American Athletic Conference Media Day Wrap-Up
October 30, 2014 | Men's Basketball
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East Carolina Head Coach Jeff Lebo and senior guard Paris Roberts-Campbell attended American Athletic Conference Media Day at the New York Athletic Club Wednesday. The two spent the day talking with a variety of media outlets across the country, including ESPN and CBS. Below are selected quotes from coach Lebo's print media session.
On the start of a new season
"There's always excitement in the air when you start practice for those first two or three weeks. You do get itchy and want to play against somebody. Certainly you can find out a lot about your team early, but you'll find out a lot about your team when the games start. When you as a coach have to lay out your five, and your hand is out there for everybody to see, that's when it becomes difficult for the coaches to manage everybody over the course of a long season."
On possible changing of the shot clock
"I'd hate to see the shot clock change because one of the beauties of college basketball with the shot clock where it is now is the chance to see a lot of different styles of basketball. I think what happens when the shot clock is reduced to 24 seconds or 30 seconds, you see the same brand of basketball. I enjoy watching college basketball and other people's styles when I'm not watching my own team play. I would certainly like to see it stay where it is."
On the levels of coaching experience in The American and the different styles
"We've got Hall of Fame coaches, national championship coaches, coaches that have been to multiple NCAA tournaments and coaches that have NBA experience in our league. For the most part, you're looking at a group of coaches that have really withstood the test of time."
"I played for coach [Larry] Brown in San Antonio and he let me shoot the 3 every once in a while. I give him the credit for giving me an early start into coaching because he cut me in San Antonio after the first year."
"This is a terrific league in basketball and I think that its shows by the coaches that [left other jobs] to come here and the ones who had an opportunity to leave and didn't. [UConn coach] Kevin Ollie is one example. He could've gone to the NBA if he wanted too. I think guys are learning that happiness often comes with the comfort level of a particular job and the stability of having a long term contract is more important than money. That wasn't always the case in the profession. We've got a league that's rich in basketball history. We've got a lot of programs that are used to winning in basketball and have a tradition-rich fan base, which I think is very attractive to a lot guys that want to coach in this league."
On how recruiting against other teams in The American
"It's hard. We have a lot of tremendous coaches in this league who've had tremendous success. Some of these guys have experience in the NBA and I think that's a big factor. I played in the league for a short period of time, but never coached. These schools have made tremendous commitments of resources to their program and as a new member of this league it really forces us to elevate our thought process as a basketball program to compete at this level. It's really going to help us."
