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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: NASHVILLE

March 15, 2018

Leonard Hamilton

Nashville, Tennessee

THE MODERATOR: The head coach of the Seminoles is Leonard Hamilton. He's going to open up with a statement about being here in Nashville. Then we'll go to questions. Coach?

LEONARD HAMILTON: This has been a very interesting year for our basketball team. Started with, after last year when we lost five players, two seniors and three kids that are now playing in the NBA and a couple kids playing overseas, we knew that the upcoming year would be tremendously challenging for us to continue to keep building on the culture that we were trying to establish over the last number of years.

And so our players have a clear understanding of what our challenge would be because the expectations had been raised. We had a bunch of guys who had been support players who now were going to be instrumental in leading the team. And so we realized that it was going to be tremendously challenging.

I'm very proud of these guys because I think that what we've done is we've been a little inconsistent, but I think we've played some very good basketball at times, and hopefully we have grown some wisdom from the challenges that this season has given us. Hopefully, this will give us an opportunity to show the growth and maturity that we've gained and made throughout the course of the year.

So this, the NCAA, now gives us an opportunity to -- kind of like a new season that hopefully we'll be able to show that we've grown a little in where we are and hopefully where we're trying to grow as a team.

Q. Coach, what are the challenges in scouting and preparing for a team that now added a player who's only played 25 minutes this season for you to have on film?
LEONARD HAMILTON: I've been asked that question several times about Michael Porter. I don't understand why people are asking me why that's going to be difficult, because we've watched him play for a number of years, and he's a tremendously talented youngster. In fact, he's one of the top four, five basketball players in college basketball.

So as young people say, we don't have it twisted. We know exactly what we're facing. We're facing a youngster that is tremendously talented, that's healthy.

And when we watch the film of the game that he did play in, I was just amazed at the level of confidence that he played with. He shot the ball from 3-point line with tremendous amount of confidence. He shot a turnaround jump shot like he's been doing it all year long. He took the ball the length of the court. He moved the ball and made the extra pass. He played almost like a veteran, a guy who his maturity level is beyond his years.

So we have a tremendous amount of respect for their team because I think they've had a very good year. They've had some challenges that they've had to overcome. Sometimes when you go through a season as a first year coach and you overcome the challenges that they've had, you gain a lot of wisdom through that.

So now, you're adding your very best player coming into the season that gives you an added boost or added level of confidence. So we're tremendously impressed with them. We know we have a tremendous challenge. In order for us to be successful, we're going to have to be at our best.

They kind of represent some of the teams that we play in the ACC night in and night out that have great players like Porter, both of the Porters. I'm equally as impressed with the younger brother, because the 6'11" guy that dribbles and passes and shoots the ball as well as he does is extremely impressive. A guy who is very adapted going inside, who has shot close to 100 threes during the course of the year, a team that 44 percent of their attempts are 3-pointers, and then they have a great inside attack.

So I can't only give a lot of -- overly concerned about the Porters, because they have a lot of other guys who are really, really talented as well. It's motivating our players hopefully to be at their very best like we have to do in the ACC night in and night out.

Q. Coach, you spoke about the film you've seen of Michael Porter throughout high school. For your players, Jonathan Isaac, playing with him and against him in practice, does it give you a similar -- your players a similar skill set to have Jonathan last season and going up against preparing for Porter?
LEONARD HAMILTON: It's very difficult to try to compare players like that. He's just a tremendous talent. He's long, he's athletic. He has great basketball awareness. He has a high basketball IQ. He's come from a basketball family. He has tremendous skill, and he's well coached. More than anything else, he's extremely hungry to go out and show the world that he is who they've all -- what they expect him to be.

The interesting thing, you can't -- Missouri is not the kind of team that you can give all your attention to only one or two players. They're well coached. They execute their offense very well. Defensively, they're very sound fundamentally. They're extremely physical. They play awful hard and they're very well coached.

I've known Coach Martin for a long time. He's been successful everywhere he's been. We know his team is going to be well prepared and we need to be at our best in order to be successful.

Q. Cuonzo talked about you being one of the guys that really kind of helped him when he was early on in this profession. What do you remember about maybe reaching out to him or getting to know him?
LEONARD HAMILTON: I think that says it, that I've been around a long time, when you look around sometimes. But I've always tried to make myself be available for anything I can do to help younger coaches, because I had some great mentors myself. And I always had guys that helped guide me through those moments, where I had some indecision about some of the decisions that I had to make.

I've always had a healthy respect for Cuonzo. And, like I said earlier, I've always tried to be touchable, a guy that people who feel that they have certain issues or concerns, that they're comfortable talking with me. And we've had a lot of, I guess you'd call, fireside chats that we've -- off the record conversations that we've had to have about the challenges of our business.

But I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cuonzo, because we all know that he's a tremendous coach from an X and O standpoint. Any time you see a young guy who has a tremendous passion and love and respect for the game as he does, and he displays that between how he communicates with his players, how he holds them accountable, how they respect him and the role model he's set for them, I admire that.

You know that not only will his teams be well prepared, but he's preparing young people for life after basketball, as well as preparing them for the game.

Any time a guy of that caliber reaches out, I feel honored that he would even reach out and want to talk to me because I admire and respect what he's done, and what he's done in his coaching career. If I can be of any assistance to a guy like him, and he and I developed a pretty good relationship. There have been times I've gotten phone calls early in the morning, late at night and we've had to have what we call the brother-in-law conversations, what we call graveyard conversations that we talk about it and leave it there.

That's the nature of any business. I think that sometimes, it's good to have somebody who have, like myself, who has made a lot of mistakes. You know, I've learned not because I've been smarter than anyone else. Because I've made enough mistakes, and sometimes mistakes will teach you how not to make the same mistake again. Sometimes I'm just available so he won't bump his head against the wall like bumps I had. I keep from bumping his head as much as I can.

Q. Coach, with C.J. and Trent, you have two really unselfish guys leading your offense, leading your team. What have they done to take on leadership roles and how have they progressed the culture change you're trying to instill here?
LEONARD HAMILTON: Well, you're talking about two sophomores who play well, they lead our team as point guards and they play off each other very well when we play them together.

C.J.'s more of a scoring point guard. Trent Forrest has been more of a pass-first type of guy, a guy who gives us tremendous defensive leadership.

The thing that's impressive about Trent is he had an injury earlier in the year, a bone bruise that kept him out of action, out of practice for almost seven weeks. And even when he came back, and he was cleared to practice and play, but psychologically, he was a little uncertain, uneasy about stopping and starting and changing direction and exploding and landing, those things that go along with sometimes recovering from an injury.

So it took him a while, almost a month to get back to playing with a level of confidence. Early on in preseason, Trent could probably have been our best player. He was displaying so many things that you're just now starting to see him get back and display who he is and what he's about as a team.

Both of those guys have been, for sophomores, they've been great for our program and we feel confident about the future of our program if it's in those guys' hands.

Q. I know you said that it's hard to compare players, so I don't know if there's a specific guy. But with Jontay Porter, a guy who is his size and plays as much on the perimeter as he does, how rare is that or is it becoming more common?
LEONARD HAMILTON: To be honest with you, I do think that's the way basketball is moving, guys who are position-less type of players. And he displays that way. I mean, he'll get a rebound.

It was one play in one game, I think it might have been in the Georgia game, where I think Michael got the rebound, and he threw an outlet pass to the 6'11" brother running down the right side.

The interesting thing is Michael was sprinting down the court and he kicked the ball up to his 6'11" brother filling the lane. He caught it with one hand and flipped it over to his other 6'10" brother going down the middle of the court. I said, Wow, that was impressive. One 6'10" guy throwing an outlet pass to his 6'11" brother, and he catches it with one hand and touch passes it to his brother running down the middle of the court. I had to replay that to make sure what I was seeing.

It says a lot about where the game's going, his parents, how skilled they are, the feel that they have for the game. That just says an awful lot, that they are special and unique players, and they definitely have our full attention.

THE MODERATOR: Best of luck tomorrow.

LEONARD HAMILTON: Thank you so much.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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