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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEJanuary 23, 2012Seth GreenbergCOACH GREENBERG: I'm really proud of our guys. It was a much needed win, and more importantly it was important for us to finish a game. We've been in that position before. To be able to do it on the road was hopefully, obviously, it gives us something we can build on. Having said that, it's one win. We have to prepare for a tough week. A very talented, athletic offensive minded BYU team, then getting back into league play. It's hard when you're playing these back‑to‑back games against new opponents. Usually when you're playing for a league game, at least if you coached against that coach before, you really have a good feel going even prior to starting your preparation on how you're going to play that game. But obviously, with BYU, a new opponent, and then with mark taking over for Gary, it's a totally new preparation in terms of a new system and style of play. So it makes it a little more difficult. Q. Did you try to schedule BYU for November or December or did you want to have kind of this random, non‑conference game in late January? COACH GREENBERG: No, we were trying to find a date. The problem is scheduling is extremely difficult. You get into exempt tournaments and then you have different final dates and you have the ACC‑Big Ten challenge. It's hard to find a date. We both had the same window in terms of a bye week in the league. We've already scheduled the date for next year. We did that well in advance, so we got that during the winter break. But scheduling is extremely difficult. As I look back on it now, I wish we had some Bop on our off week, but this is surely not a Bop. They're a really good team. Davies is really good, Hardsock is really Good. But they're a lot like NorthCarolina in terms of how they attack in transition. So this will be a challenge but it will be a good opportunity for us also. Q. Scott last night had six or eight points early against you. Did you have the same defensive philosophy on him from the start or did you make a change there early on? COACH GREENBERG: No, we had the same philosophy. It was almost like football. We settled in to after we got a feel for where he was catching it, it's hard for us to simulate Mike Scott in our practice. But once we got a feel for how they were getting on the ball and how he was catching it, it made us get better angles on where we were coming from and our help. Also to be able to cover other people and cut people off the glass. Our defense was pretty much our game plan, and we didn't deviate at all in the first and second half. Q. Virginia's play has statistically been top in the country. Do you challenge your guys when you're playing a good defensive team like that to beat them at their game or does the fact that you're playing good defense mean they're rising to the occasion even more? COACH GREENBERG: We're a pretty good defensive team. We didn't say Virginia is good so we need to be good tonight. That wasn't our mindset. Our mindset was we need to be a good defensive team. We need to compete on a defensive end, and get through screens and be a little tougher in terms of getting good positioning to get you this screens and help. We're a developing team. You have to develop defensively also. Well, if they play good defense, we need to play good defense. Well, we need to play good defense because we need to play good defense. Q. I wanted to ask you about Dorian Finney‑Smith. At what point do you get worried about the fact that he's been a little inconsistent offensively? I don't think he played in the last 14 minutes or so of the game last night. What do you say to him? He's done some very good things in everything but scoring the basketball this year. What do you say to him going forward offensively? COACH GREENBERG: Just stay the course. He's getting in the gym. He's going to get some extra work in. We'll find more different ways to use him. But he's a facilitator. That's what he is. He's got to work on his mental game. There are some things that we're doing in terms of his release point. We're trying to create some match‑up situations for him. My biggest thing right now is I want him to facilitate. I want him to compete a little harder defensively, and he needs to get back to the offensive glass. Q. Did you not play him a lot in the second half match‑up‑wise or being aggressive? COACH GREENBERG: A lot of it was defensive driven. I liked forcing them to guard Jarell Eddie away from the basket. I also wanted them to, if they were going to go small, I felt if they went small, we could create some post‑up opportunities that basically presented themselves toward the end of the game. Q. As far as BYU, for fans that weren't paying attention to BYU this year and last year with Jimmer, how different are they looking on the film and how difficult are they attacking teams versus this year's teams versus last years? COACH GREENBERG: I didn't watch any of last year's tape in preparation for this. I watched three games this morning. They play the same way if in that they get the ball up and down the court. On the pass, the kid, Davies, runs the court about as hard as any kid I've seen excluding Zeller and maybe including Zeller. Hardsock is a hard match‑up at 6'8" who can face up. They're a mature team. For one thing at my days at Long Beach State, when you're playing the BYUs and Utah State schools that have players that go on missions, you're not playing kids, you're playing men. You're talking about a group of guys that have returned from a Mormon mission that are 23, 24 years old. It's like playing in an adult league in a lot of ways they can compete with the maturity that we need to match. Q. Just to follow up a little bit about Finney‑Smith. So many kids who come out of high school with his claim are always shoot first and do other things later. Have you ever been around a young man like that who, it seems is almost reluctant to shoot? COACH GREENBERG: You and I have talked about this. He might be, and I don't want to take anything away from any of the kids I've ever coached. He might be one of the best young people I've ever been around. That's not his personality. His personality really is to facilitate. He's never been‑‑ I don't know what he averaged last year, maybe 15? He's got to be more shot ready. He's got to get his shot off a little quicker. He's going to be special. He's done special things already. For people on the outside looking in, you've seen him a lot. The magic of Dodo is he really get it's. He has a really good feel. The one thing he's got to learn how to do more consistently, and it's time and strength. When he gets stronger, he's going to finish a little better around the basket and learning how to really compete. Like right now we have got‑‑ what do we have, 13 games less, I guess. We have 13 games left. Every single game. This is the biggest transition kids have to make from high school. Every game is an event. In high school, you can gear yourself up for certain games. Here you have to gear yourself up for every game. I feel really good about him. I know he's a little down, but he's also excited that we won, and he's going to be fine. Like I said, he's a very good passer. We've got to get him back to rebounding the ball. We've got to get him running a little bit more. I don't need him chasing shots, but I need him to be aggressive so he can make other people better. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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