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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEJanuary 14, 2013Jeff BzdelikQ. I wonder if it's possible to describe what CJ Harris means to your team? Not only the way he's playing, but also in the things he does from a leadership standpoint? COACH BZDELIK: Well, that's a loaded question. We can spend a lot of time talking about all the things he does. Yes, first of all, first and foremost, leadership. He has really guided these young players on our basketball team to show them what a work ethic is at this level, to show them what a commitment is at this level. He's constantly in the gym. He's a gym rat. Players follow him: His energy, his leadership, his work ethic, his coachability. All of those things are very contagious. It's really just brought these young players further along in their development. From a basketball standpoint, obviously, he's having a terrific year. Shooting the basketball, making timely shots. The other day against Boston College‑‑ so many times we've gotten off to slow starts. I think our young players are like deer in head lights, and trying to adjust to whether it be a style or an environment or whatever, and CJ has just carried us and given our young players confidence early on in the game. That was very evident against Boston College the other day. So he's doing a terrific job. Q. He's a low‑key person by nature, but being a senior and having been a point guard for much of his career, he can be vocal when needed. How has that manifest both in practice and during games? COACH BZDELIK: Well, leadership comes in many ways. Obviously there is the kind of leadership you want and the kind of leadership you don't want. CJ is who he is. His personality by nature, he's a quiet young man, but very driven when he's on the basketball court, very driven in his studies, very driven in the way he conducts himself the proper way. He takes pride in that. When he does speak, because it's not often, our players all of a sudden their ears perk up and they listen and focus in on him. There was a point in practice yesterday when CJ came up to me and we talked about something that was a very valid point that he brought up. And I said you know something? I want you to teach these young guys that. Here, you tell them. You teach them. I stopped ‑‑ literally stopped practice and had him go through something that needed an adjustment. That's when you start having success is when it becomes not just coach directed all the time, but player directed. CJ's done a great job of that. Q. Almost the same topic with Travis. What's Travis's role, and how has his development gone for you? COACH BZDELIK: Well, Travis' development is a work in progress. He's learning. Early on in his career, by default, he was given a lot of playing time. He gained a lot of experience. His leadership development now coupled with the maturity of his game, we're seeing the fruits of all of this experience and the fruits of his labor as well. He's learning how to be a leader. You talk about leadership, but how do you learn to be a leader and what is leadership about? That's a work in progress as well. Not just your development as a basketball player, but also your development as a leader and understanding just exactly how to lead in the proper way. It's not just saying things. It's how to say things, when to say things and what to say. But Travis is learning. He's improving daily. He's coming off a really good start here to the ACC season. He needs to continue to work and develop as everyone does. We're really proud of him. We're asking him to play a couple of positions. Sometimes we go big. Sometimes we go small. We use him throughout the game that way, moving him back and forth between the small forward and power forward spots. And he's adjusting to that as well. So really proud of him, and he, like CJ, is a terrific young man doing all the right things to help this young basketball team. Q. Are you guys doing anything better or differently than you had at the beginning of the season? COACH BZDELIK: We're one of the youngest teams in the country. We start three freshmen. We play a challenging non‑conference schedule with two Big East teams in UCONN and Seton Hall and Richmond on the road. I just think that our young players are gaining confidence and understanding and adjusting to the speed of the game, the physicality of the game, the quickness of the game, the intensity needed to win and strive to win every possession. Our older players, CJ and Travis, are our only two upperclassmen are adjusting to the freshmen. Our defense has improved. Our offense has improved because it takes all five guys on defense and on offense to make a play work. There's got to be a trust, and there's got to be everybody doing their job. We're just so young. People might perceive that as an excuse. I get that. I understand that, but it's a reality. It's that simple. Both our point guards are freshmen, so both our big guys are freshmen so you talk about the head and tail being extremely young. So it's a work in progress, and it's some of those games that we lost early on in non‑conference schedule where we lost by six and by four, and by two, I think if we rewound that and played it again, there might be and probably would be different outcomes. But we've got a stretch ahead of us that's very challenging. We've got a string of road games coupled with the fact that our only two home games are N.C. State and Duke. We need to just focus in on continuing to get better and that's our only focus. Q. I wanted to ask something along those lines. Both games last week essentially came down to the wire, and you guys made the plays at the end which I know you had a chance to do a couple of times earlier and weren't able to do. Was there anything specific in the game that you guys did better in those two games than you had done earlier this year? COACH BZDELIK: Yes. First of all, just the experience of it all. We lost versus Seton Hall. We had I think a 13, 14‑point lead with about 11 minutes to go, and we just‑‑ I think we kind of kept looking at the clock, being non‑aggressive. Saying let's just let the clock expire, the other team's desperate. We broke down defensively. I just think that all those kinds of experiences and going through the film and working more on time and score enabled us to have a better understanding of what to do in clutch situations. So you just grow as a basketball team. Of course, young players that just needed a good, close win to gain confidence as well. I really think starting off at Cameron in our first ACC game set up a benchmark for our players to understand how intense this level is in this conference, and they understood that right out of the gate. I think that helped as well. So I think it's just a young team that's continuing to get better, stronger, maturing, gaining experience and confidence. I think all of those things are just coming together. Of course the understanding, too, as young players that college basketball games are decided, usually, by one or two possessions. And that gives credence to how important every possession is and they're understanding that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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