|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEMarch 5, 2013Sho NakatoKELLY HARPER: You know, tournament time is exciting. Basketball is a tournament sport, and there's nothing like it during the regular season. It's just a great time for basketball fans, for players and coaches. It's a time to step out of your season and start fresh. My goodness, the way the ACC games went throughout this year, anything can happen over in Greensboro. We're just excited to be a part of it. Q. I'm doing a feature story on players from the triangle, so I wanted to ask you about Markeisha Gatling, what her improvement has meant to your team, and then also talk about Breezy Williams' role and what she does for you. KELLY HARPER: Well, first of all, Markeisha Gatling's improvement has been huge for our team. She has a presence in the paint with her size alone, but she's added some aggressiveness on the offensive end, she's getting more rebounds now, she's playing more confident, her teammates are playing more confident with her, and it just adds to the versatility of our team. When she's playing well, it just creates so many more opportunities for our other players. Breezy Williams is one of my favorite players to coach. She's a good kid and works hard, really work hard. I've never had to ask her to go hard. I've never had to ask her to sprint. She's a pleaser. She wants to do things right.  Again, she's going to be one of my all‑time favorites just because she's just fun to coach. She wants to do what you ask her to do. Q. When you're playing somebody in the tournament that you've just played, is that easier or more difficult to prepare for? KELLY HARPER: Well, it's easier to prepare for it because it's done. There's not a whole lot of changes that we're going to make to our scouting report that we just had at Clemson. I don't know about getting the team ready. I don't know if that's actually easier, though. You want to make sure that your players are going to be focused when you walk into that arena no matter who you're playing, and I think sometimes when you lose a game, you are able to pick it apart a little easier and find ways to do things differently. When you win, you want to just keep doing what you do. So I think we've got to be very careful as a staff that we look at this game as to not only what we did right but what can we do better. Q. As you guys head to Greensboro again, obviously you've had some success in early round games recently, how do you prepare a game to focus on heading into a tournament like that mentally and off the court? What kind of routines does NC State follow? What's helped you guys in the past? KELLY HARPER: Well, I think maybe one thing that helps us or has helped us in the past, we keep things pretty simple and pretty consistent. We're going to do the same things we've done all year long, so our routine doesn't change a whole lot. I think our players do understand that the tournament is special. I feel like just seeing them after our last game on Sunday‑‑ we were off yesterday but I've seen a few of them come around to the offices. I feel like they're starting to get into business mode. I really think they're being pretty focused right now, and hopefully we can go out and have a good practice this afternoon and get ourselves ready. Again, I think the way we teach the game and the way our players learn the game, right now they should be peaking, and hopefully we can do that this week. Q. Obviously depth has played a role, particularly in your bigger successful games when you've managed to get scoring from three, four players at a time. I talked with the Clemson coach about that, and obviously that's a strength that you'll play to I assume. How do you go about that during a game with your substitution patterns? Is that a regular thing or kind of read and react according to what's going on out on the court? KELLY HARPER: You know, I go into every game with an idea of what it's going to look like in terms of our personnel. But the game will dictate my substitution patterns. The game will dictate where we're looking to score offensively. I have been blessed that we have several different players that has been able to put points on the board, and I think when we're clicking, when we've got a couple different people making shots or finding ways to score, it makes us so much harder to guard. And hopefully we'll come over and‑‑ if someone is struggling, then we'll have someone else step up. In our wins, that has definitely been one of our strengths. Q. Could you sum up what Marissa Kastanek has meant to your program? KELLY HARPER: Probably not (laughing). No, Marissa has been‑‑ she's been amazing. She's been the face of our program. She's been an unbelievable ambassador for not only our basketball program but our athletic department and our university, to be quite honest with you. This is the kid that you want out in front of people representing your school. Not only does she work hard on the court, it's very obvious she plays hard when our fans get to see her. But after the game she takes time to visit with fans, to visit with kids, and she's so generous and giving of herself. She's instantly likable, has been a fan favorite since day one. She'll come in on a Saturday practice, and if you ask her what she did that morning, she went to watch a fan play, a kid play a basketball game. She's one of a kind, the hardest worker we've had, and obviously has put herself in position to be successful on the basketball court. She's amazing off the court, in the classroom, just a high achieving kid that I've been very fortunate to coach. Q. What's better for the ACC's image to outsiders; is it getting as many teams as possible into the NCAA Tournament, or is it getting one dominant team to a Final Four? KELLY HARPER: Yeah, I think you've got to have multiple dominant teams. And to do that you need to get a lot of teams in the NCAA Tournament. I think there's no doubt you need that. But I think you get a lot of teams down to the Sweet 16, the Elite 8, I think that makes a huge impact. Thinking back when the three ACC teams were in the Final Four, I mean, it couldn't have been more impactful for the ACC. That was just an amazing time. I think you've really got to have some marquee teams up there, and not just one. I really think you need to have multiple teams there, and everybody in the ACC has to do their part to put teams in the NCAA Tournament. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|