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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 20, 2012Steve DonahueSTEVE DONAHUE: Well, we played Maryland and Duke this week, and I think the young guys probably ran out of gas. We have been playing really good basketball and I thought just looked a little fatigued and tired at times in the last couple of games and we are going to try to get our bodies back together with a few days off and get ready for Saturday. Q. Even though it was a disappointing week, Ryan Anderson had two pretty impressive games. Can you talk about what he did well and how he's developing as a player? STEVE DONAHUE: I think Ryan has done a terrific job of really figured out how to be successful within our offense. I thought it would be the biggest transition for him from high school being a power player and playing in our system where we have guys at the 4‑spot to really be a big guard, and at times be a post‑up guy. I think he's really developed a knack of going how to score in and out. And he just has that‑‑ it's hard to teach what he does. He's got real good instincts around the rim. He has a really good feel how to use the body; he's great with both hands. And as he gets bigger and stronger, I just think he's going to be a terrific ACC player. Q. Problems with the second half scoring drive, it has not been as bad in the last couple of games but in general do you attribute that more to fatigue or maturity, and have you specifically addressed it with the team or are you trying not to make too much of an issue of it? STEVE DONAHUE: Well, I think it's happened in different games throughout the year. But we had‑‑ the offense has been our issue most of the season against bigger, stronger teams, and I give the teams that we are playing credit. I think a way to get into us right now is to take us out physically as much as you can. Don't worry about where they are at on the floor, but really get in our guys. And at times, we have reacted really well and I thought we were playing really good offense. But I thought Maryland did that and Duke did it, after we got off to a really good start yesterday, I thought Duke did a good job of just limiting passing lanes. I looked out there and I saw older, stronger kids just really getting in our younger guys and they just didn't have anything in the tank at times. To run this offense, and I try to tell these guys this all the time, you have to work hard on offense. It's not predicated on someone beating somebody necessarily off the dribble. It's about passing and cutting and moving and spacing. I think the guys at times have gotten stagnant, and I give the credit to the physical teams in our league doing a good job of taking us out at other times, and I think that's where you see the drought. Q. You touched on the physical play. What did you have to say to Dennis after yesterday? He came out pretty early yesterday when it looked like he was getting bang around pretty good. STEVE DONAHUE: A couple things. He did have foul trouble. That was really the basis for me taking him out. And two, going into the game, I thought when they went with Ryan Kelly, that we would go small and move the ball and do things that we have done against other teams. We just did that because Dennis had foul trouble more. But I thought he came back in the second half, and a couple of times I said to him, he's just not as confident as I think he should be. Especially around the rim. There's times when he's finessing the ball in terms of trying to go up and trying to get around bodies. I just said, look them eye‑to‑eye; you're a talented kid, take him right to his chin and go right to the basket. You'll see that from Dennis. He's the most comfortable kid you can imagine and it's just a matter of time until he has that confidence in himself. Q. Looking ahead, I know that you come from a conference that didn't have a conference tournament. The ACC probably was the first conference to have a tournament. Just wondering what that does for a team that you're not getting in the NCAA any other way; maybe it's a little much to ask you to win four games in one weekend, but does having the tournament out there for a team that's in the second division present any kind of goal or anything to shoot for? STEVE DONAHUE: I think there's no question. I think you constantly talk about getting better so you can get into the conference tournament and make a run. I really wish the Ivy did‑‑ the 20 years that I was in the league, I didn't have that chance to talk to teams that were out of it early. So, yeah, I think that's definitely motivation. I think that's something that works around the guys right now, take a couple of days right now, we have three regular‑season games and we are excited to go down there and play our best basketball. Q. Following up on Ryan Anderson, how were you able to get involved in a player of his stature across the country, and what is kind of your quick summary of your recruiting strategy? STEVE DONAHUE: Geographically? Q. Yes. STEVE DONAHUE: I think the reason that you see so many kids from the Ivy League, just my background‑‑ California is my background, in the Ivy League, I think we always went out there for 20 years. There's a lot of great academics out there. There's a lot of kids obviously. We just thought that would be a good place to start and try to find kids that fit what we do. And there's no real geographic strategy to what we are doing. We are trying to go anywhere in the world where we feel that someone fits what we do, and wants great basketball and a great academic situation. And that's what we'll continue to do. Ryan Anderson fell into that. Ryan was a very good student, was recruited out there, but not overly over the top, so we were able to make in‑roads pretty quickly. I think Ryan enjoyed the idea of coming east and playing in the ACC and we just I think worked a little harder than maybe those Pac‑10 teams did at that time. I don't think they were necessarily completely sold on him at the time. Now, he ended up having a great senior year. I think he would have had all of those schools interested, but by that time he had it done. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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