University of North Carolina Athletics
Q&A With Dexter Strickland
October 11, 2012 | Men's Basketball
by Jared Burleyson, UNC Athletic Communications
UNC Basketball Media Day, October 11, 2012
On his health
"I'm not 100 percent yet, I'm probably at 96 percent. It's coming along well. I'm still doing rehab each and every day. It's still a process getting back, but like I said, I'm ready to go. I'm limited in trusting my knee, having more confidence in making those cuts, and jumping, stuff like that. Its not hurting me at all, its just trust."
On how to build confidence in his knee
"It's playing and building confidence. If we had a game tomorrow, I'd be ready to go. Probably in another week or two, I'll be 100 percent."
On moving on from last year
"Its motivation for being, the fact being that I got hurt, and sitting out this time frame. The season that we had with everybody getting hurt, Kendall got hurt, Reggie's knee was bothering him, John got hurt, its just motivation to get back in the gym and better my body. Leslie's back also, and that betters our chances as well."
On figuring out who they are
"I think people know. The freshman don't know what its like yet, everybody doesn't know their role yet, but I think that they wont have a problem figuring it out at all. During a couple practices, going over the plays and stuff like that, everybody will figure it out."
On freshman point guard Marcus Paige
"He's a very good player. He has a lot of knowledge of the game. I call him Mr. Smooth, his game is really smooth. He plays with a lot of poise and I think he's going to be a great fit for our team."
On splitting the point guard duties
"That's up to Coach. Personally I want to play the point guard, I want to be the one guard, but I think I'll be interchangeable with the two guard. We just have to see what coach wants. All my life, AAU, high school, I played the two guard. I was a scorer. So coming here, I played point guard my freshman year behind Larry (Drew II), and my sophomore year I played the two guard the whole season. Backing up Kendall last year and the year before was tough for me. I had to get the point guard's mentality on not scoring first but getting the team involved first. I think I'm ready for it."
On what he learned from his injury
"I learned a lot. I actually learned more from sitting and watching than I was playing. Seeing what Coach wants and why he's yelling at us and seeing how hard-headed we are on the court, it was good for me. It was also frustrating because there were times against Florida State where I saw the mistake we were making and there was nothing I could do about it."
On his relationship with Leslie McDonald
"That's my brother. We talk about our injuries all the time. When I was coming back, when I started playing pick-up again, the main thing I was doing was I was limping. He just talking to me about trusting it more and we went over different exercises I could do to strengthen my knee. He was a big help to me during my injury. I haven't played with him in a while, so it's something to look forward to."
On last year's departures
"We just need to work on our game and work hard. Don't even think about, 'Oh we lost John, we lost Harrison, we lost Kendall, we lost Z, we're not going to be as good.' For myself, that motivates me to play even harder and work on my game even more.
On the frontcourt
"I think we're going to be good there. I think McAdoo is going to do a great job. Joel, the scary thing about him is he doesn't even know how strong he is, so when he figures that out, he's going to be a problem. Brice, with his athleticism, and the way he plays is going to help us a lot this season."
