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"Tre Holloman, he's a kid that can come in and be an impact starting point guard in the ACC. You look at Chucky Hepburn from Wisconsin last year, he had similar numbers to Tre. He came here and averaged 16 per game for Louisville, was Defensive Player of the Year, five or six assists He and Tre, if you look back at their numbers, they're identical from Chucky's year at Wisconsin to Tre's at Michigan State.
"Being able to translate from the Big 10 to the ACC, that's another thing that we've identified as a conference to target. The play style in the Big 10 leads way to having more success in the ACC. It's a bit less physical. We feel really good about the ability to get our guys better and have our guys that have proven it from Ven-Allen Lubin to Darrion Williams still come in here and lead us."
On his and program's analytical process
"Coach Will and the assistant are going to have a huge impact on that. At the end of the day you need to bring in good players but you need to bring in players that fit their system. Coach Will really values certain positions: point guard, two guard, four. Knowing what guys and skill sets and working with him as a client at my company, I understand on a pretty deep level what he's been successful with from a player standpoint over the years. The roster is built and tailored to what he's most comfortable working with.
"Adam Howard plays a very efficient style of basketball coming from Nebraska. Fred Hoiberg was a coach for the Bulls for a long time. That meshes well with coach because their transition attack at Nebraska and the Bulls was always very high efficiency. Coach's defenses are very disruptive, switching everything, always high in steal rankings.
"It's a really good, natural blend. Identifying what we are really trying to get in each player and finding the most efficient guys within that archetype. We've got a model that spits out every player in the country and gives them a role. We know the roles specifically that coach has had success with and how they fit within what we're trying to do at all times."
"He's a local kid. He scored 70 points in a high school game a few years ago, 71. You look at Paul and you see, like I mentioned, we're looking for guys who make the team better when they're on the floor. NC State was 4.1 points better when he was on the floor last season which is the highest of any of the possible returning guys. Paul was top two in scoring rate, so points per 40. He was number one in three-point makes per 40. He was top two in steals and offensive rebounds. He was top two in a lot. He was lowest in turnover rate per 40. All his numbers, when he was on the floor, he was literally NC State's best player from a rate standpoint. Being able to retain a player like him who has a lot of years left and a really high upside to be a potential NBA player one day was huge for us. It was a no doubter. As soon as we got here, we knew Paul McNeil is the player we want to keep around."
On Darrion Williams
"The way he plays, he integrates everybody else on the floor so well which shines through his on/off numbers. His ability to get into dribble downs and create mismatches and see across the floor and highlight so many different guys. He accentuates everyone else on the floor. It's not just that he averaged 15, five and four playing for Texas Tech and played a huge role in getting to the Elite Eight. It's also that he made every single player on that floor better. They ran pretty much their whole offense through him, especially down the stretch.
"He has the ability to, despite his size, back anybody down, see across the floor and either choose to attack and score or kick it to a shooter. He attracts a lot of attention. It's really about what he does to make everyone else better on top of the fact that we think we can extract a little bit more out of him from a scoring standpoint, too. He's got a lot of upside from that standpoint as well. There were a lot of avenues that we thought we could go down with him to make us and himself get to the next level."
"Q[uadir Copeland] offers a ton of versatility for us. If we want to get Tre to play off the ball a little off the ball a bit sometimes -- when his usage rate is slightly lower he shoots the three a bit more -- we could get him some more spot up chances and boost her three-point percentage. It's huge to have someone like Q who can handle the ball.
"Quite frankly, Q has a bit of an outlier skill set himself. There's been nine players his height to score, rebound and assist at the rate that he does in the last 15 years. The only thing he's missing is he's got to shoot the three above 30. We know he needs to get better at shooting. If he does that, he's in the echelon of the nine guys in the last 15 years that have done that. All those guys are in the NBA.
"Q's got a really good feel for the game. He's a really good playmaker. His thing is that when we face defenses that switch everything and it's hard to get an advantage on them, his ability to get downhill without a ball screen and attract attention is huge for us. He's someone that can play a wide array of positions. He's going to be outstanding as someone that can also come in and handle the ball and make plays for us."
On adding Ven-Allen Lubin
"It was huge. He's got the third-highest field goal percentage in ACC history. He produced that last year at Carolina. He's another one that when he was on the floor, he made everyone else better. Carolina was 12 points better when he was on the floor. When you're able to take someone within the league, especially someone that's projected to be at the top of the league and you bring him over to your side, it's huge. Ven's going to be outstanding for us. He's already showing it in practice. He's a perfect fit for what coach Howard runs on offense. We're very excited about Ven"
"It's like a lot of other sports. Even outside of the game, a lot of people in their normal jobs are just doing business. Everything's built on data and those decisions are driven by that. It makes sense to be the same way.
"Coach Chambers, he says he's not an analytics guy but he does his own analytics. He's always tracking everything. It's good to have a framework of players that you're targeting and what you need them to do to get better and then translate that to the coaches.
"We have a plan for every single one of our guys this season. In the offseason, three things that they need to get better at and what them hitting those benchmarks will do for our team from how many points we'll gain. We're trying to get it to be a Final Four-level team. Being able to have that stuff to give to development coaches to work with them all summer on is huge. Every day counts. When we can be making incremental gains every day with our guys, it's awesome."
On athletic, efficiency benchmarks he's looking for
"We're mainly looking at -- I'm not going to give away the secret sauce -- I've told everyone we like guys that make their teams better when they're on the floor. Their on/off margins, per 100 possessions. We like guys with really good rate stats. For example, a guy like Ven-Allen Lubin who rebounds at a very high rate when he's on the floor, scores at a very high rate and very efficiently.
"A lot of it's common sense, too. You want guys that are efficient when they're on the floor. They don't turn the ball over. They make their team better. That's the crux of what our formula is. We have different weights to different things in terms of how impactful they are overall to winning. We lean a lot on that stuff to building the roster.
"Coach has been very receptive of it. He has a really good feel on how to blend those things together. If we have this player at the two, how does that impact the role of someone who's going to be a three? We mesh it all together very well."