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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

January 24, 2011

Steve Donahue

THE MODERATOR: We have with us Boston head college coach, Steve Donahue.
Coach, if you could, a few comments about your team and we'll open it up for questions.
COACH DONAHUE: Won a very hard-fought game versus Virginia. I thought both teams played very well and then we went down to Florida State and played I thought a tough, hard-nosed game for the most part. Didn't play extremely well necessarily, but I think Florida State had a lot to do with that.
Unfortunately came out with a loss, and now we are looking forward to next week at Duke.

Q. Coach Krzyzewski had a couple nice things to say about you. Have you ever crossed paths with him in the past and had a chance to have a discussion with him at length?
COACH DONAHUE: I don't know at length or anything like that. I've been in his cop a few times, a mutual friend, a guy named Gary Munson, who is a big Cornell alum and very involved with Coaches Versus Cancer, got me close to Mike a few times and we played them there a couple of years ago when I was at Cornell, as well.
And then just obviously like everybody else I'll try to learn everything I could off of a guy like that. That's probably me more listening than speaking but I always appreciated everything he had to say and obviously respect what he's doing at Duke once again this year.

Q. One of the legendary arenas in college basketball, I'm assuming you're biased toward the Palestra with your Philly roots, but can you tell me what are the favorite arenas you've coached in, most intimidating arenas?
COACH DONAHUE: Obviously this one is a great college venue, and I agree with you, the Palestra has such great magic as well with the sight lines and the fans being so close. It feels like a gym.
The thing that's funny about people that know these arenas, very few at the higher levels that have this; Allen Fieldhouse last year when we played Kansas I thought had the same type of vibe. You'll get a lot more tougher gyms to play at at lower levels, even in the Ivy League, a place like Yale sits around 2,500 and they are on top of you. And it's loud. There's no good acoustics. A lot of these arenas are so nice at this level that even if the crowd is loud, you have space and you have good acoustics and you have video boards to take your attention away from fans.
Sometimes at the Ivy and Patriot League level, you have arenas, people that know everything about you and they are screaming at you and you hear every little word you say and they can be just as intimidating if not more intimidating than some of these big arenas.

Q. With what are you doing at BC, one of the big things when the coaching search was going on was somebody that could get some excitement. Anything in particular you guys are doing to get more fans?
COACH DONAHUE: I think that going forward that is an objective for our administration and basketball program. We have done a very good job with our kids out selling season tickets, we pick a day there and we had a real good kind of like midnight madness thing with ice hockey, as well. And we are constantly coming up with other ideas that the marketing people have done, and we are looking forward to our home games going forward here.
Unfortunately two games in the league that we had no students in session, so that made it difficult. We are doing everything we can to make Boston College a great home-court advantage for us and this league, everybody has a great place and it's well supported and if you don't do that, I think you're really missing the boat.

Q. Could you talk about Reggie, he's No. 2 in the Conference in scoring, No. 2 in the Conference in assists. I guess Nolan Smith is doing it at that level, too, but you don't find too many guys who can do both.
COACH DONAHUE: Yeah, and I have spoken on this quite a bit, and as we go forward here, the thing I would say is Reggie has got to continue to be very intelligent and judicious about his decision making.
I think teams are really geared to stop him from scoring, which is fine. I think what we need, everybody on this team to do, is to share the basketball and play within what we try to design for our system offensively.
But the amazing thing about Reggie has been his IQ for the game. I think he has a great feel for the game. He does obviously so many things incredibly athletically, but the thing that amazes me, you look at the high percentage of things, and this is not against anybody else in the league but no one is playing as efficient as him.
His shooting percentage from two, from three, his assisted turnovers for a kid who has to get 19 a game is pretty incredible. I don't know if anybody is doing like that in the country. That's the most amazing thing to me, not that he's just scoring points and making assists, but how efficient he is in categories that really matter to me, his shooting percentage and assisted turnover.

Q. What do you do with him defensively? How much is he on the ball?
COACH DONAHUE: Well, one of the things we have tried to do this year is try to figure out what is best for this team defensively. There is no mistakes that it's our Achilles heel and at times I thought we played well and I thought we did a very good job the first half of Florida State and did not do a good job in the second half. Maybe that has to do more with getting worn down in second halves of games. Reggie, if there's anything I can ask him to do more is be more active off the ball. He can create turnovers for his teammates by getting into passing lanes and he can defensive rebound for us.
I think those things, we are asking him to do so much but there are other ways he can help us win basketball games. He's a terrific defender. What unfortunately happens, we played him 38, 39 minutes a game, he's handle the ball and we work hard on offense, as well. Unfortunately we don't see all they can do on defense.

Q. Wanted to talk about Kyle, he doesn't lead the team in scoring percentage or rebounding, but Coach mentions all the things he does. When you prepare for Duke, what do you look for from him to try to keep him under control?
COACH DONAHUE: I think the thing that is so impressive about Kyle is how hard he plays, and you watch the things he does away from the basketball defensively; and getting in the passing lanes and going to rebound.
And he plays all of these minutes. I saw to our guys, I think we get tired late in games, and then I watch that kid, the energy that he plays with from rim to rim. It's kind of easy for a guard to play 40 minutes and not miss a step because you basically don't foul at the foul line.
But when you add the physicality that Kyle plays with and all of the things that he tries to do defensively, it's pretty incredible. That's the thing that amazes me, his motor is just a notch above everybody else, so on the court, you add to that that obviously is extremely talented in so many aspects of the game as well. It's a heck of a combination.

Q. As if there were not enough things to worry about, when you play Duke, Ryan Kelly has emerged in the last couple of games, just wondered what you saw in the way that he's playing lately that's going to create an additional problem.
COACH DONAHUE: I got to know Ryan, I was a USA assistant coach on the Under 18 Team and I got to know him and he's just a terrific kid. And probably a little more surprised that he's taken this long, but that should be expected when you go to a program like Duke to step in and try to help them.
But now you can see the level of confidence that he's playing with, and he's found his role, and his ability to stretch the defense. He's just another really good basketball player that's making shots. And when you go against a kid like that and he's playing the four, it just makes your offense so much better and I think that's what you're seeing over the last couple of games.
You can't make a mistake, you start worrying about Smith and Singler and then this kid -- I know it; he's as good a basketball player as there is in the league and now he's playing with that kind of confidence that, you know, I'm not surprised.

Q. He's 6-for-6 in his last three-point attempts, even for a man his size; that a bit unusual?
COACH DONAHUE: I think so. He's always played that way. I've never seen him play since he was a sophomore in high school. I'm not surprised. I think one thing is if you can step out and make that shot as a 6-10 or 6-11 kid as he is, but the way he does it, he almost steps into it like a guard. He swings a ball like a guard. Against bigger guys, they are just not used to that.
It's not just that he can make that shot. It's his preparation. It's almost like a 6-5 kid stepping into it. Gets off quick and if you fly at him, he can put it on the floor and find somebody else. I think those are the impressive things for a kid that size.
And as he gets more seasoned and gets a little stronger, I think you'll see another one of their great players developing.

End of FastScripts

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