J. D. JACKSON, Head Coach

Coach, tell us about your team's roster for the next Euroleague season, what changes you made and what improvements you expect to gain from those decisions?
"We have a new coach obviously, and we tried to make a team with more Euroleague experience, and some players with a name in the competition that can compete here like David Bluthenthal, who has a high level and we hope he can pick us up in some games and raise our level to make us win some games. We still have Alain Koffi, a strong forward. We also have J.P. Batista who played with Rytas and also has experience, so we have a great group of players in their prime, from 25 to 28 years old. I think we can surprise a lot of people this year."
How much can you learn from the preseason about your team? What signs do you look for now that will help when the Euroleague starts?
"It is still early as most teams are still only doing physical work and we just got a couple of players healthy ourselves, so it's still early. There are close games and it's good that we show we can win in the last quarter, which was a problem for us last year especially in the Euroleague. The pressure in defensive situations is something we hope we can improve on. Our team is very motivated and positive in the group, which is a positive thing for me. We will try to play fast and take advantage of our organization. This is something that French teams need to do, because we play against stronger teams with deeper rotations."
Now that all the other teams have mostly completed their rosters, how does the competition in the Euroleague this season look like to you?
"It's pretty impressive when you watch the names that are coming into the teams. A lot of rosters are very deep with a lot of talent and there are also a lot of European players who are coming back to the Euroleague. I think that is a very interesting thing for this competition and for European basketball. From our perspective, tha fact that the regular season is down to 10 games it gives us a bigger chance to surprise by winning some games and qualifying to the Top 16. Once these big, strong teams start to play together and better it is harder for smaller teams to compete after 6 or 8 games, so I am pretty positive. I think we can give some surprises with speed and organization."
What are your goals going into the new Euroleague season?
"We have to surpass expectations. We have to not put a condition on our team. We have some guys who have Top 16 experience and our goal has to be simply to make better than last year. How far are we going to be able to take that, one can only guess. But we are surely motivated to do it."