VIDEO: Inside Summer Basketball Practice

NC State Men’s Basketball put out this video today to give a peek into what summer workouts have been like. They did an unbelievable job with the video, and even got head coach Mark Gottfried’s take on how the summer has gone. Here’s the video and all of Gottfried’s QUOTES are transcribed underneath it.

“I think they have worked pretty hard. The nice thing about the new NCAA rules, is that it gives us a chance to work with them a little bit in the summer. It’s helpful. It’s good for our young guys to learn what we are doing and what we are talking about and what we are doing every day. They get to learn what a practice might be like, even though we shorten them in the summertime. Overall I think it’s good for the guys to be in the gym with us, working on their skills, trying to develop, and making sure they are getting better individually as players.”

“I think when you look at Trevor and Ralston, you have two veteran guys. Guys that played a lot of college basketball games. Those guys are hard to replace. We have some guys who I think are eager and willing and ready to step in there, but they have a lot to prove. It’s always hard when you lose veteran guys who have scored a lot, defended a lot at our level. They know what’s going on at our level. So we have some younger guys that are ready to step in there.”

“I think Torin Dorn and Shaun Kirk have done really well. In the summertime we are just throwing a ton at them. Torin transferred in and we do things differently here. It’s just a good learning opportunity. When you throw so much at them, you can tell they are dizzy with all the information. But when they settle in, and start to get what you’re talking about, both those guys have done pretty good. They are learning a lot & I think they’ve both done pretty well in the summer.”

“I think Terry Henderson, kind of like Ralston, is a quiet leader. He’s not a guy that talks a whole lot, as far as that goes. He plays really hard and plays the game the right way. His leadership is a little bit more by example, and by the way he plays. He had a good off season last year when he didn’t play. He’s had a good spring and summer. I think the other players have a lot of confidence in him, and think that he can step in here and be a really good player for us. We’re excited to get him started, and get him going here at NC State.”

“I think Lennard is doing pretty good. He’s recovering and we are going to make sure that we are real cautious with him. We want to make sure that he’s fully healthy and ready to go, and that might be mid-September, and maybe even October, before we release him to practice and play. It gives the other guys more opportunities in practice and in these summer drills. When one guy is down, someone else has to step up, whether it’s BeeJay or Malik, and even playing some different guys at the Forward position. We’ve played Cody a lot at the Forward position this summer. It’s giving other guys more of an opportunity. But obviously we need Lennard back healthy and at full strength. We learned last year what a key and valuable contributor he was to our team.