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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

January 10, 2011

Leonard Hamilton

THE MODERATOR: We have with us now Florida State head basketball coach Leonard Hamilton. Coach, if you could, a few comments about your team, then we'll open it up for questions.
COACH HAMILTON: We had a very tough outing at Virginia Tech this weekend where I feel we didn't do a very good job defensively against Allen. We turned the ball over quite a bit, just didn't execute and play against a team that seemed to be very, very hungry.
In order for us to be successful against a team playing as well as Duke, we're going to have to play at our very best or better than we did against Virginia Tech in order to put us in a position to win.
Duke seems to be playing exceptionally well. We will have to match their execution and their energy.
THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions.

Q. Coach, an update on Gibson's hand and Ian Miller, how close are they to being back?
COACH HAMILTON: As it relates to Gibson, he has a broken hand, a couple of injuries on his knee, one a partially torn meniscus and I think he may have an anterior cruciate ligament. Neither one of those it appears is going to require surgery. We're going through a process of another week or so before we give him another examination to see exactly where he is.
Ian, we'll know a little bit more about him in another week or so to see whether or not he's going to be able to play. That's kind of where we are with those two. When there's something to announce, we will do so.

Q. How does that impact what you're trying to do?
COACH HAMILTON: Well, obviously with Miller being such a great shooter, we haven't been shooting the ball very well, but anytime you lose a junior that's paid his dues, learned, we thought this was going to be a good year for him, because he's our most experienced guy coming back. Really with Bernard, Jon, Terrance, those guys are limited in experience to that point. We kind of wanted him to be in there to set the example.
We played Chris more than we have in the past because we need experience back in that area. But those things are just things we have to overcome. We all go through those periods as coaches in the team where you have to make adjustments. Hopefully our guys will pick up the pace and adjust a little better than we have the last couple games.

Q. You've played against Jeff Allen for four years. What made him particularly effective in the game against you?
COACH HAMILTON: Well, we lost two real experienced, high-energy, committed defenders. Ryan, each time he practiced or played, he kind of put on a defensive clinic. He was just that sound and took such great pride. I just feel as a team, our team, we have not replaced that energy and those techniques.
I thought what happened in the Virginia Tech game, I thought they were extremely patient, they knew exactly what they needed to do to come into the game, they kept the game at the pace they wanted it, and they moved him around. He has moved more on the perimeter in that game, he was more effective on the perimeter than he was in the past. He hit some jump shots and took us off the drill. I thought he played excellent.
I'm not real sure there's anything we did that we had not been doing other than I thought he played an exceptionally good game and we just didn't defend him nearly as well as we have in the past. Plus he wasn't in foul trouble. A couple times we played him, he's been in foul trouble. I thought late in the game he played a lot freer and with a lot more confidence because he wasn't strapped with some fouls that kept him from being aggressive.

Q. Did they surprise you at all by playing zone the entire game?
COACH HAMILTON: We anticipated they would play zone the entire game. We practiced against the zone all week. We have not been shooting the ball very well from the perimeter. So guys who have had pretty good field goal percentages in the past didn't get shots. We have not been consistent from the perimeter. Anytime you play against the zone defense, you're not knocking down a few jump shots, that gives a team confidence to stay in the zone. There was no reason for them to come out of the zone because they didn't feel we were knocking jump shots down, weren't getting the ball inside that well. I thought that was a great strategy for where we are right now.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for taking time being with us today.

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