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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

January 3, 2011

Gary Williams

THE MODERATOR: We have with us now Maryland head basketball coach Gary Williams. Coach, if you could, a few comments about your team and then we'll open it up for questions.
COACH WILLIAMS: We've had a great chance to practice quite a bit the last week or so. With the 16 players that we have, I think that was important after playing the games that we did play early on in our schedule, we learned some things playing against Illinois, Pittsburgh, Boston College, things about ourselves. Hopefully we've been able to take that and get better as we've been going along.
We have Colgate coming up that got their first win yesterday. There's a team that has the size that will make us compete on the glass and things like that. Hopefully it will get us ready because we have a very tough stretch coming up on our schedule after the Colgate game. We're looking forward to playing that.
Like everybody else, you have to get ready to play your next game, and that is Colgate for us.
THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions.

Q. You've had a couple freshmen who are making an impact with you, Stoglin and Howard. I wonder what you think of their progress so far. Is there a chance as you begin to get into the ACC schedule they might earn even more playing time, possibly starting?
COACH WILLIAMS: Stoglin started last game for us. He did a good job. He's a very effective scorer at the point guard position. He does a good job in finding shots for the other players and for himself.
I've had some point guards in the past that could do that. As a freshman, I think the toughest thing for Terrell to understand is how hard you have to play each day in practice getting ready for games. You have to really prepare yourself well. I think a lot of times kids come in from a situation where they were dominant players and sometimes that's the toughest thing to get in the habit of playing hard every day in practice.
Terrell is a good guy and he's really working at it. Hopefully he continues to improve.

Q. He gives you obviously a different kind of look than Vasquez did for so long. How is he his own kind of point guard?
COACH WILLIAMS: Well, Vasquez was 6'6", incredible in his ability to penetrate, make the right play, either shoot the ball or give the ball to the right player. We also had players he could hand the ball to. He knew basically where they were going to be. We're not that type of team this year. We don't have that kind of experience in the back court. That's the process.
You have to get better with the guys you have. Pe'Shon Howard, Terrell Stoglin have certainly added to it. But Cliff Tucker and Adrian Bowie, Sean Mosley, guys like that, now that we're coming into the ACC season full-time, they're the guys you expect to give you the leadership in these games coming up for us.

Q. I was wondering if you could update me on Jordan Williams and the progress he's made. Obviously had a good rookie year. Seems like he's built on that this year. What do you like about what he's done?
COACH WILLIAMS: Well, he's continued to work. In other words, he wasn't satisfied with his success his freshman year. He's tried to make himself better. He's a better athlete this year. He's in better shape. He's more muscular. His vertical leap is better. He's done all those things.
He's starting to see where he can get his shot more not just like a power move to the glass, but drifting around a little bit when somebody drives looking for the ball.
The thing that Jordan impressed me with in high school was his ability to catch the basketball. Anytime you have an inside player that has good hands, that can overcome some things that might not be there right away. Jordan has always been able to catch the ball. That was important for him last year playing with Vasquez because the ball would come in there moving pretty quick, yet he could catch and finish.
This year we're asking him to do more things. He's responded well. He's been a consistent rebounder for us.

Q. Big picture question. I think it's been five weeks where the ACC has had one ranked team, rip ratings are lower than they've been in a long time. Is it a sign there's been a dip in the league?
COACH WILLIAMS: As far as a dip in the league goes, I think nowadays in college basketball, things are said all year around about this team is going to be good, this league is going to be good, which is a change.
I think going into the league this year, a team like ourselves is young, there's three new coaches in the league, there's been a lot of changes in the ACC.
I think there's teams playing at the top-25 level right now that aren't getting the credit for doing that. What happens is this opinion is formed. You always hear the Big Ten is the best league in the country. That always comes out every year somewhere along the line. The Big East has had a great start to their season. You can't question in what they've done winning the big tournaments pre-season. We'll see how it all comes out.
I think Boston College quietly goes down and beats South Carolina in South Carolina by 15 in the Southeastern Conference. Sometimes you have to balance. When you criticize a league, you also have to give a league credit when they get good wins.
A team like Carolina is playing at a high level, Florida State has proven that they can play, and Miami has some good wins already, things like that. Virginia Tech is just starting to come back with their injuries.
The problem is when you get into conference play, you might not get the chance to show that you are better with a lot of teams in your league because you're not playing outside anymore, and that becomes the problem. Nowadays, there's big publicity campaigns by some conferences. We have to make sure that we're touting our own horn as much as possible, and realistic, not just throwing things out there, but being realistic about the positive things we do as a league.

Q. In terms of whether you can be a contender in the ACC, be one of the top teams, what have you learned about your team that makes you think maybe you can?
COACH WILLIAMS: Well, we've played good teams tough. In other words, I think we lost by three to Illinois, played Pittsburgh tough very early, lost by a couple to Boston College, things like that. It's been disappointing. We haven't shot good free throws. We've been a very poor free-throw shooting team after being a good free-throw shooting team. I don't think we missed one that mattered last year. On the other hand, we've lost some games because of our free-throw shooting this year.
That's a touchy subject. You try to get better, repetitions. Hopefully we've gained the confidence in and out that I think goes along with free throw shooting in a lot of instances. That's one area.
We've been trying to become a better rebounding team besides Jordan Williams, to get other guys in there and battle because it's difficult to have one guy as your main rebounder all the time without getting the support from other people. And we haven't been a great perimeter shooting team. We've been working hard at that. But I think we're getting better.
That's the key thing. You just want to keep improving as the year goes on. I think we have some guys that are ready to step it up and we're looking forward to January and February.

Q. I'm wondering if you could characterize at this stage in the season, with the conference play beginning in earnest this week, what is your sort of confidence level that you understand what your team is going to do, that you sort of know their tendencies, know what you're going to get out of them each night compared to previous years? Is that a new challenge to this year?
COACH WILLIAMS: Well, it is a challenge this year in terms of not knowing your personnel as well as you did going into last year. But we had to come back from some tough things early in the year last year and we were able to do that. That's what I'm banking on for this year. We have six returning players that were part of that last year. Hopefully they can carry the young guys as we get started here.
We've already proven that we can play with some teams. We haven't proven we can beat them yet. That's a big difference. That's our goal. We want to win some big games this year and see where we can get to in January and February.
I've always felt whatever you do in October, November, December for the most part, there is important games now, especially nowadays in college basketball, but it's what you do in January and February that really counts as you go towards the end of the year. So hopefully we can be that team that's good this time of year.

Q. Back to Jordan. I was wondering where you've seen the biggest improvement in him, physical conditioning or knowledge of the game?
COACH WILLIAMS: His physical condition is definitely a factor. But I think having played last year and achieving some success, if you're a good player, you realize you want to do things better, you want to be more aggressive, more dominant. I think that's been his goal as much as anything.
His success from last year he used properly. In other words, he used that to motivate him to be a better player this year. Instead of just saying, I'm really good because I had good freshman year, he didn't do that. He's trying to be the best player he can be.
He still has a topside. In other words, there's still things he can get better at. As he plays more and has success. I think those things can continue.

Q. I know you don't like to talk about this per se. But Jordan is so good at getting to the free-throw line. What kind of things can you do to help him succeed there more often?
COACH WILLIAMS: Everything I've learned in 43 years of coaching. You try all different things. Free-throw shooting is like place kicking in football or penalty kicks in soccer, putting in golf: it's one of those things that is unique in terms of the way the rest of the game is played. You try to get into a mindset where you're very confident about your whole setup, procedure and shot.
Jordan hasn't been able to do that. At times he shoots very well. He's got a good-looking stroke. The ball has to go into the basket. Once he starts making them, I think it's going to happen. We'll see how that goes.

Q. What is the time able on Ashton Pankey?
COACH WILLIAMS: He's being operated on this week. So he'll be out all this year. He needs another operation in the same area. But the operation this time they feel will be very successful because there's a different procedure going on. Ashton can help us next year. Hopefully he'll be able to get a medical redshirt since I think he played only two minutes in one game. That way he still has his four years to play. So this is really in the best interest of Ashton. Both he and his mom really want this to happen. Hopefully things will go really well for Ashton.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for taking time being with us today. Good luck tomorrow night.

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