Q: What is your goal for the rest of the season?

A: Just get better and make sure to come out and play hard. The minutes I’m out there I want to rebound better and always block out and play defense.

Q: How did you get so ‘Diesel’ in the off-season?

A: I’m still not ‘Diesel,’ I just ate everything in sight in combination with working hard with my strength coach; you have to become dedicated to it.

Q: If you were stranded on a deserted island with one coach who would it be?

A: Jimmy Price, my strength coach, because we would find a way to survive. He would knock down some trees for me and we would find a way to get off the island, and when we did I would have an awesome, sexy body.

Q: What is your favorite Big Ten road trip?

A: Is there one? I don’t have one. I like to visit my guys there and my teammates are there, but I don’t like playing at other courts. I like the Hall.

Q: What got you to come to Illinois?

A: I actually liked the Texas connection. With Deron (Williams) and Kyle (Wilson), Jack (Ingram) was from Texas. I just liked the pipeline.

Q: What do you have to work on for next year?

A: I got to get my legs stronger and just get better defensively and rebounding. Everyone knows those are my weaknesses, I can score and do offensive things, but I have to get better defensively.

Q: What is in Illinois’ favor come tourney time?

A: Athleticism, we have a whole lot of athleticism and we also have great fans that support us wherever we go.

Q: What are you going to miss most about James Augustine next year?

A: He is hilarious, he has become my best friend. He is such a great guy, I love going out with him, I love hanging out with him and I am really going to miss having him around. We are so similar and we have so many things that are alike, and I’m just going to miss that he won’t be there everyday.

Q: Do you have any tattoos?

A: Nah, I’m getting one soon though. I’m getting a cross with a basketball on my chest, underneath I have a quote picked out that means a lot.

Q: Do you have a reoccurring dream?

A: Not really, I have a lot of basketball dreams I guess because I do that all the time. And I play Halo a lot so I have Halo dreams, besides those two things I’m good. I’ll be running around and shooting, I’ll have a dream that somebody is trying to throw a grenade or shoot at me and I’ll have to get out of the way. Lately, I’ve been getting good though so I’ve been doing the shooting.

Q: Who are the most influential people for you?

A: I have a lot actually, my coaching staff and my teammates are the people that play the biggest part of my life right now.

Q: What would you change about the Illinois program?

A: I actually like this program a lot, we have a lot going on for us. Sometimes I think we might be a little too spoiled, no complaints from me -ÿoh, a bigger weight room. I like the Huff weight room better.

Q: Who talks the most trash?

A: Penn State talked a lot of trash, they talk the most by far. Marco Killingsworth talks a lot of trash too, but he talks trash like Dee does, it’s all fun with him. Penn State was bad, they were saying we shouldn’t be ranked.

Q: If you could dunk on any person who would it be?

A: I would love to dunk on George Muresan, he is huge and goofy. I don’t think he could really jump that much so dunking on him would be funny.

Q: Who is the worst dancer on the team?

A: We don’t have any good dancers, all of us are pretty bad, but we think we’re good. So we just dance around and bounce around doing something stupid, we think we are good though.