It’s been a bit of a layoff, I know, but back just in time for the holidays is this week’s Sideline Report with Quintrell Thomas.[Editor’s note: I love that his initials are Q.T. Makes me think of Freezonis.]The Sideline Report with Quintrell ThomasJesse Newell: What’s your favorite Internet site?Quintrell Thomas: Facebook. JN: How long do you spend on there a day?QT: I don’t know. I just check every now and then. I’d probably say about maybe like an hour a day.JN: Is it addictive?QT: No, not really. It’s like throughout the day. I’ll go on five minutes here, 10 minutes there. Something like that.JN: You said in the media guide that your favorite player is Amare Stoudemire. What do you like about him?QT: He can shoot. He dunks on everybody. JN: If you were playing a one-on-one game, who would win?QT: I don’t know. I think it would be close, because I would just foul him. (laughs)JN: Cole Aldrich has duct tape on his apartment wall. What is different about your apartment?http://worldonline.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/blogs/entry_img/2008/Dec/18/cole_.jpgQT: Me and Tyshawn (Taylor) don’t really do anything with our apartment. We just come in, and when we’re there, we sleep or watch TV. Other than getting together to clean up or something, we don’t get together to do anything. JN: Do you have cleaning parties then?QT: Eventually, if we start getting garbage around the dishes, we’re like, ‘Man, we’ve got to do something about this.’ Other than that, we ain’t gonna stand around, like, decorating. (smiles)http://worldonline.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/blogs/entry_img/2008/Dec/18/Dirty_dishes.jpgJN: Is he a messy guy then?QT: Nah. Pretty much, it’ll be little things like pizza boxes or like a garbage bag in somebody’s room. It’ll build up, and we’ll be like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got to get rid of it.’JN: Is pizza a frequent meal at the Quintrell/Tyshawn household?QT: For me, it kind of is a lot. When we have games, we get pizzas. Those (boxes) start building up.JN: Favorite pizza?QT: I get chicken, bacon and sausage.JN: From where?QT: Either Pizza Shuttle or Domino’s.JN: Pizza Shuttle. Nice choice.JN: Give me the story again about how you started in basketball.QT: When I came to junior high school, seventh grade year, everybody kept trying to make me join the basketball team. I didn’t really want to play. Then eighth grade year, everybody was like, ‘If you don’t play, you’re scared’ and all this. I just played to kind of prove them wrong or whatever. … Once I saw opportunity, I just kept going. I didn’t really like it much until after sophomore year when I got over horrible growing pains in my knees. After I got over that, and I could finally dunk and stuff my sophomore year, I started liking it a little more.JN: So when you started playing, you didn’t like basketball?QT: I didn’t really like it that much. It was just something I did in my spare time.JN: Who was teasing you?QT: People on the basketball team that was there. They would say, ‘If you don’t play, you’re scared.’ When I first came there seventh grade year, they had a real good team. After they lost everybody, they needed somebody else. They needed another big man or whatever. They just kept messing with me.JN: Was that a good decision for you then? Are you happy that happened?QT: Yeah, it wound up being the best decision.JN: The biggest difference between high school and college is …QT: I’d say the level of intensity (in college), it just never really goes down. It starts at one point and goes up and gets back to another point. In high school, it’s just like you run hard one play, you run hard get this block, run hard get this big dunk. Here, it’s just like you have to constantly be going as hard as you can.JN: What was your first impression of Lawrence?QT: When I first came here, I was like, ‘Man this is boring. There ain’t nobody outside.’ Just real boring. Once you get here and start getting used to it, there’s a lot to do if you want to.JN: Is it any colder than up in the northeast?QT: It’s hard to say. It’s just so inconsistent here. It’s like hot, then cold. You never know what to expect.JN: What was your first impression of coach Self?QT: When I first met him, I thought he was real young to be a coach. I thought he was real nice. JN: Anything else you remember about the first time you met him?QT: I just remember him being real, real nice. That’s all I can really remember. I was talking to my mother about him. I was like, ‘Man, he seems too nice to be a real person.’JN: Do you still feel that way then?QT: I mean, at times. At times. (smiles) Everybody has their ups and downs.JN: Do you have a funny coach Self story?http://worldonline.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/blogs/entry_img/2008/Dec/18/self.jpgQT: One time, after practice, he got mad at us, and he just, like, threw his glasses down and broke them. Somebody in practice was like, ‘Man, that’s a nice pair of glasses.’ (laughs)JN: What was your guys’ reaction when he did that?QT: At the time, everybody’s just like, ‘Man.’ But afterwards, everybody laughed about it. Once he finally calmed down, he talked to us and laughed about it, too.JN: So he was laughing about it afterwards?QT: Nothing here every really stays. You could get in a fight with him, and he’d be cool with you the next day.JN: What did you guys do to make him throw his glasses down?QT: I don’t even know. (laughs) I don’t remember. I guess it was just like a constant buildup. You just never really know. It’ll be some things that you miss, but he catches every little detail. So it’ll just be a constant buildup through our practice. I think that day, we kind of didn’t have the amount of energy we should have. JN: Is he a guy you constantly want to impress?QT: You’ve got to. You’ve got to make him happy if you want to play.JN: What did you know about Tyshawn in high school?http://worldonline.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/blogs/entry_img/2008/Dec/18/2151840771_74a96241a2.jpgQT: In high school, I knew that he could jump, and I knew he couldn’t shoot. (laughs) Here, he’s been proving me wrong a little bit. He can actually shoot.JN: Is that the scouting report you had of him when you guys played?QT: When we played them in high school, it was like, ‘Oh, he’s just athletic and he just can’t shoot.’ So you just let him shoot.JN: You still give him crap about that now?QT: Nah. I don’t mess with him no more.JN: Why? Could he beat you up?QT: Nah, I doubt that could happen. (laughs) Once we’re off the court, we don’t really want to talk about basketball no more. Once we’re off the court, it’s everything else.JN: When was the first time you heard a comparison of yourself to Darnell Jackson?http://worldonline.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/blogs/entry_img/2008/Dec/18/jax.jpgQT: As soon as I committed. There was like a game where we played on ESPN against a kid that was going to Baylor (Anthony Jones). After I played him, I think I dunked on him like five times. It was on ESPNU. Everybody saw it here. Right after that, everybody was like, ‘Oh, he plays like Darnell. He’s going to be, like, the next Darnell, but he’s further along.’ Stuff like that. JN: What do you think every time you hear that?QT: I just want to be the next me. I don’t want to be compared to anybody. It’s kind of annoying, but, I mean, Darnell is good.