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PUERTO RICO TIP-OFF MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 14, 2013Bill CoenTIM SIMMONS: Coach, early start to practice, September 27th. Has that been a benefit to your program this season? COACH COEN: I think it has. Whenever you get access to your student athletes I think it helps them in a variety of ways. You've got kids on campus that are adapting to college life, and the more structure you can give them and the more time you can spend with them and develop that relationship, I think it helps them academically, socially, and obviously with their fundamentals on the basketball court. TIM SIMMONS: Coach, obviously you've played two games and been very close games. Kind of your thoughts on your opening two games and any players been standing out? COACH COEN: Yeah, I think we're obviously disappointed with our start, but I think there were some really bright signs for us. Our front court has played really, really well. Reggie Spencer and Scott Eatherton have really played well for us and given us a force up front. We've been a little slow coming along with our perimeter play, but I think we've seen some things that we need to work on, and we're hoping to improve upon those over the next week. TIM SIMMONS: You've got one more game before you play Georgetown in your opening game. Have you had much chance to look at Georgetown yet? COACH COEN: You know, I just saw them a little bit. Obviously they're a terrific program, and they're playing really, really well. I think they had a big win against Wright State. They have a formidable front court and obviously a terrific coach. We're going to have our hands full opening day down in Puerto Rico. TIM SIMMONS: Playing this tournament where you're playing two games, off a day, and then the final round, is it a challenge for you? Are you looking forward to it? COACH COEN: Well, I think we're grateful and honored to be included in such a‑‑ just an illustrious field, and to be able to compete against that type of national competition, it'll certainly give us some growth opportunities going ahead in the season, and it also gives us that type of tournament format helps prepare us for our own conference tournament when we get to Baltimore in March. TIM SIMMONS: Obviously one of the top players in Northeastern history is from Puerto Rico, J.J. Barea. Have you consulted with him on where to eat and where to go and where to visit? COACH COEN: I think he's going to give us a great tip sheet before we get down there, but he was certainly one of the all‑time grates here at Northeastern, and I think there's a lot of sense of pride surrounding J.J. down in Puerto Rico. Hopefully those fans will come out and support us, be Northeastern fans for a day. TIM SIMMONS: Has he been helpful to you in your program, and does he come back to campus much? COACH COEN: He does. He came back last year for our tip‑off dinner and was honored there, and he comes back regularly to kind of sit in on practice whenever the Timberwolves are in town playing Boston. He'll stop by and say hi to the guys. He has just a great sense of pride for our program and our university, and he's been a great ambassador for our men's basketball program. Q. I wonder if you could speak to any adjustments you're finding you need to make related to the new rules, particularly as it relates to defense, and if you don't mind sort of connecting the dots from that to how you might slow down Georgetown's front court. COACH COEN: Well, I mean, I think it's been an adjustment for everybody, the new rules, for players, coaches and referees. People have been playing the game their whole life under certain assumptions. I know guys have coached a long time, coaching a physical style of play, and then certainly the referees are making judgment calls for years and years based on contact. I think it's been an adjustment for everybody. From the coaches' standpoint, we're trying to emphasize showing our hands and keeping our hands back and just being disciplined on defense and playing more with your feet and with angles. I think it has given advantage to certain teams that like to pressure the goal off the dribble, and that's going to be a challenge for us. I think the one adjustment that everybody is going to early on until they can get their arms around it is to play a little bit more zone and try to keep your best players out of foul trouble. That's the first adjustment I think people will make, and then as you get more game experience with it and you get a baseline how the referees are actually going to call the contact, you'll be able to make those appropriate adjustments in practice. And as far as slowing down Georgetown's front line, I don't know if we have an answer for that just yet. They've been playing really, really well, always have a great tradition of having great front courts. Pretty typically we'll probably have to play some zone and try to keep the ball from getting in there. Q. Just wanted to talk a little bit about this slate of teams. I know win or lose you're going to likely face teams who have all been to the NCAA Tournament, and what does this tournament mean for your program moving forward? COACH COEN: Well, I think it's indicative of our entire non‑conference schedule. We've played two games thus far. Boston University was picked to win their league, the Patriot League, and Stony Brook was picked to win the America East. Now we're heading down there where you have teams that are year in and year out have national prominence and really play at an elite level. So I think when you play that level of competition, it holds you extremely accountable for each and every decision, from a player standpoint and the coach's standpoint, and that level of scrutiny and that level of competition, I know, I believe makes you better in the long run. We're excited to play at that level and to challenge ourselves, and it's just‑‑ we're very grateful to have that opportunity in front of us. TIM SIMMONS: Coach, we look forward to watching your team play Georgetown in the first game. Thank you, Coach. TIM SIMMONS: Dan, with the Coliseo I know they're doing some renovations. I know they've upgraded the facility a little bit starting with the FIBA tournament that was there in August. DAN SHOEMAKER: Yeah, the new mayor of San Juan has been incredibly dynamic. For those of you that‑‑ they often say in Puerto Rico politics are their favorite sport, she came into the election this past November very late in terms of her entry, and just was a buzz saw going through the election. She's been incredibly dynamic. One of the things she has really tried to do is bring sports back into the venues, the historic venues in San Juan. They have the World Baseball Classic there. She was very instrumental in some very quick upgrades to the stadium to get the World Baseball Classic there. I had a meeting with her very early on about this tournament, and she was absolutely demonstrative that she wanted us to play this tournament in the Roberto Clemente, which had not seen this level of basketball for a number of years. She brought the local pro team back to the Clemente. They've done some things to it. It's a great venue for basketball. It's a 10,000‑seat arena. The fans are right on the floor. And it's hosted some really historic games in Puerto Rico history, and it's hosted so many great events, the MissUniverse contest a number of years ago, Disney On Ice, so many different events, and we're really excited to be in a really great section from a fan standpoint of San Juan. The Las Americas mall, like I said before, the largest mall in the Caribbean, shares a parking lot with the Clemente Center. There's a bronze statue of Roberto Clemente and some of the philanthropic work that he did in Puerto Rico, he's recognized in this venue. I think fans are really going to like it. It's a great place to watch basketball. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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