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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEJanuary 23, 2012Mark TurgeonMARK TURGEON: You know, I thought we competed a little bit better on Saturday at Temple, made a run at them in the second half, and then down the stretch they made plays on us. We weren't very efficient offensively throughout the game, and we've got to improve on that, especially with Duke coming in. We've got to be a lot better screening team and shot selection and executing basketball team to have a chance. Q. Two questions about Alex Len: One, is he physically okay? I know he had a little ankle problem, and secondly, he has struggled a little bit since conference play started; what's knocked him back there? MARK TURGEON: First of all, his ankle, we'll see when practice comes around today if he's going to be able to go. A little sore, treatment yesterday. He's in class unfortunately all day today, which makes it tough for treatment, but we'll see. I expect him to play Wednesday. How much and how healthy he'll be, we'll see. That could change between now and Wednesday. But he played well his first few games, play well at North Carolina State. I thought he was aggressive. He seems to be in foul trouble a lot. Obviously Saturday he got hurt early and really wasn't doing much before he got hurt, but got hurt early, and it might be a confidence thing. Teams have been able to scout him a little bit. That might be part of it. But he just hasn't really got into a flow the last three or four games. We need him on the floor because defensively he just gives us a presence around the rim, and he's a good rebounder for us, and he hasn't given us that the last couple games. So it would be nice to get him healthy and get him out there and at least get that out of him. It makes us a better basketball team. Q. Obviously Gary's court ceremony is this Wednesday, and I'm sure that you knew enough about him even before you came to Maryland, but how much is your appreciation for what he did and what his career was, how much has that grown here over the last eight, nine months or so? MARK TURGEON: Well, I had tremendous respect for him before. I think when you walk in a guy's shoes, you realize how difficult it can be. You know, has it grown? Yeah, maybe a little bit, but I had a tremendous amount for him before. You know, I just always knew that he did it right and worked hard, was an excellent coach. So you respect those things from the outside. That hasn't changed now that I've been on the job. You know, I'm happy for him, looking forward to the dedication dinner tonight, and then of course his name on the floor on Wednesday, which we all know how Gary got up for the Duke game, so it's an appropriate night for us to unveil his name on the floor. Q. First, it's sort of a two‑parter, and I apologize for not knowing. Have you coached in your past jobs against Coach Krzyzewski? I imagine that you're not thrilled to get them coming off a loss, but I mean, how if at all does that tend to change the‑‑ I guess the fire of an opponent? MARK TURGEON: Well, one, I've never been a head coach against him. I played against him as a player and was an assistant a couple times when I was at Kansas when we played them a few times to be quite honest. You know, I don't know. Duke played well Saturday, didn't get it done. Their teams are always pretty focused and ready to go because they have to be because everywhere they go it's a sellout, and they get a great environment. Very rarely do you see a Duke team that's flat and not ready to play. Them losing, you know, there might be a little more focus, but we've lost, too, two in a row against good teams on the road. But hopefully we'll be focused in a little bit better and be concentrating a little bit more, especially offensively, to be a little bit more efficient. Q. You mentioned you all know‑‑ we all know how Gary gets up for the Duke game. For Maryland fans over the years, that's almost been their biggest rivalry game. Do you see it like that or are you getting feedback or anyone talking about this game being the most important? MARK TURGEON: Well, I think it was. You know, obviously Virginia is our other rival game as far as schedule goes, and now Tony has got it going, it's going to create a better rivalry there if we can get back to where we need to be. But no, I don't think there's any question that Duke in our fans' minds, in our players' minds, has been the rival game, the game that we need to play well and be ready to play. It'll be our first sellout of the year. We'll be sold out. And just from day one, when you get out in the community, people talk about Duke. We know what's at stake with this game, but we also know where we are as a program, and we're just trying to get better. And Duke, when you play good teams like we have lately, Florida State, at Temple, and now Duke, just the more of these games that you can be in, it's great for your young kids, and you try to grow with each game. If we can continue to do that, in time we'll be able to be a significant test for a lot of these teams that we're playing. Q. After the Temple game you talked a lot about finding a secondary scoring option behind Terrell Stoglin and not relying too much on him. Who on your roster do you see maybe stepping into that role? MARK TURGEON: Well, there's a lot of guys that are capable of doing it, it's just the inconsistency of the rest of the guys. Terrell is a pretty consistent scorer for us and it's getting tougher because he's getting more and more attention and playing better teams and bigger bodies, which is making it tough on Terrell. But James stepped up the other day, gave us some scoring, Sean didn't score very well in the game, but they're both capable. Pe'Shon actually scored pretty well the other day. But when the game was on the line, that's when we didn't get it done. We didn't get any stops and didn't execute and get good shots when it was a one‑point game or even a three‑point game, and that's the stage where we've got to be able to go to different guys. I don't know who it's going to be, but I think it's going to go game to game. But we've got to have different directions. And then Terrell has got to trust his teammates. When he comes off a ball screen and he's got two guys on him, he's got to pass it. We have numbers, and we should be able to make plays against numbers, and that's going to be the key, just to trust our teammates a little bit more and I think different guys can step up. But when we made that run on Temple in the second half, we had a bunch of different guys that were a part of it, and that's the way you've got to play to be successful. You can't rely on one guy. Unfortunately right now he's the one that makes the big shot for us, so we keep going back that direction. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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