Tyrese Samuel not satisfied after SEC Player of the Week honors

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Just six games into the season, Florida graduate transfer Tyrese Samuel has been recognized for his play. The senior forward was named SEC Player of the Week on Monday.

Samuel produced a pair of big performances to earn All-Tournament Team honors at the NIT Season Tip-Off in Brooklyn last week, including 20 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, three steals and three blocked shots in the win vs. Pitt. He became the first SEC player in more than seven years to post a 20/10/3/3/3 stat line.

Samuel met with the media on Tuesday to discuss Monday’s recognition, his start to the season, his transition from Seton Hall and more. Here is everything Samuel said during his availability.

Tyrese Samuel Q&A

On playing close to home in Brooklyn: 

Samuel: “It felt good. Kind of excited to go back, get a little feel for the cold weather.  Kind of woke me up a little bit. It was good. A lot of my friends and family came over there to come see me play. So, it was good, and it was good for our team. Obviously we didn’t get the one W, but I feel like we played good and there’s still a lot to improve on.”

On being named SEC Player of the Week:

Samuel: “Most definitely. I put in a lot of work this summer and it showed this weekend. But I can’t be satisfied. There’s still a lot more to be done. It’s only game 6 going into game 7, so hopefully there’s more to come. Hopefully I continue to play well. But it doesn’t really big up my head or anything.”

On his coast to coast transition dunk: 

Samuel: “It feels good. I feel like I was able to do those things in high school. I haven’t done it in college a lot, so I feel like it’s kind of a surprise to people. But a lot of people that really know my game know I was capable of doing things like that. So, to me it felt kind of normal, but letting everyone see that I’m able to do that, it felt good. It kind of caught them off guard, but I can do it again if that time comes.”

On Golden’s trust in him to handle the ball:

Samuel: “He gives us all the trust. He’s like, ‘If you’re open, take it. I know you can dribble, I know you can make plays.’ So, he puts a lot of trust in me doing those things.”

On the difference between UF and Seton Hall’s offense: 

Samuel: “I feel like in our offense the bigs always touch the ball, so you always got a feel for the ball. I think we play very fast and we have really unselfish guards. They always hit the open guy and they always make the right play. I don’t want to say this offense is a big man offense, but we’re like the focal point of it. We’re a big part of the offense, so I feel like that’s the main thing that really helps us.”

On shooting 94% from 2 in Brooklyn:

Samuel: “I didn’t even know that. I don’t think so. Not that I know of.”

On what was working for him:

Samuel: “I think it was just me taking my time and being patient, not trying to rush shots. Take the shots I know I can make and just be confident in the shots I’m taking.”

On having to play without Micah Handlogten:

Samuel: “It kind of hurt us. Having Micah in there, he’s a big part of our team, a good rim protector and rebounder, finishes a lot of second chance points for us. We practice hard and we work on like having small lineups and just like all of us working at different positions, so I think we were prepared for it. I think it showed. Hopefully, Micah will be back soon. I think he might practice today and we might have a gameday decision for tomorrow, but hopefully we get him back soon.”

On players sharing the ball more with Zyon Pullin in the lineup:

Samuel: “Most definitely. Zyon is a great player. I think you can see that we share the ball a lot. We score a lot of points. Against Baylor we scored 91 points. Even though we lost that’s a lot of points. Coming from the Big East a lot of games are like 60, 70 points, maybe even the 70-point range. So, just the fact we’re able to share the ball and score a lot of points, I think a lot of people get to see us making assists and just sharing the ball and just being like unselfish.”

On his appreciation for Riley Kugel’s defense on the perimeter:

Samuel: “Yeah, most definitely, because you don’t have to help as much. Like if he gets beat off the drive, I feel like I’m not really there to help as much because I feel like our guards are really very solid defensively.”

On facing Wake Forest, which has a couple of 6-10 guys:

Samuel: “We’re just going to go out there and do what we’re supposed to do. Like we emphasize rebounding, I don’t know if right now we’re still the No. 1 offensive rebounding team in the country. We just emphasize rebounding. We’re just going to go out there and play our game. You know, just get every rebound and second chance point. I feel like the game will go in our hands if we do those things.”

On the team rallying back multiple times against Baylor:

Samuel: “Coach Golden kind of just told us, it’s all right, it’s a game of runs. They’re going to go on a run, we’re going to go on a run. Don’t like sulk your head because the game could turn around in a minute. It can happen anytime. Just kind of like us staying together, staying connected, not worrying about them scoring because you’re going to score. The other team’s going to score, they’re going to make threes, they’re going to make big plays. At the end of the day it’s staying focused and doing the task at hand.”

On how important the passing in the front court has been:

Samuel: “It’s good. Having bigs that are able to pass and just kind of like make passes that bigs aren’t really trying to make helps our offense a lot. I think making those skip passes, those high-low passes, even those dime passes really help our offense, because it leaves teams like on an island having to guard one-on-one. I feel like it’s really important.”

On high-low passes being a focal point on offense:

Samuel: “Most definitely, we work on it every day. We emphasize it. High-low, high-low, high-low so today we’ll go into practice and probably work on some more high-low.”