Expectations: “My expectation for the season is that we play hard…All my teams have played hard, but I want to gauge it with this group even more. There’s an effort level that, gosh, these guys really play hard, and that’s my expectation. I feel if you do that, then the wins will come. Obviously you’ve seen our records of the past, [62-6 in the last two seasons], and so you know where we want to be. Fifth place [in the preseason poll] is great, but that’s not where we want to be. Our expectation is that we want to make sure that we build a level of toughness and competitiveness, more than what we’ve had.”

Key Players: “Akachi Okugo, obviously. He is our point guard and our leader… Akachi, Ben Dickenson, Darnell Taylor, Declan Daly and Taran Brown [are the five].”

Toughest Matchups: “We have the toughest…schedule in the country, I think. [On Nov. 28] we’re playing Azusa, which went to the Final Eight last year. We’re playing Concordia [on Nov. 18], which is a big-time rivalry at their place. At BYU Hawaii, no one wins…Within our conference, Pomona, Chico and San Bernardino [are the toughest].

Final Thoughts: “We’re just going to take it a game at a time and try to get better. We’ve got a long ways to go, but I think we have some pieces to get better. We didn’t show well against San Diego State and it was unfortunate. A lot of it was my fault. I think I confused the kids on the game plan. We didn’t do a good job of executing which was very unfortunate, but that can happen with 12,000 people and your first game.”