the seniors and freshmen trying to shorten that gap between them in a variety of ways. I think as that started to develop and we got al our kids back and got everybody healthy and on the floor we had a chance to start our growth and development. I think once we got going, luckily it was before conference started when we had a chance to get everybody there. Then we ended up on a positive note. I wish we would have had everybody the whole time but that's spilled milk and you just do the best you can and our best was three overtimes and a couple points short. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to make it to The Dance this year but that's our goal every year so we're optimistic that we can build on the new team next year. It'll be a young team but we'll just do the best we can.