|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEJanuary 16, 2012Brian GregoryBRIAN GREGORY: Well, I thought we made some improvements this week, and our play kind of showed it. Unfortunately you have to make maybe greater improvements in order to get two road wins. But I was pleased with our overall team performance at North Carolina State. We shot the ball extremely well but also defended and rebounded well in that game. Then yesterday we did a lot of good things on defense, didn't rebound quite as well as you needed to on the road against a team like Maryland that has in their last ten games, every time that they've won the rebounding battle they've won the game, and they did it again last night in our game. We didn't shoot the ball very well. But we are making some strides, and we just need to tighten up a few things in order to put us in a better position to win some of the tough games in this league. Q. What do you like of Virginia, what you've seen out of them this year, and when you see a player like Mike Scott and what he's been able to do this year, what are you kind of thinking is the best way to maybe get a handle on him on Thursday? BRIAN GREGORY: Well, you know, I said in the beginning of the year I thought Virginia was a team that maybe was a little undervalued going into the season. You know, my experience with Tony and that style of play with his father and so forth goes back to obviously our days at the Big Ten, but even in 1990, my first year as a graduate assistant at Michigan State, we played Wisconsin Green Bay in the first round of the NCAA tournament, and I think Tony had about 40 that night. You have to play every possession and every pass. You cannot relax at all, and if you do, they take advantage of it with multiple players. But obviously Scott has done an unbelievable job. You can just see the improvements that he's made as a player, and now you have to make him take tough shots all the time because if you don't, if you give him anything easy, it's definitely in, and he's become good enough now like so many guys in this league that even when you play great defense, he can still score on you. Q. You mentioned that you thought you guys were playing pretty well. As I was watching you, it looked like you were really struggling just before conference play opened, and then all of a sudden you play really well in a tough loss to Duke, go on the road, beat State, play okay the other day at Maryland. What's turned it around for you? What's made you play that much better? BRIAN GREGORY: Well, you know, I thought we had some flashes in the non‑conference where we played the way we want to play, with great defense and really controlling the glass, and then on offense a lot of movement and moving the ball and kind of making plays for each other. For some reason during that maybe ten‑day stretch, we just didn't do it, and it was kind of right after Finals and before we started conference play, that time where I thought we were making some strides. We just didn't perform that well. So that was disappointing, there's no question about it. You know, I think our guys just kind of realized that if we do what we're supposed to do and kind of stick to the core objectives that we've talked about, and that's playing really good team defense and that's kind of rebounding by committee with everybody on the glass, we're going to put ourselves in a position where as we steadily get better offensively or on the nights where we shoot the ball well like North Carolina State, then we have a chance to do some good things this year. We talk about the future and building for the future, but at the same time you want to make sure that you're not looking past the present right now. I think our guys kind of understood that, and they just kind of dialed it in a little bit more. Our practices have been better. It's a process, there's no doubt about it. But I think even though we did not‑‑ again, like the Duke game, didn't complete the mission of being successful at the end of the game, yesterday again showed that we are getting better. I don't think we played better yesterday, but there's no doubt that this is a much better team than it was especially at the start of the season, and our number one goal is at the end of the year to be playing our best basketball of the season, and I think if we continue to do what we're doing, we're going to be able to accomplish that. Q. Yesterday your two best offensive players have really tough nights, and you're still in that game at the end, down four with a couple of minutes to go. Does that say anything about the resiliency of this team? BRIAN GREGORY: Well, I do think that's one thing we are getting better at. We are starting to fight a little bit more, and yeah, I thought we responded a couple times extremely well yesterday. They take a 12‑point lead and we go out and we score seven straight points to get the game back within striking distance, and we did that on multiple occasions yesterday. Unfortunately we probably had to do that too many times because in the last couple possessions when we were down six or we were down seven, we had three possessions down seven, and we did not‑‑ it was the first time in the entire game we did not execute in those crucial situations. I think our guys are starting to get a little more fight in them, are getting a little more toughness. But to be honest with you, yesterday, as tough as I thought we did some things, we were out‑toughed. When you're talking about a Mark Turgeon team and you're talking about the size and athletic ability of a Maryland, that's not necessarily a thing that hasn't happened in the past to other teams, it's just something that we need to learn from because the toughest guy on the court was Mosley, and he scored‑‑ he had his hand in 14 straight points down the stretch. He had scored 11‑‑ he outscored us 11 to 9 in the last six minutes, got to the free‑throw line, buried a big three, and it's just‑‑ that would be a good example that I guarantee that we'll use with our players because his sheer will to win that game took over. Q. What phase of play is the most important thing you think you'll emphasize this week? Is there one in particular? BRIAN GREGORY: Well, I think offensively we still have to always concentrate on taking care of the ball. We had not a huge number of turnovers yesterday, but they resulted in quick baskets. And in this league if you give up those turnovers for quick baskets, you're going to have a hard time winning the game. You have to make the teams battle for every basket, and those are too easy. Offensively it's taking care of the ball and executing and moving the ball. And then defensively against this offense you can never relax. You have to be in your stance the whole time. You have to have some ball pressure, and you have to do a good job of negotiating multiple screen situations. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|