What makes (Georgia’s) Yante Maten so tough to defend?

You know, for us, he’s made outside shots. He’s excellent down in the post, he has a great feel. When he’s shooting on the perimeter, then I think that takes his game to a different level.

(On Yante Maten and the NBA)

I definitely think he’s an NBA player. You look now at the draft process, the older you get, the harder it is to get drafted. You keep having to prove it every night. Prove it in summer league, prove it in training camp. You look like a player like (Sindarius) Thornwell who kind of went through the same thing—prove it—but now he did and he’s on a roster and doing well. It could be the same type situation where you just have to keep proving it the older you get.

You talk about playing differently on defense. Because you don’t have the same type rim protection this year, do you try to be more aggressive on the perimeter? Is that part of it?

We definitely have more athleticism on the perimeter, so we can be a little bit more aggressive on the ball. We need to do a lot of our work early to keep the ball from getting deep into the paint, so hopefully our perimeter players will be able to do that.

And faster pace in general?

Definitely. We definitely have some faster players, and they’re naturally going to play faster, so we’ll get the ball up the court quicker. Hopefully we’re going to execute and take quality shots, but we’ll definitely be able to get the ball up (the floor) a lot quicker.

I know Riley (LaChance) definitely likes that bump-the-ball-screen 3, but he can catch and shoot, too. Do you want him catching and shooting more off the ball this year?

You know, he’ll do both, and I’d love to say he’s going to get 10 catch-and-shoots a game, but the defense won’t give him that. We’ll try to get him as many open looks as we can, but the best way to get him open looks might be off the dribble.

How is guarding (Chris) Chiozza as a point guard different that guarding Kasey Hill, now that (Florida’s) going to have Chiozza as the point guard full time?

Offensively, I think he scores a little bit more, he looks to score a little bit more. He has great speed and he can get it going really quick. He’s a point guard that can score in bunches. You’ll definitely have to prepare for him as a point guard who can be one of their leading scorers.

Bryce, I’m sure you’ve been asked about this over and over, but the investigation with the FBI, what do you make of that? What should we make of that?

Pretty much what I said earlier, that it’s unfortunate that this has come out in college basketball. If I wasn’t in the profession, even as a college basketball fan, you hate to see anything like this happen to something like this that you love. But we have great people in this business and great people around this business, and I feel like it will come back stronger than ever.

There’s a lot of talk about sweeping changes, not incremental fix-ups. What does that mean to someone in the profession? How does that strike you are far as sweeping changes?

You control what you control. Whatever those changes come in and they give, we’ll abide by them going forward. Right now, I’m focusing on our guys. We’ve got a season coming. I have a lot of work to do. I’m not on the Internet every day looking at all that stuff. I’m looking at film and at schemes we can do to get better.

Bryce, there’s a market here, obviously, that creates this. Players don’t get paid. What would you think about players being able to benefit from their images and likenesses? I know paying everyone is problematic, but, have you given any thought to that idea and whether it would change things or help things?

You know, I was in the NBA when a lot of those things came up. They let high school kids in at the time. I remember being in our players’ union and in meetings with our team, talking about should this happen or should it not, so obviously I’ve seen both sides to it. I’ve seen the freshmen come in and get cut—would have been freshmen in college—and basically, where does he go with his life from there, over to Europe as an 18-year-old? I’ve seen it both ways.

As far as the other thing, college sports does generate a lot of money, and I can’t speak on others’ behalf, but on our behalf: whatever… they tell us to do, we do. Whenever those changes come, we’ll do the same.

Why does the Players’ Association, they always seem to be the sticking point in removing “one-and-done” and letting players come out of high school. What’s their objection?

I can tell you, from being in those talks, being in the locker room and in the meetings, there’s two sides. Some, if they’re good enough, let them come right now. And others are like, they need to stay—helps keep other careers going longer in the NBA, too. I know it’s a maturation process. And so it’s a debate where I can’t tell you there’s a clear answer, because I don’t think in the locker room, there was a clear answer.

Guys have different opinions. That’s something that hopefully the NCAA, the NBA, will come together and, if it’s still the one-and-done, if it’s a different formula, what works best.

(A question about Payton Willis)

He’s doing great. He’s really worked on his game. All summer, he’s gotten stronger. He’s put on weight. He’s shooting at a really high level. We view him as a guy who can come in and make a lot of shots very quickly.

How’s he taken his game from freshman to going into sophomore season?

More confidence. He’s playing with a lot of confidence, a lot of maturity, (knows) where the ball’s supposed to go, a lot of things. He’s been fun to coach.

You’ve coached against Arkansas a couple of times and obviously kicked their butts in Fayetteville. What did you think about Barford and Macon as a backcourt combo?

You know, they got us back in that last game (in the SEC Tournament). The first game, Macon played well, too. I think when they’ve junior college players, it takes some time to get used to it. Usually that second year is when you see how good they actually are. With Macon, I think he’s going to have a sensational year.

You think as good as they were last year, they’ll be that much better, because it’s their second year in the program?

You know, they’ve got a lot of experience from those couple of players and from others, with their roster just being older. When they’re older, you do have a sense of maturity.

Barford says he doesn’t think anybody can go to the basket like he can. What do you think of his game?

You know, he hurt us last year. He scored outside and inside. He was definitely a problem for us.

Bryce, this may be out of left field, but with the rules changes and no hand-checks as I understand, no freedom of movement, does that make it harder for a coach to say, we’re going to win with defense? I know you want defense, obviously, but does it enhance the need for offense?

The rules have definitely made it so you can score more, and it’s worked. There’s faster possessions, there’s more shots, there’s more points. So that’s definitely working. You know, I think you can still defend, maybe not as good as you could when you could hold a guy, obviously. I still think that you can defend and maybe good used to be 55 (points), maybe good is 62 in the future. But I still think you can win on the defensive end.

(Florida coach) Mike White tends to think those rules are forgotten in March, and up comes a Battle Royale. What are your thoughts?

(Laughs) You know, I’d agree with him in a way that you’ve seen that trend. But I’d also say that it’s gotten better. It’s better than what it was five years ago. As probably even J.D. Collins would say, is it where it’s supposed to be ? No. Is it getting better? I do think it’s getting better.

So if you played today, how would you split the minutes at the one right now? You’ve got four guys.

We’ve got four guys that can play the one. What we’re doing is, we’re doing a lot of interchangeable parts and pieces, so we might have two of the guys out there. Sometimes you can distinguish who the one is, but they’ll both be coming off ball screens and be able to handle the ball and things like that.

Do you want one guy to emerge and say, this is my point guard for 30 minutes a game?

Obviously, that would help if that happened, but we have a lot of different ways that we can play. We have Larry Austin, who’s a great defender and can really push tempo. Payton makes great decisions, can really make shots. Riley just does a bit of everything and then Saben brings you a burst of speed and a flair that we haven’t had on our roster.

So each guy brings a little different. I think as we get into games, certain guys might be in a certain game that they get more minutes, and other games might be for other guys to get more.

Riley (LaChance), is he impacted significantly moving more to two-guard?

You know, even though he’ll be at the two, he’s still going to handle the ball a lot and come off ball screens like he came off last year. He’ll have the ball in his hands, too, to play point. You know he closed out games spectacularly for us during February and March. He’s proven he can do it, so if we get in those situations, depending on how the game’s going, don’t be surprised if he has the ball in his hands the last five minutes of the game.

You looking forward to playing at Ole Miss? You didn’t get to last year.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I’ve heard it’s an awesome arena. My brother played there last year in the Big 12 Challenge, and so I’m looking forward to going down there. (Publisher’s note: Drew hit the much-publicized shot to knock Ole Miss out of the NCAA Tournament in 1998.)

What kind of reception (do you get)?

Hopefully we’re playing well and it’s a really significant game. That would make it even more enjoyable.

(Will there be a) video tribute of the shot in that game?

(Laughs) I’ll put you guys in front of me if we do that!

Do you think the kids there have seen that shot, or would know (about it)?

I think probably not, no. It was so long ago.

How do you play differently in the post this year without Luke (Kornet)? Will it change your style at either end of the court?

It’ll definitely change on both ends, so we won’t be able to spread the court as well offensively. Defensively, we need to be able to keep the ball away from the rim as much as possible, so the ball doesn’t get to the rim, because he was so good at, when the ball got there, protecting.

What’s he doing now?

He’s with the Knicks. He signed a two-way deal with them and he should be, from what I heard, he should be getting a good bit of time up with the NBA team. He’ll be back and forth with both.