	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

January 17, 2011

Leonard Hamilton

THE MODERATOR: We have with us Florida State Head Coach Leonard Hamilton. Coach, if you could, a few comments about your team.
COACH HAMILTON: Seems as though our team is developing a little synergy, and they're kind of learning a little bit more how to play together. We seem to be finding different ways to take advantage of our skills and our talents. They've been a lot more attentive the last seven, eight days than they were coming out of the break.
And hopefully we can see this developing into a little more of a consistent rhythm. We go on the road, play against a very good Miami team this week. We will know a little bit more about ourselves when we come out of that trip.
THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. How did you keep your teams focused going into the NCAA game after knocking off the No. 1 ranked Duke team?
COACH HAMILTON: We've been kind of up and down all year because we do have four or five inexperienced players on our team that we are constantly trying just to get everyone in sync. So we've been somewhat inconsistent.
We kind of hit rock bottom when we lost at Auburn and we lost to a very good Virginia Tech team on the road.
I think it actually brought us closer together. And they had a lot of player meetings and players-only meetings. And just kind of trying to sort things out, because we felt we had potential but we just couldn't get all on the same page with our consistency.
And I thought those two losses brought us closer together. So even though we were successful with Duke, which is obviously a successful basketball team, we remember what happened the week before and we didn't have any problem at all with them staying focused.
They were eager to learn. Extremely attentive. Holding each other accountable. And really wanted to get that bad taste out of our mouth.

Q. And anything in particular that you guys are doing to prepare for Miami this week?
COACH HAMILTON: Well, obviously we took the day off yesterday and coach's staff has been preparing and watching film. Today will be our first day of practice. We really don't change that much in our preparation. We have kind of a routine we go through. What we're trying to do now is identifying what has worked so well from Miami.
And I think they're an improved basketball team over last year. Coach Hayes is doing a great job with his team and they present some problems for us and we've had some difficulties against zone defense, and part of their defensive scheme is to play some zone defense. So we need to make sure we're prepared to attack that and they play a very good man-to-man as well. So they're a little more versatile. They'll make changes, and we have to be prepared to make sure we adjust to their changing style of defense.

Q. Leonard, would you talk a minute about the success you've had against Tracy Smith in the first half?
COACH HAMILTON: Once again, we normally don't change our defensive system very much from one game to the other. But we do have a tremendous amount of respect for Tracy, because we've watched him just kind of like destroy people in the low block.
So we gave him attention, a little more attention to detail and worked a little harder. But the first half -- the first half they didn't go to him as much, but once they start cross-screening and making more of an effort to get the ball in the second half, we never really stopped him.
We made him work hard for what he got. But he kind of had his way with us in the second half. And I'm just glad that he didn't get those touches in the first.

Q. You mentioned your team learning to play together. What role does Derwin Kitchen play in all that?
COACH HAMILTON: Derwin has been kind of in transition. He came to us more as an off guard and had to learn how to play the point guard and learn how to distribute the ball and be a team leader on the floor.
And I think he's always been a little conflict with his role. There have been times when he's asserted himself and given us a lot of offensive productivity. There's been times when he's tried to be a distributor.
So we're asking him now to be a little more assertive and still distribute the ball. But I think he's a little bit in transition. But he's matured to the point now where he gets into the flow of the game. He figures out what we need him to do and he adjusts.
We need him to be more aggressive offensively because maybe it's bogged down some other areas he's stepping up. When he sees the offense flowing and we're getting offense in other places, he's unselfish enough and content to be the guy who runs the team and get us into our system.
He's now putting himself in a position where he's understanding what we need from him in terms of the flow of the game, and he's stepping up and giving it to us.

Q. I understand that some of the other players on the team actually asked him to look to score more.
COACH HAMILTON: Well, he's a very good scorer. When he's aggressive, he creates opportunities for us. And there are times when he does take a back seat and our players are just telling him to be a little more aggressive because they realize the talent that he has, and we need that while we're trying to grow as a team.
We have some inexperienced players that are playing in with some experienced guys, and we need sometimes for those experienced guys to step up and be a little bit more of -- much more aggressive while the other guys are adjusting to the ACC style and as well as a new system.

Q. One other thing, he's the leading rebounder among the guards in the ACC. And how does that help you, especially when he can get a defensive rebound and start the break himself?
COACH HAMILTON: Well, he has a knack just to kind of being in the right place at the right time, even though he's defending perimeter guys, he always seems to rotate to where he thinks the ball's going to be in.
A lot of times he's defending the other team's point guard. And most of the time the other team's point guard is getting back on defense, in defensive transition, which gives himself sometimes a little more freedom to go to the offensive board.
And he likes that. And he has a knack for it. And instinctively he's been able to get in there and get us some key rebounds, and like you said get the break started because he's the point guard, and most of the time he's pushing the ball.

Q. I was just wondering, you just beat both NC State and Duke. They're playing each other Wednesday. Can you kind of assess them going against each other?
COACH HAMILTON: Well, I'm not real sure it varies regardless of whether it's Duke and North Carolina State or North Carolina and North Carolina State and Duke and Wake Forest. Or Virginia Tech or Carolina or vice versa. Each time you play an ACC game, it takes on such added importance for both teams that you can expect a very hard-fought, well-executed emotionally charged game.
When you look back over the last couple of years, there have been so many what I call ACC blowouts, with five points or less, that happen because of just the size of the league, the intensity of the rivals, the quality of the coaches, the outstanding preparation that each team puts into preparing for each game.
And I expect that North Carolina State and Duke game to be typical ACC game. I'm sure Duke's wanting to continue the success that they're having. North Carolina State lost to us on the road, and I'm sure they're going to want to redeem themselves, and I expect that to be another one of those games where you're not going to be able -- you can't predict what's going to happen other than it's going to be a hard-fought game.
Most teams are well prepared and it's going to be an emotionally charged game with the home fan being -- home fans being the sixth man in the stands which creates that great ACC atmosphere that you get whenever you play an ACC game.

Q. Given the perception that the league is down a little bit this year, how tough is that going to be to change and improve the image, just given that maybe outside of Duke most of the league games will involve two unranked teams trying to play each other?
COACH HAMILTON: I think that's something that we're just going to have to -- it's not going to happen all in one year. It seems as though the ACC has dominated for so long, kind of like the Yankees back in the days, that people have a tendency to love to put down -- our league is not down any more than it ever has been.
And rightfully so, Duke and Carolina have been the flagship teams in our league for years. And they've earned the right to be there. And a lot of us are striving to try to get to where these two perennial powers have been.
So nationally people automatically think that if those teams are not one and two, or the top five in the country that maybe something's wrong.
But they don't realize when you look back at last year with Duke and the year that Carolina won the national title, there were a lot of hard-fought games they participated in in our conference.
And are probably a lot tougher than the games they played once they got into the NCAA Tournament. That's just something that has evolved over a period of time. But that will change.
Once the other teams in the league that are quality teams continue going to the NCAA Tournament and do well and people -- it won't change over night. And because a lot of the people who vote and are speaking, some people call them the people who are out making those comments, most of the time they don't see everybody play.
I mean, even the people who vote in the UP -- the Associated Press and the coaches poll, they don't really see all of those teams. So it's kind of a thing that we've gotten into in college basketball that people like to read the polls and see where people are.
But you just gotta keep playing and keep working at it. And it will all balance itself out over a period of time.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297