USF Athletics

Q&A With MBB Assistant Coach Tom Herrion

May 26, 2020

How are you and your family doing as we continue to work from home amid the corona virus?
"Things are good. Like most people, we are plowing through the abnormal change of lifestyle and work opportunities for all of us, so we are doing well. We're trying to keep Robert busy, but he is actually keeping us busy. He's been ripping and running, and we've taken a lot of bike rides together. We've actually become very good ping pong players. We have a challenge series in our house, and it's been a neat thing as this situation with the virus has led us down that path."
 
What are your overall thoughts on the 2019-20 season now that you've had some time to reflect?
"We were a complete work in progress last season for a different set of reasons. Obviously, we made no excuses whatsoever, but losing arguably your best player the weekend before the season had a great impact on us and caused us to shuffle things around. You saw that a little bit in that stretch in December where we played Utah State and Florida State in back-to-back neutral site games. We had the lead in both of those games late and had a chance to win, but that's when you started to see us get our footing even though the results didn't come out that way. When you have a system and ingredients that are built for success through a certain model, and then you have to take Alexis Yetna out of it and deal with the departure of Mayan Kiir, it changed us so dramatically. So, we had to make the decision to play a little differently and shuffle guys around, and we actually went from one extreme to another, we went from playing big to playing small ball to a certain extent. We slid Justin Brown around and played more guards, and like I said, we found our footing right before Christmas at the end of the non-conference schedule and into league play. So, it was a challenging season to say the least, but I think we grew from it and got some guys some opportunities to gain experience, and now we're obviously excited about what lies ahead for our program."
 
What was it like to see Justin Brown change positions and do so well as a forward?
"I think Justin is the quiet, unsung hero type of player in our program. He's become one of the best three-pointers shooters in USF history, and he's going to be one of the top shooters returning in our league next season as a senior. He's a great leader and he didn't blink when we asked him to play a little different role when we lost Alexis to injury. He embraced it, did very well and had some big moments for us last year."
 
Can you give USF fans an update on Alexis Yetna?
"We feel like he's on a really good path to recovery. Greg Byrd and Zach Houghton are both handling his rehab and have done an unbelievable job, especially with the disruption to it that was caused by the pandemic. Obviously, all the credit goes to Alexis. I saw him recently in a rehab situation and he looks really good. He's in a good place physically, and more importantly, he's in a really good place mentally at this point. He's a special young man and he's a terrific example of what we want representing our basketball program and our student-athletes here at USF. Hopefully we're headed in the direction of a full recovery as we get into the summer months."

What can you tell us about the three newcomers that have joined the program?
"We knew that we had to add quality depth and size to return to our model of how we feel we want to play. Coach Gregory and the rest of the staff made it a priority this spring, and we've been fortunate to add three players that we feel can really help us. Luke Anderson gives us a little different dynamic, more so than really any other guy that we've had since we've been here. He's more of a stretch four who can really shoot the basketball. Obviously, he's a local player from Lakeland and we're thrilled that he joined us after coming back home from Iowa State. He did a really good job for us on the scout team in the second semester. His ability to stretch the floor and make shots as a forward is something that really intrigues us, and so we were really excited to have added him during the middle of the year.
 
"We were also fortunate to have added Prince Oduro this summer. We have a history with him because we've known about him for a while because he played at First Love Academy with David Collins. He went to Siena and was an All-MAAC player as a freshman but opted to transfer after Siena made a coaching change. He visited two schools that offseason – Mississippi State and South Florida. We did not get him at that point, but he went and sat out one year at Mississippi State and then played sparingly on a really good Mississippi State team. He decided to seek a new opportunity and our deep connection with Prince and David and their families played a big role in his decision to come to Tampa. He's a versatile power forward and he's in the best shape of his life, so we're excited about him.
 
"Russel Tchewa is an intriguing young man. He ended up in Italy at the end of his high school career and played there, but he is actually Cameroonian by nature. He then played one year at Putnam Science Academy, which is the same school that Alexis Yetna attended, so we had another good connection with Russel. I remember seeing him play at Putnam before he enrolled at Texas Tech and his presence alone speaks for itself. He played limited minutes on a nationally-ranked Texas Tech team and was looking for a new opportunity to play a little bit more. His recruitment was overwhelming in terms of the amount of interest he had from schools. He's seven feet tall and has three years of eligibility left, so you can imagine how many schools were interested in him. He's a very gifted young man that is still developing his overall game, but we're thrilled he chose to play at USF and we're excited to have him."
 
How did the matchup with LSU in the Holiday Hoopsgiving quadruple-header come to be?
"I think it's a testament to Coach Gregory and how he's built the program in a short amount of time. Our marching orders for scheduling after we got the program on stable ground following year one was that we wanted the opportunity to play in marquee events against marquee teams. That's how you get yourself better and prepare yourself for a terrific conference like The American. We also play in an exempt event every year, we played Georgetown in the championship game in Jamaica two years ago, and this past year we went down to the Cayman Islands and you play Loyola Chicago who was in the Final Four a few years ago, and you play New Mexico State and Nebraska. We're not shying away from playing anybody. They are really modeling the event in Atlanta like an NCAA Tournament site where you play four games in one day. It also gives our kids from Atlanta and other parts of Georgia a chance to go back home."