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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 7, 2011

Leonard Hamilton

THE MODERATOR: With us now Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton. Coach, a few comments about your team, then we'll open it up for questions.
COACH HAMILTON: We kind of ran into the bus in Chapel Hill yesterday, a team that played extremely well, one of the best performances I've seen by a point guard in our league in a long time. We didn't seem to have much of an answer for it. They played extremely well.
We have Xavier Gibson back in the mix. He played a few minutes. Getting Ian Miller back in the mix. Hopefully give those guys another week or so and we might be full strength.
We lost Terrance Shannon for a number of weeks. We don't know exactly what's the matter. But we're still a team a little bit in flux. We need to get ready for a very dangerous Georgia Tech team.
THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions for Coach Hamilton.

Q. I've been asking questions a loaded question. With a couple of player deflections this week, it brings up the questions of pressure on kids from outside the program, the influence of people talking to them, either parents or friends, somebody telling them they ought to be playing more, starting. Is that a major problem, something you have to deal with, or is there a way to avoid that?
COACH HAMILTON: I don't think it's any more of a major problem than it always has been since I've been in coaching. That's been an issue with kids. Normally they're the best players on their high school teams. The role they play for their high school teams are such that they enjoy it. Sometimes they want to maintain that same type of role, and that's not as easy sometimes when you go to college.
I see it as an issue, but no more than it's always been. I think that's just part of what you deal with at our level. Unfortunately that's the nature of so many issues that we deal with in college basketball. Sometimes kids are just impatient. Sometimes it's not impatience. Sometimes the situations are not good for them. Sometimes it's not the right fit.
I think it's all over the board. Sometimes it's not a right fit, and sometimes things change after kids go to school, and sometimes other kids improve. I think it's a combination of a lot of different things. I don't think you cannot include all of the above when you start trying to evaluate these types of situations because I think every one is different.

Q. I know kids can leave in mid-semester and it makes them eligible that much earlier in a new school. Have you ever lost a kid mid-semester when it doesn't make any difference?
COACH HAMILTON: Yes, I have lost kids in the middle of the semester. Sometimes you just have to allow people to make decisions that they think are best for them and you move on. That's kind of where our society has gone.

Q. Having seen both UNC and Duke up close this season, what parts of their matchup this week would intrigue you as a viewer?
COACH HAMILTON: Well, I think that Duke seemed to start the season off, even though they lost some players last year, they seem to have been really in sync with Kyrie Irving. I think he's given them such a different dimension. They won a national title, but with him they were better than they were last year I thought early on in the season.
To their credit, once they lost him to the injury, they seem to be playing at an extremely high level. That just says a lot about their system, how the kids have bought in, the job they're doing.
Carolina seems to have just gotten much better with each week. They made the adjustments. They seem to be growing and understanding, adjusting to the style of play that Roy wants. They seem to be playing within themselves. They've really matured. They are getting better.
I think it's going to be a heck of a matchup. They both have had to adjust. I think Duke has made their adjustments and so has the University of North Carolina.

Q. For you guys, what was the key in limiting Duke's offense when you saw them in Tallahassee?
COACH HAMILTON: I think it's one of those games where we played a little better than we had been playing. I think Duke did not play a typical Duke basketball game. I think that it was kind of one of those scenarios. I thought we played very, very well in that game, and I think that it's one of those games where they didn't quite play as well as they normally are accustomed to playing.
I'm not real sure it was us as it was one of those games sometimes you have when you're not playing as well as you're capable. I think people make a big deal of it because we played so poorly in two games that we lost, and we played exceptionally well in that game. But we were put in a situation where we had to be at our very, very best in order to have a chance to win. If we didn't play that good, obviously I don't think the outcome would have been the same.

Q. You were talking about Kendall Marshall, how well he played. Were y'all recruiting him when he was in high school? Were you surprised at all by anything he did against you Sunday?
COACH HAMILTON: If I remember correctly, Kendall might have committed kind of early. I'm not real sure. No, I don't think we had an opportunity to get involved with him.
But I thought that he had one of those games. We were not doing a very good job of containing the dribble. No question about that. I thought they executed their offense. They were very aggressive in their attack against our defensive schemes. We didn't do a good job of containing. I think our big guys were helping up, making it easy for him to have dump-off passes to guys in the lane.
Probably the reason why Carolina recruited him, because they saw him with that deal to be able to make decisions, run the team. He has a calmness about him that allows him to see the whole floor. I was extremely impressed with him, with just his confidence, the level that he played at. He didn't seem to beat himself up. He knew exactly what he wanted to do. He was in command and control of his emotions the entire game.
But that's what good point guards do. I thought he did a great job against us.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for taking time being with us today. We'll hear from you same time again next week.

End of FastScripts

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