Excitement in the Sundome

Toralyn Fitzpatrick

- “I’m excited for the season to start as we have a strong core coming back. Last year we set a high standard for our team, the first tourney appearance since 1991”.
- “We want everyone to know that last year wasn’t luck and USF is turning a corner and this team will continue to grow”.
- “We’re younger, and highly motivated to play in the Big East. We have a very athletic team…we are undersized, but we can get out and run…we’re extremely quick and aggressive on defense”.
- “I’m very excited for what CSH can inject into our team. We’re going to have a little bit different playing style than last season”.
- “Brock from South Alabama will make an impact for us season. As for our freshman: Javonte Hawkins and Zach LeDay will be great for us”.

Victor Rudd

- “We’re going be a lot smaller, but faster. We’ll still be just as good as we were last year defensively. I think we will score a lot more as well. The key is still defense first”.
- “I wanted to know what I needed to break through to the NBA as that’s my goal in life. I always knew I was going to come back…I just wanted to know exactly what I needed to improve on and use that for USF this season”.
- “You can tell this team has risen to a new level…in the weight room and during individual workouts. I was here when we won 10 games and it wasn’t pretty. We go harder now then ever before and the freshman had to learn quick and step their game up now”.
- “We want a lot more dancing in the future. When we won 10 games, the student body was like “these guys…” Now everyone says hello on campus and is excited to see us play in the new Sun Dome”.

Shaun Noriega

- “The new rules allow coach to work us out in the summer time so we’ve all been working hard for a while now. We look good”.
- “The fans have been really supportive and excited for the upcoming season. We will put on a show and entertain the crowd”.
- “If I want to stay on the floor I have to play defense. That is one of my weaknesses, but I’ve been working at it and hopefully it will allow me to keep my spot on the floor”.
- “We definitely don’t want to take a step back. We made strides forward last year and we want to keep building on that. We want to go further than we did last year and coach expects that out of us”.
- “We can use falling short last year as motivation to make the Sweet 16. We knew how close we were and how it felt…however, the excitement last pretty much the whole offseason”.