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NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FINAL FOURMarch 27, 2017Frank MartinPhoenix, Arizona THE MODERATOR: We're joined by South Carolina head coach Frank Martin. Q. How did you first get hooked up with Rudy Keeling? COACH MARTIN: His assistant, Charlton Young, who was from Miami, was recruiting my point guard. And he brought Coach Keeling down to see us practice and that's where the conversation started. Q. And as far as transitioning from coaching high school basketball to college, how did you -- what difficulties did you encounter in making that transition? And how did working with high school kids help you become a college coach? COACH MARTIN: The transition, it's different. You spend, as an assistant, you spend a lot of time traveling, recruiting, so you have to learn how to keep doing your job and not being at practice sometimes. You're dealing with an older group of people than 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds. So that's the adjustment. And then high school basketball prepared me, I just -- I went out. I worked camps all over the country. I was fortunate that our high school, we had some very good players that got recruited at a high level. So I was exposed to college recruiting, which allowed me to understand, like, my side of it. I'm not saying who is good or who is bad, but watching people recruit firsthand allowed me to see some of the things I liked and didn't like. So whenever I got the opportunity, I tried to recruit in a way that I thought people would respect. And then the basketball part of it, it's basketball. You're trying to lead young men. You're trying to get them to sacrifice and play together and play the game through your eyes, through the way you think the game should be played. Q. Your team obviously gets a lot of credit for its defense. But Gonzaga also has very highly rated defense as well. Can you talk a little bit about Gonzaga, how you plan to attack Gonzaga's defense? And why maybe they don't get as much attention as, say, like you guys or West Virginia? COACH MARTIN: Well, I'll be honest with you, I have not -- I got home at midnight last night -- I've not started to study Gonzaga. I've seen them play a couple of times. I think they're a very mature team. They're very old. Mark Few is one of the great guys in our business, not just who he is as a human being, but how he coaches. They're going to be very disciplined. And it's going to be an unbelievable challenge for us. It's going to be an unbelievable opportunity. And we're going to play to our strengths. We're going to play the way we've played all year and hope at the end it's good enough, that we can figure out a way to get to the finish line. Q. By every metric except 3-point shooting your offense has been markedly better in this tournament than it was during the regular season. What clicked for you guys? COACH MARTIN: Our offense was pretty good halfway through conference play. And then once, you know, sweet basketball. You can almost make that assessment for 80 percent of the teams around the country. You get in conference basketball, and you start neutralizing other people's strengths, and you take away what teams are good at. And that's why conference basketball's so hard. That's why it's so hard to win in league play. And I think once you get out of conference, teams don't understand your teams as well. There's a big difference watching people on film and actually being on the court and competing with a team. And I think that facilitates for more scoring. It's not as easy to defend people unless you've actually been competing against them. But with all that said, we're defending at a high clip again, which is allowing us to get out in the open court and get opportunities. And I think we're converting them. And our team was real young. We've got a lot of guys that are very young. And our inside play has gotten good again. It kind of disappeared on us there the last month of the season. But our inside guys have played well in the NCAA Tournament. Q. I have a question, when you transitioned from Miami High School up to Northeastern, I understand you actually lived in Rhode Island a little bit. Did you get tricked that you thought it was close and nearby, or was it just kind of the way of the world because I'm sure you weren't making much money at Northeastern? COACH MARTIN: We couldn't afford it. The other assistant and I ended up renting a one bedroom apartment at the Captain Willett Apartments in East Providence. And we actually, he had a car, I did not. So I would ride in with him sometimes. When he was out recruiting, I'd have to take the bus, downtown Providence and get a commuter rail to downtown Boston. We couldn't afford -- I was making $28,000 -- and I just couldn't afford to pay rent to live in Boston. And you make it work. You figure out a way to make ends meet and that's what I did. Q. Does that seem far, far ago, or does it seem like yesterday? COACH MARTIN: The commute every day seems far, a far, far time. But that experience seems like it was just yesterday. It's unbelievable. Q. In your time at K-State, I was wondering what sort of interaction did you have with Bill Snyder? And if you did, did you glean any particular knowledge from him about being a head coach? COACH MARTIN: That's one of the luckiest things in my life, that I consider Coach Snyder a friend, that we stay in contact. I went back to Manhattan last spring, spent three days with him. He's an unbelievable human being. I reached out to Coach my first year here, and I asked him to reminisce on how he got through his first couple of years at K-State where they didn't win a lot of games. And Coach walked me through it, really helped me understand a lot of his visions, how he did it. Didn't mean I did it the same way. But it helped stimulate my mind to figure out how I wanted to do it and more than anything give me the patience that you have to have whenever you're going through a complete rebuild, which is what we're doing here and obviously what Coach had to do at Kansas State. Q. Everybody knows about your passion and intensity. It's pretty obvious. But is it a fine line that you have to balance between getting after a player and letting him know, make sure he knows it's not personal when it's like you're just trying to get him to be the best player possible. How do you balance that? COACH MARTIN: There is no fine line. That's called relationships. The way it is as a parent, where your children at home every day. When I got to punish my nine-year-old and he gets mad and he cries it breaks my heart. I have to do it because it's my duty to prepare him for life. It's no different with our players. The relationship is not about two hours of practice, it's not about 40 minutes of a game. It's about building a lifetime bond and an effort to help young people figure out how to succeed in life, which is hard, not easy. And my ultimate job, my ultimate responsibility is to help these guys learn how to keep a job the day they are given a job. And that's not an easy journey. It's a hard journey. But that's what a relationship is about. A relationship is about challenging each other to make sure that you're both committed to this thing for a long time. Q. Frank, just wondering with North Carolina having won [indiscernible]? COACH MARTIN: Can you repeat your question. You're breaking up. Q. How much of an advantage does North Carolina have with them being in the Final Four last year and Roy being there so many times versus you guys that are newcomers now? COACH MARTIN: I'm a big believer that experience helps you for the next time you're in that same situation on how to manage everything that leads up to the game. Once the game starts I think everything is irrelevant. Everyone's nervous. I don't care, you can play in the national championship game nine years in a row. If you go the tenth time you're nervous before that ball goes up in the air. There's no such thing as not being nervous for a game. But what I do think it's a huge advantage is that Roy, his players, his staff members, everyone at the university, being through it as recently as last year, they're fresh on the preparation, on the things to expect, what's coming. That way they can better manage their time, their days, to eliminate any distractions that can prevent them from being as prepared as they can for the game itself. Q. Being in the same Final Four as Roy Williams, what have you learned or admired from him over the past few years? COACH MARTIN: Coach is just a tremendous human being. Through Bob Huggins, I've gotten to know Coach Williams through a dear friend of mine, Eddie Fogler, being a former Tar Heel assistant with Coach Williams. I've gotten to know him. Our baseball coach, Chad Holbrook, his wife was Coach Williams' assistant before they moved to South Carolina -- administrative assistant, I should say. And Coach has always been very gracious to me unbelievably supportive of me since the time I arrived here, publicly and privately. And I know his team's play beautiful basketball. And it's a treat of mine that I can call him a friend. It's something that one day I'll be able to sit back, when I don't have to worry about working anymore, I can just, God willing, sit around and say stories to my grandchildren, I can tell them that I considered Roy Williams a friend. That's a huge thing for me. Q. Thornwell and Dozier, couple of home-state guys that you kept there, how did you sell Thornwell on your vision for the program? And did getting him help you get Dozier as well? COACH MARTIN: Yeah, convincing him of my vision was real hard because the one thing that I had to overcome with local guys like them too was that they're from here. So they kind of saw that there was apathy in place, that there wasn't a lot of success. Not too many fans were coming to games. And it was hard to get them to not see what they've seen and put my goggles on and see what I'm trying to see. And that was hard. But you know what, his uncle and I developed an unbelievable relationship. And his uncle is his father figure who passed away. And Sindarius trusted in his uncle. Sindarius and I developed a great relationship. And my assistant that recruited him did an unbelievable job. And at the end of the day South Carolina had a soft spot in his heart. And I convinced him to wrap his heart with the two names that mean the most to him, the state that he comes from, and his family's name, and help us build something special here. At the time Jadeveon Clowney and Marcus Lattimore were football players here. And I sold him on, like, you can be them for our basketball program. And then he came. And he started doing what Sindarius does, which is helping us learn how to win, and then he helped us in recruiting PJ. And PJ respected the heck out of him. And then PJ signed up for it. And that's what it's all about. Kids recruit each other. Coaches get a lot of credit for recruiting. At the end of the day, kids, they go on your campus and they meet the players in your program and they decide whether or not they want to be a part of that team because of that relationship. And those guys have been tremendous in helping us build this in. Q. Wanted to ask you about the value of experience and seeing -- it's the one-and-done age where everyone's always talking about the new freshmen who come in and spend a year on campus and then go to the NBA. But if you look at all these four teams, they're all kind of similar in terms of experience and having seniors. What do you think this Final Four reveals about that importance of the experience and going through it? COACH MARTIN: If I could coach one-and-dones I'd be more than happy. Because you've got pros on your team. You've got a chance to be real good. But there's a difference. Seniors, you live together, sometimes you grow together sometimes you grow further apart just because of relationships and the things that happen through those experiences. But there's a difference. I know I was completely different at 22 than I was at 18. I know in education, all my years, it's always been part of the maturation. When Sindarius Thornwell first got on campus, you know, he wasn't prepared to do interviews with the media. It was hard to sustain a conversation, just like my son is, who is 18 years old, because they're concerned with social media or whatever. Now I can sit down and have grown-men conversations with Sindarius. And that's the biggest difference is you feel like you make a bigger impact in the growth when you're around them for a little longer. Q. Being from the Miami Herald, could you talk about your up bringing here and some of the things in your life that you think shaped you as a coach and your philosophy as a coach? COACH MARTIN: Obviously Miami raised me. Miami solidified who I am as a human being and instilled the values that I live my life by. Shakey Rodriguez took a chance on a 15-year-old that wasn't any good as a player, but for whatever reason he made me feel that I was good. And he instilled trust and belief in me and gave me an opportunity. And then the neighborhood that raised me, Little Havana, my neighbors, you know, we all raised each other. They looked out for me and some of my guys got in trouble. But they made sure I didn't get in trouble. And you keep moving forward and I start coaching in the same neighborhood I grew up in. And I'm coaching the younger brothers and the sons of people that have lived down the block from me. And that's what made me who I am. I will forever be indebted in that community and the people that had such an impact in my life, and that's why I try to live my life the best I can, in respect to all the folks that worked so hard to give me a chance to move forward. Q. Where did you work as a bouncer? COACH MARTIN: Different places. Calico Jack's. Stefano's. I worked at, I can't remember the name of the one place on South Beach. That wasn't fun. It's just different places. Bar tended, bounced, had to work nights so I could coach during the day. Q. You still have a lot of relatives here in Little Havana? COACH MARTIN: My mother and my uncle. And then, like I said, people from our neighborhood that just, we all raised each other. Even though we're not blood relatives, we're all brothers. And a bunch of them were in New York City this weekend and will be in Phoenix next weekend. Q. How did that enable you to coach young men, to relate to young men, do you think? COACH MARTIN: It's the duty that's been instilled in me. That neighborhood, those people in my life, taught me to become a man and they taught me how to do things right and taught me how to make the right decisions and how to respect. And I got into coaching to help young people have a chance to move forward in the same neighborhood that helped me learn how to move forward. And even though I don't live in that neighborhood anymore, those are the same values that I kind of go at my job every single day. My job is to help these young kids understand how to become a man and learn how to one day become a husband, become a father and keep a job, not just get a job but learn how to keep a job. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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