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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE OPERATION BASKETBALLOctober 29, 2014Jamie DixonCHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA Q. Just how you see this team this year and what you've been able to take away from some guys like James and Cameron that are here today, just how you see the team going this season. JAMIE DIXON: Well, I like the group. They're working hard. It's a really good passing team, and that's exciting. With that, you've got some guys that kind of have a feel for the game. They understand spacing. They understand hitting the open man, shot selection I think to a pretty good degree at this point. To me, understanding the game allows you to get better, improve, and we can try to put some concepts in defensively that we can grow and get better with. Excited about that. Obviously we've got to get Cameron out there. It's interesting practicing this entire time without your leading returning scorer. But guard play should be good, point guard play specifically with James and Josh Newkirk, so that's unique I think having two point guards back with a lot of experience. Cameron, another guy who can play the point, just gives us good decision making. Perimeter, we've got some depth. We'll put some bodies out there. Durand is not where we thought he would be. The ankle has been added to the knee. It's been more of a challenge than we thought. And then obviously the big guy situation, we've got some guys returning. We added some guys, and last year I thought we got a pretty good effort out of our front line considering we only had really one returning player in Talib. A lot of excitement about our five sophomores. All of them are good players. Q. Last year you got to play some new teams, play in new places. What was the biggest thing you learned about playing in this league last year? JAMIE DIXON: I mean, a little less zone than maybe we were used to as far as coming from the Big East. I thought we‑‑ that was the biggest thing. I think a lot of the places we were familiar with because of former Big East teams, so that wasn't as much of a change as people were making it out to be. But I think the biggest thing was just seeing less zone. We just didn't see as much as we had seen in the past, and with Louisville coming in, though, we think we'll see some more zone, and it's something that we need to be prepared for and do a good job against. That's the biggest challenge. Q. You just brought it up; with Louisville, can't get away from Rick Pitino. His talent and the level, whoever he has on the team, you know the type of coach he is and what he's able to put together. JAMIE DIXON: Yeah, because they joined the Big East a couple years after I'd been there and been the head coach, and I didn't realize the tradition, the resources, the following that Louisville and the program had until we started going down there and playing against them and seeing the commitment they had to basketball, college basketball and their program. And now we're in the same ACC together. It is amazing how it works out. It is remarkable that we're now in the ACC after Maryland leaving; who could have predicted that? They're here, and they're obviously very good. They recruit very good players. They've gotten players from Seattle, Washington, and they've gotten players from all over the world, so they obviously can find players and attract players from different parts of the country and the world. And they bring a little bit more zone to the conference, which is something we were so used to in the Big East, and I think they're going to bring a bit of physicality and aggressiveness to the conference, as well, that will be a bit of a change obviously with the rules and how they're calling the game. We're going to see how it all plays out with that, if it continues with the tight calls, the hand checking, and where the officials go with that as we go forward. Q. Last year one of the odd things about your conference record, you were 7‑2 on the road and only 4‑5 at home. How did that happen? JAMIE DIXON: It's remarkable. We've been talking about we had the best record on the road in the conference, which should mean you're going to be winning a conference championship, and we're known for our home record at Peterson Event Center. We had five bad losses at home, and any loss at home is a bad loss. If you want to win the conference, you've got to win your home games, so we played good enough on the road to win the conference, but we didn't get it done at home. That's something that we lost close games. We lost two games at the buzzer, and if we win those home games‑‑ we were talking about RPI. You just can't lose your home games and play out all the things that we did. We win those two games we lose at the buzzer, all of a sudden we're not in the 8‑9 game, we're not playing Florida in the second round, the best team in the country, or the third round, whatever you want to call it at this point. You've got to win your home games, and we've got to get back to doing that because that's what we always did in the Big East. But we lost some close games, and we lost some games we shouldn't have to be honest. We lost to good teams, though, in every case. We lost to good teams. But you've got to win the home games, and it's something we're very much aware of, but we'd like to keep the 7‑2 record at home, as would anyone else in our conference. Q. Given all the changes within the league over the last couple of years, you think about the defense, the offense, the quickness, what will this season‑‑ what will the personality be for the ACC this year as people think about it in March? JAMIE DIXON: I think‑‑ I don't know. That's always the thing that you hear in this conference. The conferences are so big now, and there's 15, and there's 16 teams. To say that you can have a personality or a style of play, I don't think it's possible. You see all different styles of play. We saw that in the Big East. We saw it with all the different defenses, the zones, the different types of zones, the man‑to‑man, the pressing teams, the walk‑it‑up teams. It's funny how it is. Sometimes I'm amazed, too. Sometimes teams get labeled something that they're not. We got‑‑ sometimes people say, I had somebody just ask me about us being a team that walks it up, and I asked them who were the top three leading scoring teams in the ACC this past year, and of course we were one of the three. He didn't figure that out when I asked the question, but that was my point. I mean, there is‑‑ we were one of the three leading scoring teams. You know, you're going to get all different styles, and I know we want to be labeled and that's what people look to do, to sum it up in one sentence, but this is going to be a conference of really good teams that all play different styles. Q. You have the Maui tournament coming up, and other than hoping to come back with a championship, what do you hope the team will teach you and what do you think the team may do even off the court? JAMIE DIXON: Well, there's nothing they'll be doing off the court. It's about getting ready to play basketball. We're going to play an extra game; we're going to play Mercy of Hawai'i. We've got four games and then one game at home as part of that tournament. It's five games really in total, and we're excited about the opportunity. We haven't gone out there. I coached out there, obviously, as did Coach Pitino way back when. He seems to‑‑ whenever I bring those days up, he laughs about it. But it's going to be a great event. It's going to be a great opportunity. It's our first time playing out there. As much as I like going back and visiting out there, playing there is not something I've always wanted to do. But our guys are excited about it. It's going to be a great event. I think Cameron, we don't know when he'll be back, around that time or something, so we are in a unique situation when your leading scorer is going to be out all that time and then going to be coming back around that four or five games we're playing as part of that event. We'll see how it plays out. We're still a team that's finding our identity, finding our rotation, as are all teams at this point, but a few injuries have allowed us to get some guys some reps but also have slowed down the progress of some others. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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