|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN GOLF MEDIA CONFERENCEApril 21, 2014Michael BurcinTHE MODERATOR: The men's golf team has the weekend off this weekend before heading to French Lick, Indiana, for the Big Ten Championships on May 2nd through the 4th. Head Coach Michael Burcin is here. We'll have opening comments and take questions. COACH BURCIN: It's nice to be home this weekend. We go to French Lick‑‑ I guess we leave a week from Wednesday. Excited about Big Tens. It's been an interesting year. We've had three guys have really good years, and it's been a little bit frustrating in those bottom two spots. I think we had a little bit more production out of those two spots, I think we'd be in the mix for NCAA. If you look at the numbers, everybody that is not a freshman has achieved a career low this year. So certainly good things happening, just a little thin yet, and we're working on that. Q. You graduated four seniors and you have three freshmen that are playing for you. Talk about assuming the leadership role and talk about the freshmen and how they transitioned. COACH BURCIN: The freshmen have done a great job. I think each of them is probably‑‑ I thought Kelly made a good point. I think they are all probably pretty frustrated with how they've played, but they have gotten so much better. Richard came in, he was a top 30 kid in the country, expected to do a lot, and he got hurt early. So he really didn't get off to a good start and hasn't really ever fully recovered from that start. They certainly offered a change in culture to the program and how they practice and their attitudes and their expectation. It was huge having those guys. From a leadership standpoint over the long haul, I mean, certainly Rob and Zach and Jack have done a tremendous job. Those guys‑‑ they certainly could do more, and we've talked about with them trying to be All‑Americans and working towards that. Week in and week out, those guys have done a great job. They've put us in position where, with some more help, we could be in the NCAA mix. So those guys have done a great job. Q. Is that sort of how it is when you're relying on incoming freshmen to really pull a lot of weight? Is that just sort of shrug your shoulders and say, that's how it goes sometimes? COACH BURCIN: Yeah, I guess the old saying, the best thing about freshmen is when they're sophomores. They're awesome kids. And you really don't know what you're going to get. I was just talking to Richard last night, the kid was recruited by everybody, and he thought he was going to come in and just beat up on everybody, and it just hasn't worked out like that. Yeah, we are very young. We're especially young at the bottom of the lineup. We're going to be even younger next year, but we'll have seven of the guys that we recruited, and that's good. So it's frustrating, but it's good frustration. They're eager to work and they're excited to come practice every day. Their day's coming. Their day's coming. It is. There's a lot of pressure on those guys to fill those two spots, and that's a lot to handle. Q. Michael, how's Zach made the transition really from his days at South Carolina up here now to Wisconsin? COACH BURCIN: Well, thank God he's from Canada because the snow isn't such a bother. No, he's done great. I was there for a year with him and‑‑ I don't know what would have happened if he would have stayed. But he came here and really went through a golf game overhaul, from an instructional standpoint. He's spending a lot of time with a guy in Chicago, Brett Packee, who does a great job. He played okay last year, was really inconsistent, and this year he's really coming into his own. I think his numbers don't really show how well he's played. I think he's played better than that. Still a little inconsistent at times, but the kid, I mean, he was walking on at South Carolina 2 1/2 years ago. So to get to where he is now, where he's really probably one event away from being in the mix for being All‑League. I know he's having fun. He loves it here. He's glad he made the move. He's playing a ton of golf. He's been great. I'm glad he made the decision to come. Q. The Big Ten has eight teams ranked among the top 100, including Illinois at No. 8. It's a very competitive conference. Can you talk about what your expectations are? COACH BURCIN: Yeah, Illinois is not going anywhere. He does a great job, Mike at Illinois. They're as good as anybody in the country, and I would expect them to compete for a National Championship again. Yeah, it's always kind of tough to get a read on the league early in the spring because we're all coming out of that crappy weather, but kind of the usual foes are there, Northwestern, Illinois. Those two teams are always good. It's going to be interesting. There's a couple of teams there that they need good weeks at Big Ten to kind of slip into that NCAA picture. The league is better than it was last year, which is good. I think even the teams kind of in the bottom half, which is where we are now, we're much better, so, yeah, it's a great league. It's very underrated, I believe. Q. Do you think you can surprise a few people, maybe even yourself, at Big Tens? COACH BURCIN: Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me at all actually. We've had a round and a half or two rounds almost every week where we've been beaten up on teams that are probably ranking ahead of us. It happened at Iowa midway through the last round. We had climbed to fifth place and beaten up on three or four Big Ten teams. It wouldn't surprise me. What is important for us is the consistency level. We have to get to a point where those top three guys don't have to play perfect for us to play good. That's kind of where we're at right now. If we get a little bit of help in those last two spots, yeah, I don't see why we wouldn't have a good week. But we've got to take a little bit of load off those three guys. That's really important for us. So wouldn't surprise me because we've done it in spots. It just hasn't been consistent. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Michael. 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
|