They Said It: Cornell
Samford Scoop got the chance to talk with Samford head coach Lennie Acuff, guard Jadin Booth, and center Dylan Faulkner. Booth led Samford with 30 points and five assists while Faulkner finished with 23 points and 12 rebounds.
Q: What did you learn about your team having to battle back with the 48 hour turnaround from that 15 point second half deficit?
Lennie Acuff: We talked about shootaround today, I said, we have sign up for 40 minutes against them. I watched I mean, they've played about as hard as schedule as we have because they have so many guys back. They couldn't get games. And they can turn the game around so quick and we talked all this morning, yesterday and this morning in the shootaround about, it's 40 minutes. I mean we go up 5 and they get a three point play. We go up four, they hit a three. You don't win many games when you get out scored 39 to 18 from the three point line. I mean, they outscored us 21 points from the three-point line. We rebounded the ball better in the second half thank goodness. Because they only missed 19 shots in the first half, and they got 10 rebounds. You just can't do that but boy, it feels good. We got a break here with finals, and we've got two more home games, and we have a chance to practice finally. That's the other thing, we just hadn't had a chance to practice because it's just play, get on the plane, play like, you know, like a pro team.
Q: Cornell is so good offensively, how do you think your team fared on the defensive end?
Acuff: “Well, you know, they're averaging over 90 a game, I told our guys today, I went to the coaches, I said, we're gonna have to get to 80 to have a chance. And at halftime, we had 42 and I told them, I said, We're on pace for 84, the problem was they were on pace for 100 and they do it every night, y'all. I mean, they just, they can really, really shoot the basketball. And when you can put four guys that can shoot the basketball out there like that, I don't know what 31 wants to do the rest of his life, but that's the kind of kid Nor you could see him like, I've seen a lot of guys like him end up to G League, and in four or five years, he's playing on NBA team. He is fantastic. He's just a really good player, you lose him like for two seconds and he hits a three.”
Q: When they pushed that lead to 15 what was that message from Coach to stay in it?
Dylan Faulkner: “He is really big on, he always says get it to 10 under 10. It’s like you got to have a strong chin. That’s his message all the time and I think we did. We rallied and we stay in the fight and we prove that no matter how far we get down, we keep fighting.”
Q: With almost 50 points in the paint, how important was it and how much of an emphasis was it for you guard to get 15 (Faulkner) touches in the paint?
Jadin Booth: Yeah, it was huge, I think the last several games. You know, we haven't shot it great, so I think a great shooter is all and they try to get to the try to find a rhythm or get to the free throw line. And obviously, when Dylan gets it down low, he's dang near unstoppoppable. So that was super important. But I mean, also, too, when you get to the paint and finish some, then that kind of opens up the three balls. So just trying to find a rhythm that way.
Samford is back on the court in eight days to play Bryan College at home. Game tips at Noon on Monday, December 15th.
