|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEJanuary 16, 2012Roy WilliamsCOACH WILLIAMS: I'd just as soon open it for questions. We were so bad on Saturday. If I emphasize that too much, it takes away from a great Florida State win, and Dulkys was off the charts. Fantastic day for him. You like those kind of moments for everybody, but you don't like it when it's against your team. They beat us in every phase of the game. We're not excited about the way we play, but we better be excited about getting better. Q. Coach, I've heard you talk a lot about this year about mental toughness, and heard several of the players mention that after the game the other day. Have you had teams that have developed a lot more mental toughness as the season has gonna long? COACH WILLIAMS: We have. You can go back to last year. We were struggling, but, boy, down the stretch those guys got tougher and tougher and tougher; and hopefully this team will be able to do the same type of thing. But to answer your question, yes, we have had. It's a lot of it is attention to detail that can be part of toughness too. Q. You've talked about big losses that have sort of changed your season in the past in the last few years. Who know physician that will be the case here with this one. But did you like what you saw, I guess, on the flight back home? You've mentioned those kinds of trips in the past where you've had a tough loss, and you've seen how it impacted them? COACH WILLIAMS: We haven't practiced yet. We've had a meeting this morning, and as soon as I finish this call we'll go to practice. But I haven't seen anything that I liked. There is nothing related to Saturday's game that I liked. We'll have to see how we respond at practice today. But the smartest thing I've ever done as a coach is not say too much to them or not say anything to them until today. That's given me 48 hours. Q. You've had shooters in the past where you've had games in the zone where it happened like it did with Dulkys. Is there anything you can do to stop that? COACH WILLIAMS: You hope so. You don't know. We could have guarded him better. There is no question. Some of his shots we had a hand in his face, yes, but they were, I don't know three or four where he was wide open where we didn't make an extra movement to get him covered. We had seen all the stats and everything. When I'm watching the TV copy over where the last‑‑ I may get this wrong, nine games he had shot 17% from three. But still, if a guy gets it hot, you've got to understand it quickly, and we didn't do as good a job as we'd like to. But boy, congratulate him too because he made some when we were there, and he didn't have to make all of them, even when he was open? Q. What signs are you all looking for in practice today and over the next couple of days that might give you a good indication of how well you guys are responding? COACH WILLIAMS: See if we live. Q. I guess if you could elaborate. COACH WILLIAMS: I don't think it needs much elaboration. We've got to have great practices. I mean, we're not going to go up and beat Virginia Tech just because we lost on Saturday. People say, oh, they're going to bounce back. It makes no difference. We could go up there and play well and still not be successful. We've just got to do a heck of a lot better job. Q. Coach, how are you? COACH WILLIAMS: Not very good, but still alive. Q. Couple things. Looking at your team this season, not just to look at Saturday's game in a vacuum, but the course of the season, even dating back to last season, there have been times when you've had trouble guarding the perimeter. If you can pinpoint what the issue is there, what do you think it would be? COACH WILLIAMS: Well, we have not had this year to trouble guarding the ball on the perimeter. Our defensive field goal percentage from three‑point line is about second in the league. But we had trouble guarding it Saturday. For the most part, we've really done a good job with that. Two for 16, two for 17, one of the games right before that. But we did not do a very good job of it Saturday to say the least. We struggled with it last year of being able to challenge the outside shot and still feel like you could guard the penetration, but this year we haven't. We've been doing pretty well until Saturday. Q. At times throughout the course of the season, whether it was the game against UNLV or Saturday, this team, one of the things I remember you mentioned last year, especially after the ACC Tournament championship, is the difference between you and Duke last year was they had experienced talent. Now you guys have experienced talent, but at times there is something amiss or lack luster and lethargic. What would you say the reason for that is? COACH WILLIAMS: I have no idea. If I had an idea, I think I would have changed it. I don't think we were lethargic against UNLV. It was a great crowd, and their teams pretty good. But we were not as active as we needed to be against Florida State, yes. Q. When you have a game like that, how much do you spend the week thinking, okay, that game showed me we need to fix this thing and get better at this thing versus how much you think this is just one game, and I don't want to overreact too much to a loss? COACH WILLIAMS: I don't want to overreact. But that was a real butt kicking that you can't ignore either. Even when we were winning nine in a row or whatever it was, go back to the press conferences. I wasn't always saying glowing things. I kept saying our team has to get better. It's the same party line today. It just hit the kids between the eyes more with me saying it. Q. What about John Henson. What improvement have you seen from him last year to this year? COACH WILLIAMS: First that is most evident is his ability to shoot the ball from out on the floor a little bit more. But he's more involved in plays. None of our guys had a good‑‑ well, no back‑up. I thought Tyler Zeller was really good Saturday, and he was the only player that would have any kind of passing grade. John has really had some good games for us. 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
|