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PUERTO RICO TIP-OFF MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 14, 2013John Thompson IIITIM SIMMONS: Coach, early start to practice this year, September 27th. Has that been a benefit for you? COACH THOMPSON: I think we'll see as the year plays out. What it enabled at least us to do is slow a few things down, do a little more teaching instead of trying to cram everything in at a rapid pace. But still, there's always the worry of it's such a long season, how and if‑‑ we'll see if it affects you on the back end. TIM SIMMONS: Obviously you're making another long trip, not as long as your first one to South Korea. Kind of give a comment about your early schedule. You're only playing three games coming into the tournament, or two, I guess, and just give us a comment about your travels. COACH THOMPSON: Well, you know, we got out to play in the Armed Forces Classic, and it was an incredible experience, and it meant so much more than the actual game. But they had the privilege to go to Camp Humphries and to play in front of the men and women that serve this country halfway around the world, right there at the border, right there at the North Korea border and the demilitarized zone line. Just the tension that they are constantly under and just how much they enjoyed it and how much they were truly appreciative for us to come out there along with Oregon to play. So that's invaluable. That's invaluable experiences, invaluable for our guys just to see and be a part of that. Now, the game didn't turn out like we wanted, but it's early, and one of the reasons you play that game, one of the reasons you participate in a tournament like the one down there is just the level of competition is terrific, and hopefully it'll help‑‑ all these experiences will help prepare us for Big East play. TIM SIMMONS: Is there any one player or players that have stood out so far? Obviously you've only played two games, so your thoughts on just some of the players? COACH THOMPSON: We're trying to mesh everything together. We have interior presence with Josh Smith this year that we didn't have last year, and so now we're trying to just incorporate him and his skill set into what we do. We have very good senior leadership, I think, with Markel Starks and Nate Lubick, who are both kind of steadying forces for everything what we do. This group has to evolve. We're at the process now of trying to figure out what's the best way for this team to win, what's the best way for this team to skin the cat. TIM SIMMONS: The Puerto Rico Tip‑Off, obviously a format, two games, off a day and then playing on the final day, and you're playing Northeastern. Can you give us a comment about Puerto Rico and the tournament format and your first‑round opponent Northeastern. COACH THOMPSON: I want to echo, I heard the very end of Leonard talking right there, and I agree with him 100 percent. You look at the field that has been assembled down there, and no matter where you look it's challenging. It's challenging; they're very good teams. So you just hope to come down there and survive. You hope to come down there and learn a little bit about your opponent, about our own team as we get ready for conference play. We're excited. We're excited to come down there. We're going to be tested each and every night. It's a great field. As a fan you're going to get a chance to see some good ball, and as a coach you hope you can survive. Q. Coach, back to your schedule this season, obviously you're logging a tremendous amount of miles. That said, you've got, I believe, an eight‑day break between the second and third game. What's, in your view, the ideal amount of time you'd want to recover from a South Korea trip, and is this too long of a break? COACH THOMPSON: I don't think it's too long of a break. It gives our guys a chance to catch up on some schoolwork if nothing else. But no, I don't think it's too long of a break. It's not like‑‑ as we put a schedule together with the restrictions that we have, with the Verizon Center and getting dates, I can't always sit here and say, hey, I want to play a game on Tuesday at 6:00 and have it happen. It's a function of that as much as it is wanting to recover from the Korea trip. Q. Have you had a chance to look at Northeastern specifically to know what style they play, what it's going to demand of you guys? COACH THOMPSON: Well, you know, we played last night, and then just starting this morning, starting to look at them. Have we formulated a game plan‑‑ not yet, but I started looking at them this morning. TIM SIMMONS: Your second round game will be against either Charlotte or Kansas State. Obviously Kansas State was in the NCAA and so forth, but any thoughts on your second‑round pairings? COACH THOMPSON: No, meaning all my energy is going to go into Northeastern right now. But the answer is what I said a few minutes ago. You're going to play a quality opponent. You're going to play three quality games. We'll see who the opponent is once the first round is over and we'll go from there. But everyone who's in this tournament is going to have to be on point and going to have to play well to succeed. Q. Officiating has now made playing defense a little more difficult. It's a little tighter officiating, and on the charge block play, it's almost always a charge these days. How are you coaching your team both on offense and on defense to adjust to that? COACH THOMPSON: I mean, we were talking about this the other day actually, but we have to make adjustments because the game is being called differently. They want to let‑‑ you can't touch the offensive player. All those little hand check touches are being called as fouls now, and as a team you have to adjust to that. Okay, fellows, there's no need to fuss and complain, because yes, we could do that last year but no, we cannot do that this year. So defensively you have to adjust, and then offensively you have to adjust, too. You have to put your guys in situations where hopefully they can draw some of those fouls. So I think just as a coach, as players, we're all kind of sifting through that. You hit the nail on the head when you talked about the blocked charge. We had the head of officials from the Big East come in and give us a talk and kind of talk us through points of emphasis and adjustments that the officials are going to go through, and he flat‑out said that almost every time it's a decision to make, it's going to be a charge almost always‑‑ I'm sorry, it's going to be a block almost always. It's going to be hard to take charges now. So we'll see. Q. On the three games in four days, obviously that's going to be a test for all your players, coaches included. But with regards to Josh Smith and the work he's doing in getting in peak form, what do you think the value of that is for him? COACH THOMPSON: I don't know. We'll see. I mean, he's going to have to‑‑ just like everyone else, he's going to show up every day and play. TIM SIMMONS: Coach, will your father be in attendance at the tournament? COACH THOMPSON: Ooh, I have no idea. I'm not sure. TIM SIMMONS: Obviously TV folks always ask me, well, is Coach Thompson around, so I'll know in advance. COACH THOMPSON: Right. TIM SIMMONS: Are there any thoughts that you have that you're coaching at the same place where your father coached and so forth? I know that question has probably been asked but we have got some new folks, especially from Puerto Rico, this will be our best turnout down there from a media standpoint, but do you have any thoughts about following in your father's footsteps? COACH THOMPSON: Not really, meaning it is what it is. I'm fortunate to be sitting in the same seat that he sat in for so long. I'm fortunate to have him around as a resource now that I'm here. But after all that's said and done, it's just like any of the other guys in this tournament. You have to go out and you have to win. Q. Dan, I may have misheard, but did you say at the outset that teams have the option of playing a fourth game, and if so, logistically how does that work, and apologies if I totally misconstrued something? DAN SHOEMAKER: You did not misconstrue that at all. The way the rule is written, the exempt events are allowed four games that count as‑‑ basically count as one against your schedule, so you can play up to four. Our fields in the ESPN tournaments provide three games on a neutral floor. So what we do is we give all eight teams the option of scheduling somebody else from the field if they choose to do it. They can play it as the beginning of a home and home, they can play it as a guarantee game, they can play it any way they want, and they can play it on either team's floor if they choose to do so. The only thing is that understood for it to count under the umbrella of the event, it has to be played within 14 days from the first game that's played or the last game that's played in the event. So there is a window that you have to get in, get that game in, and we typically have anywhere from two to four teams that will choose to play each other. It's an opportunity to get an additional game in. Not everybody takes advantage of it. But again, it's a non‑counter game. We don't bracket it, though, toward the championship. It's really just an opportunity to get an additional game in. Q. It's like a loophole kind of? I don't mean that pejoratively. DAN SHOEMAKER: I understand that. The way the rule is written, some of the events that have a much different format, the thing that we did when we started into the event business, one of the things that we noticed, and I've been around college basketball for 30 years, and if you've been around it a long time, the thing that has kind of fallen out of college basketball are the holiday tournaments, and when we got into this part of the business, one of the things we wanted to do was try and bring back those great holiday neutral floor tournaments that really crown a champion. I mean, if you look at some of the other MTEs they don't. There are no champions, they come in with a predetermined field, you know who's going to meet in the championship game, and it's based totally on, and this is going to sound funny coming from me, but it's totally based on what's the best TV opportunity for the championship or the final game. We don't do that. We think the best TV opportunity is to crown a true champion and walk away with a trophy, display that trophy in your trophy case, and that's really been what we've tried to build here, and our model is a three‑game bracketed tournament on a neutral floor with neutral officials. The coaches really like it from the standpoint of the neutrality side of it, and then because the rule is written that they can play up to four games, we make that other opportunity available. TIM SIMMONS: We have two non‑bracketed Kansas State on the 17th of November and then Northeastern is playing at VCU on November 29th. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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