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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE OPERATION BASKETBALLOctober 29, 2014Jim LarranagaCHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA Q.  With two of the guys, Sheldon and Angel, coming on to the team this year, they're obviously here to learn and practice and grow, but what can you say about what they can bring to you having that time under their belt to learn what they need to? JIM LARRAÑAGA: It was absolutely great having them. Angel is a great leader, on the court, off the court, very inspirational, very vocal. He's a pit bull on defense. He's a floor general on offense. He can deliver the basketball to a great three‑point shooter or to a big guy near the basket. He handles the ball beautifully. He loves to take and make the big shot. He can make threes, he can make layups, he can make free throws. He's going to be a terrific player in the conference. And the great part for him is he's got a guy like Sheldon McClellan, who's a tremendous offensive player. He's very, very gifted athletically. He's got tremendous skills, he's gotten a whole lot stronger in the year we've had him, and they've had a chance to practice together for more than a year now, and I think that's going to give us a great one‑two punch on the perimeter. Q. Your programs all seem to have a very distinct personality. Is it tough for you to adjust to the different personalities every year, or are you at a point now where you sort of roll with it? JIM LARRAÑAGA: No, we've had so many different personalities and so many different kinds of players and we've had to change our style accordingly, but they've all had one thing in common: They were all great kids and a lot of fun to be around. Anybody who has spent time today with Angel Rodriguez and Sheldon McClellan have found out they've got great personalities, they've got great energy. They smile a lot. We've had a lot of those guys, Shane Larkin and Durand Scott are that way. The kids I was not able to bring today, kids like Tonye Jekiri and Manu Lecomte are both playing great right now. They're an awful lot of fun to be around. I'm a very lucky guy. Q. As far as the defense that you've been able to put together in Miami, what can you say about the personnel that you have this season knowing that even going into the Dome against Syracuse you were able to hold teams low and really be effective on defense? JIM LARRAÑAGA: Well, we'd love to be a great defensive team, but we really don't want to be the kind of defensive team we were last year. For the first time in my coaching career, we employed a zone as our primary defense. That is kind of philosophically against my own thoughts. We want to be a man‑to‑man team. This year we will go back to the man‑to‑man as our bread and butter defense. But you have to always have a strategy that gives you the best chance to win. So whether we're playing man or zone, it's going to be a defense that my coaching staff and I have decided gives us the best chance to compete with the best teams in this league. Q. Free‑throw percentage last year was not favorable for your club. Adjustments, extra time in the gym? What are your thoughts about some of those smaller areas of your game this year? JIM LARRAÑAGA: Well, the free‑throw shooting is not going to be improved by drill work. It's improved through recruiting. Sheldon McClellan and Angel Rodriguez are both great free‑throw shooters. Manu Lecomte was our best free‑throw shooter last year. Someone like Tonye Jekiri has improved his free throw shooting. That will help. But we've got a host of guys who are very, very good at making free throws, and more importantly, getting to the foul line on a regular basis. Q. Coming off the great season two years ago, you had a lot of players that had to learn new roles for the team last year. What do you think that they learned from the season last year? JIM LARRAÑAGA: Well, you know, what we learned last year is that you need veteran players to win in this league, and last year's team was made up of older guys who had very little experience. Our leading returning scorer last year only averaged six points a game, and he had been our seventh man. This year's team we were very fortunate that we had two guys sitting out that both averaged double figures, one at Kansas State and one at Texas. And they're going to be two of our go‑to guys this season. And then we have three returning players, Tonye Jekiri, Manu Lecomte and Davon Reed, all of whom had very good seasons last year, and they'll have some experience. But we still have nine new guys on our team, nine guys that never wore a Miami uniform. So we're still going to be very young, but hopefully this year will be the start of a program, rather than just having a good team, of having veteran players and having a well‑balanced lineup. This year we only have one senior on our roster, but next year we'll have four, and then our classes should be much better balanced. I think we will be able to be more consistent. Q. Puerto Rico, Belgium, Spain, what are the benefits of the international infusion for your team, both on and off the court? JIM LARRAÑAGA: Well, first of all, the University of Miami is located in Coral Gables, Florida, just outside of Miami, Florida, and it's an international city. The diversity of our community is something that attracts international students, and that's what we were able to get Ivan Uceda from Spain, Manu Lecomte from Belgium and Tonye Jekiri from Nigeria and Angel Rodriguez from Puerto Rico. It is a melting pot. But we also have been able to recruit some very good in‑state kids and players throughout the United States. But we want to build consistently by recruiting and attracting players from the state of Florida but also up and down the geographical footprint of the ACC, that eastern seaboard. We feel like we're a very viable option for the top high school talent in that area. Q. Overall what's it going to take for you to be happy with the season at the end of the season? JIM LARRAÑAGA: Well, I'm always going to be happy. Q. As far as like wins‑‑ JIM LARRAÑAGA: Being satisfied with wins and‑‑ Q. Correct. JIM LARRAÑAGA: It's all based on improvement. We're okay right now. We should be okay to start our season. We played four games in Spain. We're going to have an exhibition game and a scrimmage, so we'll be okay, but not nearly as good as we need to be, and we're going to have to improve an awful lot to satisfy me and my coaching staff and our team. But our guys are working hard. They are improving steadily, but we have so many areas to improve in that it's going to take quite a while for us to get as good as we can be. The first thing is we're going to need to be at full strength. Ivan Uceda is 6'10" and is a very skilled player, he's not available to us. He won't play until our 17th game of the season. Davon Reed, who is one of our three veteran players returning, he sustained an injury, had surgery, and he's out for an indefinite amount of time. When those two guys come back, we'll be a much better basketball team offensively and defensively. But until then, the other guys have to improve and get us to the point where we can compete with some of the best teams in the country. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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