Question and Answer with Shawn Hair and Scott Stein

Simpson: How are the players attitudes after these losses?

Hair: Their attitude is unbelieveable. the just compete so hard. We have no issues on our team with you know competiveness, drive, will to win, any of that stuff, our kids have done a great job of being competitive.

Simpson: How is the season going so far?

Hair: Well we got off to a really good start, 4-0. We lost 4 in a row, but we lost to some really good teams. We’re right there, we just havent got over the hump to get on the win column.

Simpson: How are you going to get from close losses to wins?

Hair: Well, we gotta do some little things better. You know we’re not a dominant rebounding team so we cant give up offensive rebounds offensive rebounds are gonna hurt us. We’re not a dominant scoring team to where we can go out and get 80 points any nights we wanna get it. So we gotta take care of the ball better. Those two things are probably the most crucial things. We gotta get offensive boards, cant turn the ball over, we gotta get some shots on offense.

Simpson: How important is the Rockhurst game going to be?

Hair: It’s always important. It’s a big game. It’s become more than just a game it’s an event people talk about it for a long time. It’s great for our kids, it’s great for their kids, it’s great highschool atmosphere, it’s a great rivalry, but when its all said and done, it’s just one game on your schedule, but for that night there couldn’t be anything more important.

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Simpson: How do you think the older team members have responded to your arrival and your changes?

Stein: Well  you know we have a little different style. I might be a little gruffer I might be a little older and I might be a little crustier but they have done a pretty good job of adjusting to that particular situation and that they understand that I’m gonna get after them when they do things wrong but I dont mean anything personal by it.

Simpson: Where does your team need to improve?

Stein: In my opinion we play great defense. Problem is for us though that sometimes we dont make some decent shots. Since christmas, we worked hard on shooting over [christmas break], we’ve improved it significantly, we got 60 against shawnee mission northwest, so hopefully we’re feeling more comfortable offensively.

Simpson: Where do you think you’ll end up in post season?

Stein:

In my opinion here’s what you do athletically. N umber one you wanna win your league. Number two you wanna do well in the post season. Number three you wanna grow as the season grows and keep getting better and better. So you know we’re still in  the league race right now we only have one less so we will concentrate on that, we will concentrate on getting better and hopefully we’ll be playing our best basketball when we get to the end of the season because we have good kids. They play hard. And when you play hard you always have a chance of winning. So that’s where we wanna be, we wanna be better at the end than we are right now.