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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 7, 2011

Jeff Bzdelik

Q. I wanted to ask you a general question, if I could, without getting in the specifics of any of the things that are going on in the league right now. Is there a delicate balance you have to sometimes work with dealing with kids and their parents and their parents' demands and expectations? Have you ever had any problems with that? Any tough issues you've had to deal with that way?
COACH BZDELIK: That's a loaded question. I haven't from the standpoint that I don't deal with parents unless there is a specific problem in terms of how we can all help a young man, and the parents are willing to work in a positive way to help a young man deal with growing up in all aspects of his life.
But as far as basketball is concerned, no. It's between the player and myself. I know that there are a lot of challenges out there encountering young people with many different facets in their ear from a variety of people. But those players who trust a coach and those players who buy into what one person is saying, and that is the coach, the ultimately they're the ones that succeed.

Q. I'm wondering if you could talk about Carson's development. Looked like he had one of his better games, and you're playing a lot of young players. What are you seeing from him and what do you look for his role to be the rest of the season?
COACH BZDELIK: I'm glad you asked that question. I think Carson DeRosier is on a daily basis improving. How do I want to say it. In a quiet way, Carson is slowly becoming one of the elite freshmen in this league. And down the road as he begins and he acquires the necessary strength to be able to finish around the rim and hold and contest position around the rim, he will develop into one of the elite big men in the ACC in the future.
He has really -- he has great hands, great ability to pass the ball. He can hit open shots with three-point range, mid range. He's understanding how to defend and how to position himself. He just needs strength.
But if you look at his statistics in recent weeks, he's doing an awesome, awesome job. He's coachable, he cares, and he comes to work every day in practice wanting to become a better player. Got a great attitude, great upside.

Q. Was he a kid that already committed to Wake Forest?
COACH BZDELIK: No, he had already committed to Wake Forest. But when a new coach comes in, there's -- he could have reneged and went somewhere else. At the same time when we met it took him about ten minutes to say, Coach, I'm in. And I'm sure glad he is. He is a cornerstone for this program.

Q. When did you meet with him? You're saying you had that conversation, was that a face-to-face meet?
COACH BZDELIK: The very first day we were able to go out and have personal contact, we did. It was a weekend. I'm not quite sure, but we saw, my staff and I saw all five players that Wake Forest had signed really within a 36-hour period.

Q. Now that Tony is a couple of weeks back into playing here on a regular basis, where does he stand? Can you assess how he's done and what level of progress he's made?
COACH BZDELIK: Well, Tony, yes. It's really it's been difficult for him because he's probably had less than ten full practices in terms of just being totally healthy. So he's playing himself back into shape and also trying to learn in just what, five, six games now? But I think he's doing a great job.
He said to me -- after the Maryland game I said, Tony, what did you learn? And he said, Coach, that lane closes up a lot faster now than it did in high school.
So he had a tendency to just put his head down and drive two deep in there and then get caught underneath. He's learning those kinds of things. We're watching a lot of film together. And he's learning through experience. So I think he's doing an awesome job. He's a quick learner. He's very aggressive. He's had no problem getting by people with his speed, quickness and strength.
He just needs to -- he'll get in better shape as time goes on, and he'll gain more knowledge as time goes on. I think he's going to be an elite point guard in this league in due time.

Q. You said that he's kind of hit the 20-minute mark the last couple of games. Where would the ceiling be on that for you? I know you've tried to work them in a little bit more as you go.
COACH BZDELIK: At this point in time in practice, you can't go real long, number one. You can't get extended periods of run in competitive situations. So I think he had 23 minutes. Hopefully, we can get him up to 25, 26, maybe 27 minutes as time goes on here because we need him on the basketball floor. He plays very hard, and he's very aggressive with the basketball.
Of course we've had problems handling the basketball. And with him and C.J. out there at the same time, hopefully, we can begin to eliminate a lot of those turnovers that have been costly to us.

Q. You were talking about Carson needed to get stronger to finish inside. I was looking. You guys shoot well from the three-point range. You shoot well from the free-throw line, yet overall two-point percentage you're worst in the league. Is that a factor of strength inside, or is it a factor of shot selection?
COACH BZDELIK: Well, in ACC play, we are 45% at making lay-ups. We miss more lay-ups than we make. We get to the rim; we just don't finish very well. Now why is that?
Well, number one, a lot of our guys double clutch when they go to the rim instead of taking your shoulder and putting it into the defender's chin to eliminate some of the leverage and length that he may have over his shooter. So he missed it that way.
Number two, our focus and concentration to keep our eyes on the rim hurts us. Number three, it's just we also get bumped, and we get knocked off balance.
We work on making lay-ups with contact every single day. So a lot of those times we have opportunities to finish, but we don't. And that's just not one person, that's a variety of guys on our team.
The other thing, yes, we've had some poor shot selection. No question about that. We've gotten the ball inside, but we're just not quite big enough and strong enough to finish in there. So we need to get stronger, we need to have better concentration and focus, and we need to continue just to build confidence and finishing lay-ups when we get hit.

End of FastScripts

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