	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 31, 2011

Leonard Hamilton

THE MODERATOR: We have with us Florida State head basketball coach, Leonard Hamilton.
Coach, if you could make a few comments about your team and we'll open it for questions.
COACH HAMILTON: We have been playing much better as of late until we ran into a buzzsaw at Clemson, a Clemson basketball team that was extremely well prepared.
As soon as the game started they kind of set us back on our heels and we never seemed to recover from how aggressive they were and how well they executed their offense, and defensively, they really got up against us, and unlike any team that we played all year long, and we just didn't respond very well and that's to Clemson's credit.
Hopefully we'll learn from that and make the necessary adjustments as we move into a game on Tuesday against a team that like Clemson, Wake Forest, with their first ACC victory this year, they seem like they are playing with an extreme amount of confidence. Played with an extreme amount of confidence against Virginia and seemed like they have found themselves so we realize now we have to be exceptionally wary and concerned about them.

Q. The team never did find its groove against Clemson, can you provide an explanation for the poor shooting and turnovers in that game?
COACH HAMILTON: We did a very good job defending everything that we did. They got up and they were much more physical than they were, and that has not really happened to us in a long time that people have been much more aggressive and physical with us than we were. They created a lot of indecisions, trapping us and physical inside. We never really responded the way we have in the past as to Clemson's strategy.

Q. Singleton and Kitchen having a bad game, didn't perform as well, how much does their leadership and performance really matter to this team?
COACH HAMILTON: I think that's the case with most teams; when your top two players don't play well, it's hard to have a great game and they are going to have games where they don't have great games. It's hard to be as good as you normally are when you don't have that input. Sometimes you need other players to step up in this game. We didn't have anyone else step up.
And Clemson -- I'm not real sure that I need to be overly concerned, but I don't think it was necessarily our lack of, other than Clemson just played an exceptionally well-prepared game and they did a very good job. Sometimes when you lose to people, it's always easy to complain about what you did, but sometimes you just give credit to the other team for just doing a very good job and their preparation.

Q. I was wondering, about halfway through the year, anything in the league or about the league that has surprised you so far?
COACH HAMILTON: I really think that you will not be able to see where things are going in our league this year until about the halfway point. I think we've got another week or two before things start sorting themselves out, people who are finding themselves, people who are getting in the groove with their execution. We have teams now that are learning more and more about themselves. And we have been a little inconsistent from our standpoint.
So I'm still searching. We have four inexperienced guys on the back line that we are trying to work in and we lost Ian for a while and we lost Xavier, one of our best inside guys.
So we still kind of are in transition, but I see teams now getting into a little groove; got three new coaches and their kids are adjusting. We lost a lot of players in the league and now the team seems to be finding themselves and I don't think -- you'll see it's going to be a real doing fight down the stretch and teams that play close to their potential and cut down on their turnovers and stick with their game plan, I think you're going to see teams separating themselves. But I think we are a few weeks away from seeing that happen.

Q. What do you see as the keys for your team to have a good second half of the ACC season?
COACH HAMILTON: Well, I think we have got to obviously get the ball inside a lot more. Bernard James is shooting 71 percent from the floor and Jon Kreft has not played in a while and he has to get in a groove. Hopefully we'll get Xavier back before too long and get him back in the mix.
I think we have to move the ball a lot better on the offensive end. I think we have been a little lethargic in our ball screens and our cuts and our screens. I think we have to do a much better job with our penetrating and pitching and getting our post touches.
We have stressed the last four or fives games, we have only turned the ball over 12, 13, 14 times, which is good for us because we were averaging about 17 earlier. But I think we just have to get into a better offensive flow, and I think that will make a big difference.
Defensively, we have been fairly good, not as good as I think we are capable of becoming. But I do believe that offensively is where we have got to make the biggest jump, just with our execution, and playing to each other and creating opportunities for each other.

Q. Can you just talk about Wake is obviously a team that's been struggling. How do you go about making sure your team stays motivated for a game like this and doesn't look past it? Coming off a win kind of grabs everybody's attention a little bit.
COACH HAMILTON: I have to say that we might have had a little bit of -- we definitely started feeling probably too good about ourselves prior to the Clemson game, but I think Clemson definitely snapped our heads back into perspective.
It seems as though Wake Forest is starting to find their groove. They played well against Duke for a long period of the game, actually, and were ahead there and played them even probably for a little over half of the game. And then they played very steady the entire game against Virginia and played with a lot of confidence down the stretch, made some big baskets and are playing with a lot more confidence now. They are hungry for a victory.
I don't think there's any shot that we are going to be complacent after, the way we had our head handed to us, Clemson, that's not something I'm overly concerned about. We just want to come back and make sure we play with a lot of confidence and execute what we have in our game plan and hopefully that will be enough to win the basketball game.

Q. And with the new coach, can you talk about the changes you've seen from facing Wake in previous years?
COACH HAMILTON: They have the leading blocker in the league, they now are executing their system flawlessly, and the players are playing with a lot of confidence. I think mentally and emotionally, they seem hungry and they are playing to each other, and just really, really giving everything they have every possession. They are playing with four perimeter players which sometimes can be somewhat of a challenge.
We have been going with a bigger lineup and so that creates now another challenge for us that now we are defending four guys penetrating and attacking the basket and shooting threes. So we have to make an adjustment in how we normally defend people, because we have been big defending power-type players, and this team, they will spread and you have a couple big guys that throw the ball inside; so basically, they play from the perimeter and it's going to be a big adjustment.
And for us, I think the coach has taken the team that he has and has created a system that works for the talent that they have. We just have just got to make sure we make the necessary adjustments offensively and defensively to prepare against a team like this.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks for taking time for being with us today and we'll hear from you again the same time next week.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297