We had an opportunity to speak to Coach Dickerson and some players after practice Thursday. While the majority of our conversation won't be available until the Hullabaloo hits the racks next Friday, we felt fans might be interested in some player-related snippets from our conversation with the coach.
"The great thing about this team is we have seven of out of nine players returning, and we can get a lot of scoring out of those guys. David Gomez is a player that can raise his level of play, can become more of a complete player. He’s a guy we need to have a good year. He averaged 13 points a game, 5-6 rebounds last year, and he needs to take those stats up to around 15-17 and eight rebounds.
Kevin [Sims] did a good job for us last year, and he’s going to be called upon to run the team and he’s going be called upon to score also. His role won’t change from last year because what is important for us is we have a good point guard that can run the team and score. We have to look for other ways to get him some more scoring opportunities but his first and foremost obligation will be to run the game for us.
Kevin has become more of a complete player, he understands the system and he knows where to pick his points as far as scoring and defense and being a leader. We need to continue him doing is be vocal, the way good point guards are. We had him watching Chris Paul practice. Have him learning from a good point guard in the NBA. Hopefully those things can carry over. Kevin is a good player for us and we’re lucky to have him. If he can be a leader and score more points for us that would be great, but we have Donnie Stith back for his senior year, and we have Daniel Puckett, whom should both be scoring in double figures.
Then you have the player that had the best off-season for us, Matt Wheaton. Matt is in better condition, he understands the system, he’s scoring the ball inside and out. If Dave Gomez can go to another level and Kevin can stay solid and Wheaton can raise his level of play then we have three or four guys that can be in double figures.
Our headline freshman is Chris Richard. He’s a versatile guard…we’ve played Chris primarily at the two and the three in the first weeks of practice and now we’ve shifted him around to the point guard position. The more he learns the system the better he’ll be as a player. He has a knack for scoring and he’s very quick defensively so he can play in the passing lane and get a lot of steals for us.
Jake Henderson has been going against Kevin Sims everyday in practice, playing at being a backup point guard for us. He’s struggled at times but he’s kept his confidence up, hopefully he’ll be able to play five to seven minutes a game for us this year.
Jun Anderson we don’t need to come in and play right away, because we have Dave Gomez, Robby Louisme and Asim Mcqueen and Donny Stith. If those four guys can play at a high level he can learn on the job and be ready to play come December.
Robby we graded as the most productive player on our team if he had played forty minutes for us last year. But last year he was coming off a red shirt year, he had no familiarity playing with officials and he got in foul trouble and his conditioning was a problem. This year he’s in the best shape of his tenure here at Tulane and hopefully he can play more minutes than fourteen and be a scoring threat inside next to Dave Gomez."
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