Mark Gottfried: 2015 Summer Press Conference

Yesterday Mark Gottfried took the podium to talk about the upcoming season and how he is anxiously awaiting summer workouts and the July recruiting swing. Some of the main topics included Rob Moxley, Malik Abu, Cat Barber, and BeeJay Anya’s weight.

Hot Topics are paraphrased below:

On Rob Moxley and his health: 

Coach Gottfried talked about how he is still on medical leave following a health scare, but did not want to go into detail as he wants to respect his privacy. He did say that Jeff Dunlap will take over some on-the-road recruiting duties to make up for the lack of Coach Moxley during the summer.

Trevor Lacey Leaving and what he will miss: 

Having a 5th year senior who was a proven guard in the ACC. I didn’t expect him to leave, but we will move on…I always like to focus on who is in house, but with that being said we wish Trevor the best of luck. He then went on to talk about Terry Henderson and how they are lucky to have him on the roster. He spoke about how he liked Terry in high school and regretted not recruiting him harder back then.

Malik Abu’s improvement: 

We challenged him right after the season and wanted to make him a more effective legit scorer from the block and to knock down that 15-16 foot jumper. Can you be a high percentage scorer?  If you can we are going to feed you. We will have to see if that will happen.

Cat Barber and his development: 

Cat Daddy has been outstanding this summer. The thing that I love about Cat is that he doesn’t have any issues with getting better. He doesn’t mind having his game critiqued and is hungry to get better. Just look at his first year.  He was erratic and wasn’t confident in running the offense. The second year he looked more settled and shot the ball better as the season went on. Thus far and we will see what happens when the lights come on, but he has shot the three-ball as good as anyone in practice. He is shooting it with confidence in drills and scrimmages, and is knocking it down. He has worked hard to set himself up for a great upcoming season. He could be one of the best point guards in the country. I love coaching him and love how hard he goes each and everyday. If the things go as planned with Cat then he could set himself up to be a high draft pick next year, but it is July and we have to wait. But again I could not be more pleased with him.

BeeJay Anya’s weight: 

His weight is still a topic of concern and is not something that we are pleased with and continue to challenge him each day to be in better shape. Currently he is on the wrong side of 300 and must get it down if he wants to play consistently.  He is important to us and is the one who could take our team to another level.

You can check out the full video below.