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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 20, 2012Brian GregoryBRIAN GREGORY: Started off with‑‑ at this point, everything remains the same in terms of the indefinite suspension on Glen Rice. So he will not be with the team tomorrow. Just kind of end it with that, and move on to our game tomorrow night against Clemson. Opportunity to continue to play well and I thought we played well on Saturday. I thought that was a great college basketball game, a great ACC game. Unfortunate the way it ended for us, but was proud of the way our guys competed for 45 minutes and thought we played some of our best basketball. And we have done that at a much more consistent basis. Now we need to do that for 40 minutes tomorrow night against a Clemson team that got after us in the first game and we were able to cut the lead down at the end. But it will be a great challenge for us to hopefully continue to make some strides that we have made over the last few weeks. Q. Just a few minutes ago, we were talking to Coach Brownell, and he said watching your game Saturday, he thought without Rice, you had more balance and got a lot more production than a lot of other places. Is that how you saw it? BRIAN GREGORY: Well, you know, I think we have grown in that area. One of the things that we have tried to do is especially some of our younger post players is to give them the confidence that we want to go into them and play some in out basketball and those guys have responded all year long in a real positive manner. You know, it's completely new for them, and so with that has been some inconsistency. But if you look statistically, not just in minutes played, but also in production, and you add Julian Royal to it as a freshman, where he started to what he's doing now, those guys have really grown up this year. And with that, I think Brandon Reed is playing his best basketball this season, and I think Mfon is playing his best basketball this season. The thing that's hard, because you want to be playing your best basketball at this time of the year. But what we need‑‑ and so it's hard when you're in the process that we're in, is to also have some positive results at the end of that. But I do think we‑‑ the last few games, we have moved the ball better. And in particular in the Virginia Tech game, I thought offensively, we were really sharp and defensively, we did some good things, as well. We were able to go back to establishing ourselves on the backboard, which we did not do against Wake Forest. And so those are key components for what we try to get done. You know, it's not any secret, when we have done those things, we have played much better, performed much better. Q. Can I ask you about Kammeon Holsey's game? He really was impressive in the game on Saturday. Can you talk about him and his development? BRIAN GREGORY: Yeah, kind of touched on that with Daniel and him and Julian as kind of a collective group. But Kam did not play much in the past. He redshirted his first year, kind of had an injury plagued last season. Matter of fact, when I got the job, he still wasn't full‑go in the individual workouts. So he's only really had a fall with us in terms of the skill development and so forth. But what he does do every single day, he comes with great energy and he has really, really, a passion to get better. He has really improved in terms of his attention to detail on daily basis and I think because of that, you've seen the performances like the Virginia Tech performance. There's some aspects of his game that I think are going to continue to improve. He shot the ball well from the free throw line and there's going to be important because he is a guy that seeks and finds contact around the basket. So he's going to get fouled quite a bit. And he's getting better on the defensive end, as well. So when we talked about some objectives this year in terms of establishing the effort and intensity that we play with, and at the same time, really seeing guys' individual games improve, I think he kind of is a model for that and he's done a great job for us. Q. On Kam, was he starting to draw double teams more than he has earlier this season, and just one thing on Glen, is he practicing with the team or is he just totally apart from the team right now? BRIAN GREGORY: He's not practicing. And I think with Kam and Daniel, I think they are both drawing some more double teams. You know, Kam, the one thing he can do is he can‑‑ where Daniel off the post can shoot the ball, Kam can play in that long post and put the ball on the floor and make some moves, some spin moves, some face‑up and put the ball on the floor and attack the basket. And he's going to have to keep getting better at that, because it's harder to double‑team once you're in that long post. Now, the one thing that we talk about improvement, Kam needs to make some better decisions when those double teams or traps come. I think he had four turnovers on Saturday. You know, if you get the ball in as much as we are trying to, those big guys are going to have some turnovers. But we probably need to cut those in half right now. And I think that's one area where the double team has drawn; the ability to kick that ball out to an open shooter is going to be the next step that we need to take that will help both parties, help the guys in, because now you have to make a decision if you are going to double‑team and help the guys out. Because if you get shots coming from the in out, No.1, you're going to shoot better; but No.2, we are all human. Guards are going to feel a lot better about throwing the ball under the post knowing that they can get the ball out, too, if a double‑team comes. Q. Miller and Holsey had 29 and 14 combined the other day, shot it really well. How much more vulnerable was Virginia Tech in the interior without Davila? BRIAN GREGORY: Probably in that case, maybe he's got a great physical presence about him, and he's a kid, too, that as you watch, is really developing. There's been times where they have gone to him in crucial situations and he's scored some big points for them. But they are one kids. I think those young, big kids they have got are going to be good. And they played pretty good. They had some big baskets for them. But you know, they went small on a couple of times playing Eddie at the 4, and we wanted to get the ball in in those situations. But the one thing as I said after that game, you know, I thought Virginia Tech showed some great toughness in their ability to battle. Like us, not a lot as many scholarship players as you would like and so forth so. That was a point of emphasis was getting the ball in, make those big guys, or their lack of depth in the post, a factor in the game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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