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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 18, 2013Jim LarranagaJIM LARRANAGA: Well, we had a wild week last week, two road games at Florida State on Wednesday night, and it was a tremendous game. We were fortunate enough to play well down the stretch and win a close one. And then last night, we were in a tremendous defensive battle and played very smart and well in about a two‑minute period, ended up with a two‑point victory. Very, very fortunate this week. Q. I was wondering if you could start out and just talk a little bit about your history at Virginia and your experiences there, if you could reminisce a little bit and how that was one of the inspirations for trying to get back to coaching a team in the ACC. JIM LARRANAGA: Well, I arrived at Virginia in April of 1979, and one of the major attractions was being able to go back and work for Coach Holland, who I had worked for at Davidson College for three years. He was the one who gave me my first chance to get into college coaching. And his comments to me were, you need to come into this league and you'll love it. The ACC is the best. And when I took the job, the first thing was to try to help recruit Ralph Sampson, who the University of Virginia had been recruiting already for four years. He was a senior, hadn't made his decision yet and wouldn't make his decision until June 1. And I was like answering the phone one day when someone called and said that Ralph had committed to somebody else. And I felt so bad, I was going to be the one to deliver the message to Coach Holland and Coach Littlepage. And when they came back from lunch and I told them that Ralph had committed to someplace else, they laughed. They said, it wasn't true, that that happens two or three times a week. And sure enough, it wasn't true, that it was more than six weeks before Ralph would make his decision, and of course he chose the University of Virginia, and we immediately were projected into the top 25 teams in the country. And of course I had four great years with Ralph and then three additional years. I'm talking too long about this. We have probably other questions to talk to about. If you want to call me afterwards, I'll be glad to tell you in greater detail. Q. Shane Larkin being a sophomore and the rest of those guys being a couple years older, what has been the most impressive thing about him, assimilating himself not only on the court but also off the court that carries back onto the court? JIM LARRANAGA: Yeah, it was really true. It started last year. Shane is very much about winning, and last year he really deferred to the upperclassmen. He didn't try to come in and just take over someone's job. He just kind to come in to learn and help. And he developed very good relationships with the players off the court. They were all very impressed with them on the court. And in fact it was our upperclassmen that encouraged him to try to do more, and that continues today. There are a lot of games where Durant Scott or Reggie Johnson or Julian Gamble encourage him to just be more aggressive and look for his own, and at the same time Shane is very willing to give the ball to those guys and let them shine. Q. When you look at a game like last night a lot of people are going to point to, look at Miami, they only scored 45 points. They're going to point out things that you didn't do as well as you have been doing. Do you look at it as a team that didn't play its best, that had one of those nights where it was going to stumble but still managed to win against a very well‑coached team? Is that a positive for your team to pull it out in those circumstances? JIM LARRANAGA: Well, I tell my team almost daily that every game is different, every opponent is different, the style of play will be different. You go from one opponent to another. The way they might play the game, Brad Brownell does a great job with his team defensively. He did it when he was at Wilmington. We coached against each other there and a lot of our games at that time were very much the same. We beat Wilmington one time 35‑33 in the CAA championship game. And then in the NCAA Tournament, we scored over 80 against Maryland in the first round of the NCAA Tournament the year they went to the Final Four. So it's just the style of play, the defense, some nights guys shoot well, some nights they don't. One week ‑‑ two weeks ago we played NC State and we shot 3 for 21 from three and then the next week against Carolina we were 3 for 26. So I don't put much stock in that. Q. Coming off Sunday night's game and having a Tuesday game you have a quick turnaround. Is there anything you guys are going to do special to try and get the team reenergized with such a quick turnaround? JIM LARRANAGA: The biggest thing right now is we need to get a little bit of rest between the games. Normally a day like today would be a day off, but we can't. This is our only one day of preparation for Virginia, but we've got to be very careful not to tax the players, because the most important thing is to play well tomorrow night at 9:00. Q. I was going to ask you about the undefeated record in ACC play. Do you sense that as we get further and further into conference play that there's added pressure or added attention, and how do you counteract that? JIM LARRANAGA: Well, the first thing is our players have done a great job all year long of preparing for each practice and preparing for each game, one day at a time. And that's been our focus and will continue to be our focus. Q. How similar is this, or is it similar at all, to your Final Four team at George Mason, or your Final Four season? JIM LARRANAGA: Well, one similarity is great senior leadership, and then the George Mason team had two sophomores in the starting lineup. Both were great. And we have one. But the attention that we got in those six started March 17th. The attention this team is getting really started, I'd say, January 23rd. So it's given this team an opportunity with the exposure it's gotten to kind of move up into the top 25 and then top 15 and then top five. And the team has handled it well, just like the Final Four team handled that exposure very well. But it's very hard to compare teams. The teams we're playing right now during the regular season are NCAA Tournament teams. All these teams have very high‑level players, many of whom will play in the NBA. Q. Kind of a two‑prong question: I'm curious what have been the most surreal moments since January 23rd when all this exposure has really started. And then I'm curious, as a coach how do you get your guys from buying in too much to that sort of stuff? JIM LARRANAGA: Well, last night was one of the most surreal moments coming from down four in the last minute of the game and being able to pull that one out. But my feeling is that every game is special. It's great to be able to coach. It's great to be able to work with your kids every day, and there's something new that pops up every single day, either on the court or off the court. And so I think I'm just lucky to be in college coaching and to be able to do something I love for as long as I've done it. Q. Is there anything that you have to teach your guys as far as, hey, look, we're ranked No.3 but let's not pay attention to that much? Is that something you even talk about much? JIM LARRANAGA: Well, we teach some things every day, and we talk about media exposure, but what we tell our team is that the media has a job to do, and we have a job to do. And the two should not interfere with each other or be a distraction. Let's do what we want to do, let them do what they need to do. If it becomes a distraction to an individual or to the group, we'll reduce it. But so far the guys have handled it well and feel good. The kind of attention we're getting now is the kind of attention like Duke and Carolina get every year. Every game. I mean, they're always under the microscope. And our players over the years would look at that and say, man, I wish we had that opportunity to get that kind of exposure. And now when you get it, you can't shy away from it. You have to look forward to it and enjoy it. Q.  How do you size up the vote for the ACC Player of the Year this year? JIM LARRANAGA: Well, I just feel like there's so many good deserving players. Whoever wins it will deserve it. The voters have their own opinions on what their criteria is for voting, and each individual‑‑ there's no criteria you're sent and say, this is how you have to judge. So you can vote for a lot of different guys in this league. They're all deserving. Q. I wanted to ask you another historical question. Can you compare the ACC, maybe the style of play, the kind of players back when it was Ralph and Worthy, Jordan and today's ACC, what differences, if any, do you see? JIM LARRANAGA: Well, I'd say the first thing that's very, very similar is the fierce competitiveness of the athletes. I just think everybody plays so darned hard and is so competitive and the coaches do a great job of preparing their teams to play as well as they possibly can. Playing on the road is a real battle, and it was way back then. I'd say back then, though, there were more players who were older and experienced that were NBA caliber players. It seems now that the best NBA talent leaves after their freshman or sophomore year, which makes our league much younger than it was back then. And that's to me disappointing, because I think a lot of those kids, they leave early, and they miss out on a great part of their life they're never going to get back. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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