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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEJanuary 28, 2013Steve DonahueCOACH DONAHUE: Thanks, we've been struggling to get wins here in the league. But I thought we played pretty good basketball for probably every half of the season with the exception of this last half at Virginia. They're playing four out of five on the road to start the league, essentially, that probably got to us. I've been pleased with our development. Pleased with the results, foul shooting. We're a team that get there's, we just haven't been able to convert. So looking forward to playing two home games with Carolina and Clemson here this week. Q. I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on maybe somebody from your team that does some of the things that doesn't necessarily show up in the box score. Whether it's being a strong perimeter defender, guarding the top player on the other team, or a guy who can shoot the ball really well for you but maybe not necessarily lead you guys in scoring or rebounds? COACH DONAHUE: I think the guy Joe Rahon our freshman guard who plays a lot of minutes and doesn't fit exactly that because we're so young and still developing certain roles for guys. But Joe is our toughest kid in my opinion. He's our best on‑ball defender. He played Joe Harris, who I think is, if not one of the top three or four best players in this league, really well the other day. He just knows how to play. He leads us in assists. He does a great job taking the ball to the basket. Has a great understanding of what we're trying to do, and he's out there 35‑plus minutes as a freshman. So Joe probably fits that as much as anybody. Q. Obviously Denis Clifford is battling the physical thing. Can you update us on how he's handling that? How much that's limiting him right now? COACH DONAHUE: You know, Al, it's been the biggest disappointment this year, for sure. I tell people this. When we went to Spain in late August, he was hand's down our best player. He got 30 a couple games out there. He was running the floor, blocking shots, rebounding. Just his development was really impressive because he did so much over the summer. Since then, really, it's a Chondromalacia issue with his knee that started in late September. Since that point he's probably had practice full, never, and right now he probably practices 15, 20 minutes when we do get a chance. Unfortunately, his development has digressed. I feel bad for him, first and foremost. Because it's been frustrating, because I know how much he cares. But it's hurt us. I think it's something that we thought as a plus for us in our interior defense, and it's hurt our defense overall in particular. But even on offense, he was really developing and getting easy baskets for us. So it's been a tough situation for him, and obviously, I think it's hurt us greatly. After reading a lot about this condition, I think it's something that we can get under control eventually and figure out how to get him back to work and getting his skills developed and things like that. Q. Has his availability increased, changed, decreased in the last few weeks? COACH DONAHUE: What it is is he's just not as effective out there because he hasn't been playing basketball. The pain is one thing. So we went hard yesterday, Sunday. He's going to be hard to go up and down today. We wanted him to get some work in. The problem is he just hasn't played consistent basketball day‑in and day‑out for three months. It's just hard to put him out there and expect him to help you, pain or no pain. I think that's more the issue. Q. When you look at the pace of game or what you prefer to be the pace of the game, are you of the mindset that you know what you want your team play at or you kind of cater that to the opponent that you're playing or that kind of dictates your preferred pace? Looks like you're going from Virginia to NorthCarolina, which it looks like there's quite a bit of difference from what the opponents would prefer? COACH DONAHUE: I think we're not at the point yet with our depth and what I want to do. We're a team that wants to play fast. I want to play multiple possessions. I want to play ten guys. I want to get the ideal point total, 75 to 80 points a game. But we're not good enough to go out and say that and expect to understand that we've got to be competitive every night. The other thing, it's very difficult to speed somebody up in basketball. It really is. It's much easier to slow someone down. So a team like Virginia that has‑‑ Tony has his program in order, knows exactly what he's going to do. So they guard you so well, so it's foolish to think you're going to get quick shots and force them to do quick ones. They're not going to do it. I think that's what people don't understand sometimes with matchups. It's not necessarily what you want to do. Your opponent has a lot to say about that. Ideally, we want to get really good shots as quick as we can. And on the defensive end, it's not necessarily something that we can force the tempo. We're a team that's going to try to make sure the other team's taking very difficult shots and limit them to one shot. So depending on who we play, it's probably going to be catered to the team we're playing, especially now when we're not as deep as I'd like to be. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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