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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 13, 2012Jim LarranagaJIM LARRANAGA: Well, last week was an interesting week. We played Thursday night at nine o'clock, and thought we had a very solid performance against Virginia Tech, and we were able to come away with a nice victory on Thursday night. Finished up playing about 11:00, 11:30 and the next morning at 9:00 A.M. we were at the airport to board a flight to Tallahassee. Really only had about an hour's preparation for the Florida State game in terms of the things we would like to do. As I reflect back on it, probably just wasn't enough. Florida State played well at both ends of the court. We were not able to guard them very well during one segment of the second half, and that proved to be the difference. Q. With North Carolina coming in, it should be maybe your best crowd at home this season. What can that mean to your team to really fill it up and have a good, raucous crowd in there? Because historically, Miami has surged for that element on a consistent basis. JIM LARRANAGA: Well, I think there's two possibilities. Well, first of all, we'll have to have that great crowd; if that does happen, it can create a lot of excitement in the arena for our players. Give them a little juice during the game and hopefully help us play at a very high level and play very hard. The other is, you overreact to the crowd and become a little too emotional, and end up playing a little bit erratic. So we are hoping that it will be a great crowd. We are hoping our guys will handle the emotion very well, and our main concern, really, is in executing our game plan and playing much better than we did the last time we faced Carolina. Q. What are the kinds of things that you see, the adjustments that you need to make in the way that you play them this time? JIM LARRANAGA: Well, for the most part, I think Carolina is so big and they can miss shots and that can still be good offense for them. Just like the other day, they can crash the offensive boards and turn a miss into a make in a split second. We are going to have to take care of the ball better. We turned it over more than we should have up at their place. So if we can reduce our turnovers and rebound a little bit better, hopefully that will make for a more competitive game. Q. With the way that McAdoo has started to play for them, does that give you an extra element to have to be concerned about that maybe you didn't before? JIM LARRANAGA: Well, they have enough elements, you might say, that you have to concern yourself with everything, you know, from Zeller and Henson and Barnes up front, Kendall Marshall's passing ability and ability to orchestrate there. Their bench had a great game the other day against Virginia. Against Carolina, you've got to bring your A Game and play at a very, very high level for 40 minutes to have a chance. Q. I know there's a three‑way tie for the top in the ACC and Duke just won in Chapel Hill, but a lot of the commentators seem to think that North Carolina is the most talented. You've played all three. Do they present the biggest challenge? JIM LARRANAGA: Well, all three teams are extremely gifted. All three teams have different ways of hurting you. Carolina has got the biggest team. And size in basketball can really be a factor if the size has athletic ability and skill; and Carolina has both. So they are a very, very talented team, and so is Florida State and so is Duke. Q. The other question, again, I'm from afar, maybe misreading this, but seems like Malcolm Grant has been in in somewhat of an offensive slump. Am I reading that right? Is this a periodic thing that happens to kids? JIM LARRANAGA: I would probably be able to answer that better if I had coached Malcolm for three seasons. He's a senior now and he's working his tail off. He's a great kid and I absolutely love being around him. He's an upbeat young man and he's working his tail off. He's a fantastic shooter and his field goal percentage from two and three is not what it's been throughout his career. But at the same time, we have become a better defensive team and that may be the Catch 22, as we are improving defensively, we are not shooting the ball quite as well as we would like. And Malcolm has made a lot of sacrifices to help us and I'm sure he'll continue to do that. And hopefully at some point, he'll catch fire and be able to make a bunch of shots for us. Q. Could you talk a little about Shane Larkin's development and the challenge in getting him playing time with two veteran guards there? JIM LARRANAGA: Well, first of all, when Shane came in as a freshman, we didn't know if he was going to be available. And we didn't find out until after the season had already started that he was going to play. And so he spent all of the month of December coming in off the bench, and the majority of January. But it became very, very clear during practice, as well as during games, that we needed to have someone who could just distribute the basketball so we could get a little better balance in our offensive attack. And Shane was the most likely candidate. We moved him into the lineup, the starting lineup six games ago, and we proceeded to win five in a row and lost a very, very tough game at Florida State on Saturday. So he's done a great job. He continues to get better defensively. He is a very good pickpocket. He really knows how to anticipate passes and make steals and make defensive plays. But he's also very, very good at getting the ball to our big guys and to our other guards. I think the one thing that is for certain is the other guys really, really enjoy playing with him; Malcolm, Durant, Kenny and Reggie, are all very, very happy that he's in the starting lineup and getting the ball to them. Q. Did you recruit him for George Mason? What did you know about him before? JIM LARRANAGA: Yeah, we were the first school to offer him a scholarship when he was in the tenth grade. I saw him play that summer after tenth grade. My coaches saw him play. We all agreed he was going to be a terrific player for someone when he got to the college level. We offered him the scholarship and we recruited him hard throughout that summer, all through his junior year, and he came and visited George Mason for Midnight Madness during his senior year. We thought we had a great shot at him but he ended up selecting DePaul. But when he ended up deciding to leave DePaul, he contacted us and asked if there would be a scholarship available and if we would be willing to recruit him to Miami. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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