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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 7, 2011

Leonard Hamilton

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton. We'll ask for a brief opening statement, then go to questions.
COACH HAMILTON: I'm personally proud of our kids bouncing back from a disheartening loss to Carolina during the week. Our guys got off to a good start at North Carolina State. Like all ACC teams do, they made a run there at the end of the game. Our guys showed a lot of patience, I thought, and poise in a road game against a team that was very hungry for a victory. We were able to come away with a much-needed victory against North Carolina State on Sunday.
We're looking forward to going to the ACC tournament, seeing whether or not now we can start over in this brand-new season and see if we can continue to keep improving in the post-season.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Hamilton.

Q. What is Chris Singleton's status for Friday?
COACH HAMILTON: I think he's obviously made tremendous improvement in his rehab. He's getting awful close. I don't know whether he will be ready for Friday, but I don't know that he won't. He's awful close. He's been doing some non-contact stuff that looks very promising. He hasn't had any setbacks, hasn't had any pain. We're going to proceed optimistically but cautious.
We feel like he's going to be close. We'll evaluate that at that particular time.
What I'm trying to avoid doing is looking over our shoulders on a daily basis, trying to see when he's going to be available. What we're doing is just going on and preparing ourselves. If he's able to play, fine. But we are encouraged that at some point in the time in the near future he will be able to rejoin the team, we just don't know quite how soon and exactly when that's going to be.

Q. If he can play on Friday, do you have any idea how many minutes he can give you?
COACH HAMILTON: I'm not even going to start playing that game. I don't have a crystal ball. I'm not going to read into that. I only will respond to what information we have at that particular time. We'll make decisions based on where he is in terms of what we think is the right thing to do as it relates to Chris.
My biggest concern is that he is totally 100% healthy, free of any reoccurring potential issues and problems. We have no way of recognizing that.
I only will say that we're optimistic. He's making tremendous improvement. We'll make decisions based on the information we have at that particular time. We don't have enough information to start making any type of speculation as to minutes, when, where and how, any of those types of circumstances.

Q. Coach, Duke has won 9 of the last 12 ACC tournaments. You got in the final against them a couple years ago. How remarkable is that streak, just looking at what they've done? How tough is it to get past them in the tournament?
COACH HAMILTON: Well, I think when you talk about Duke, you're talking about two of the top winningest programs in the history of college basketball. You're talking about what arguably could be the best coaching professionals, college included. They have a great academic institution and attract great players. Kind of perpetuates itself. It's a perfect storm, so to speak. These guys do a great job. It's by no coincidence that they've had the level of success that they've had.
So, of course, it's difficult because they have great coaches, they have great talent, tremendous tradition. Basketball is important to them, and they understand exactly how to get the most out of their players.
You have to give them credit. They've set the standard by which right now a lot of the programs in the ACC are being compared to on a yearly basis.
With all that said, I think anything is capable of happening when you have two ACC teams together. Nothing that happens on the basketball court with relation to who is going to win a game will surprise me in the ACC. Duke has been able to be more consistent than some of us, the rest of us, but not because they have not been in some very competitive games. They've just had a little bit of an edge and they've been able to overcome some of the things the rest of us have not been able to overcome.

Q. Coach, you are the last team that are going to play 9:00 or a little after that on Friday night. You went through that last year. How difficult is it to wait around when everybody else is playing? It seems like forever before you get on the court.
COACH HAMILTON: I'm not as concerned about that. That's the way it is. I'm concerned, though, that when you play in a 9:30 game, if I remember correctly, I don't have it in front of me, do you play the 2:00 game the next day if you win?
THE MODERATOR: It's 3:30.
COACH HAMILTON: That is a little bit of a concern to me. If you're playing the late game, you would have a little bit more time the next day seems to me. That does concern me a little bit. You get through 11:00, you get in bed 12:30, feed your kids 1:30, you come back and play 3:30. I would prefer that game to be one of the evening sessions. To me that makes more sense playing in the afternoon. That concerns me more than playing the Friday night late game.

Q. The fact that you went 3-2 without Chris to go down the stretch here, what do you credit that to? What were you most proud of down the stretch here?
COACH HAMILTON: I think what kind of happened is when Chris went down, we were just getting Xavier Gibson back. He's back physically, but just shaking the rust off, not playing, getting back in the rotation has been a process. Terrance was just coming off of knee surgery. He was being worked back into the rotation, which was a miracle in itself that he was back playing less than two weeks after having surgery, which was a miracle.
Ian Miller was just getting back after him being able to play for about 10 games. Then Jon Kreft didn't get eligible till Christmas, didn't play for almost a year and a half. He was trying to just get back into the flow of playing basketball, with learning a new system. Bernard James was just trying to get his feet under him as a result of Xavier going down, him getting his feet under him. So we've been kind of a team in transition.
As Chris was injured, we were transitioning into the other scenarios that I mentioned. We were just starting to figure things out a little bit. So we've been executing a little bit better offensively. We have a little bit better handle on our rotation. We're a little deeper, keeping guys fresher a little bit better. David started to come out of his shooting slump. Miller was coming in, giving us some help. Michael Snaer is now playing with a lot more confidence. Luke Loucks had foot surgery over the summer. He gained some weight and didn't get back on top of his game.
It seemed as though right during the period Chris went down with the injury, we were just kind of maturing back into a team that was learning more and more how to play together. The fact when we lost him, I thought it created a scenario with our guys that we understood we needed to be more focused in order to compensate for the loss of Chris, we needed to have a team of guys stepping up, contributing a little bit more, rather than having one guy fill that void.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for being with us. Good luck this weekend.
COACH HAMILTON: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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