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

March 17, 2018

Leonard Hamilton

Nashville, Tennessee

THE MODERATOR: Head coach of the Florida State Seminoles is with us, Leonard Hamilton. We'll have him open up with a statement and then go to questions. Coach?

LEONARD HAMILTON: Obviously, I was very pleased with the outcome of the game last night. I thought that our guys were connected defensively early in the game, and we were able to get some significant stops and deflections and steals that gave us some easy opportunities. A lot of that is because Missouri's similar to us in terms of youthful inexperience.

But tomorrow's game is different because we're playing against an extremely experienced team with a lot of quality depth, a team that's very well connected together, and that we're going to have to be a little sounder defensively. We're going to have to execute a lot better offensively because this team has earned the right to be a No. 1 seed.

They've been ranked in the top three or four teams all year long, at least the latter part of the season. They deserve that recognition. And we know in order to be successful, we've got to be at our best to pull this off.

Our kids are excited about it. We're looking forward to the challenge. Hopefully, we can accomplish our goal by moving on in the NCAA tournament.

Q. Coach, Xavier's Trevon Bluiett is considered one of the best scorers in the country. What makes him so effective, from your perspective?
LEONARD HAMILTON: Well, he's extremely confident. He's a typical, born and bred Indiana basketball player. You hear about how passionate Indiana's fans are and how basketball is a way of life in Indiana. He represents that.

He's a confident, talented scorer. And within their system, he is a guy who is their go-to guy, at least one of them. And he plays with an extreme amount of confidence. They depend on him and he delivers night in and night out.

He is very clever and smart in how he utilizes his abilities within their system. No one has seemed to have had an answer for him all year long.

Q. Leonard, what, if anything, can you take away from a game that happened 12 months ago when you played them? I know you're a completely different team. Are they similar to what they were last year? Better?
LEONARD HAMILTON: I think they're better than they were last year, because they're older, more experienced. They have basically the entire team coming back, maybe with the exception of a couple role players. I think they're older, more mature.

Emotionally, they don't get rattled during critical parts of the game. I've watched several game films of them. Even some of the games where they have been challenged, they never seem to lose their composure. And so they're not going to miss shots unless you make them miss.

Defensively, they have a sound, fundamental defensive system that's connected. They have the right balance offensively of an inside and offensive outside attack. They execute in the half court when time comes. They have a system that really fits who they are.

And so at this time, when you're in the NCAA tournament, the challenge for all teams is for us to be the best of who we are. I think their experience, they're going to be consistent with being who they are.

Hopefully, the challenge of the moment will bring the best out of us. I think our effort will be good. I think we're who we are in terms of an experience standpoint, but I know we're going to give a tremendous effort. I like our kids' attitude, and we know we've got to be at our best in order to be successful.

Q. How's Terance Mann doing and is he going to be able to practice today, his status for tomorrow?
LEONARD HAMILTON: We won't have what you call a typical practice today, because we were here until about 12:30 last night. I think we probably got to bed around 2:00. So we will have, basically, a game preparation-type practice, understanding that we've got to be full go tomorrow.

Terance has gone to the doctor today. I have not gotten any results from that. I think he's had a couple of -- an MRI to see kind of where he is. I think he has a groin strain. He was quite sore last night.

I don't expect him to play, unless the doctor comes and tells me something different. But we have to wait and see. I don't have anything officially I can tell you other than that he had been bothered by that prior to coming to the tournament.

If you noticed last night, there was several kids that slipped on the floor. Obviously, I hope that's not the case when we play tomorrow night, but he did take a -- he did slide, and it was very painful, and we just thought that he was not at the level that we could utilize him for the remainder of the game.

I'll know more hopefully when I talk to the doctors, maybe before or even after practice.

Q. Leonard, just in terms of preparation on a short turnaround, does it help at all going against a team that you do have some familiarity with, you otherwise wouldn't, who still has some of the same players?
LEONARD HAMILTON: I think because they've been so successful, they've been on TV so much, our kids are somewhat familiar with them. It's one thing to watch them and to see them on film. It's another thing to go out and execute against them.

They are very talented, very well coached and they're one of the top three or four teams in the country. But because we're in the ACC, we play against this level of competition on a regular basis. I'm hopeful that that will allow our kids to have a certain level of confident maturity or at least the right mental approach to understand that this is an ACC caliber type team and that we've faced them before.

The bottom line is you've got to go out and play. We've got to come as close as we can to reaching our full potential because with their experience that they have, they've shown that they're pretty much going to be on point.

Q. Also, P.J. looks like he's rounded into form over the last couple weeks, hit some big shots last night. How much did that injury affect him. Now that he's healthy, has he kind of given you what you want to get out of him?
LEONARD HAMILTON: We've had three major injuries this year, obviously with Trent being out for seven weeks and Christ Koumadje being out seven weeks. It kind of slowed our progress up.

But when P.J. went down with a bone bruise, we lost our best shooter. It took him a while to get his confidence and get back in the groove. Obviously having a guy like that who's capable of knocking down shots from anywhere on the floor is important because we're playing against a team that has several guys that are capable of shooting the ball as well as P.J. shoots it.

So we definitely need him, and he's coming around. His defense has been consistent. He's finding a way to play within our system. He's confident that he's -- we're confident in him that we can get him a number of open looks that the majority of those shots will go down.

There have been games this year we have not shot the ball well from the perimeter. Hopefully, this won't be one tomorrow.

Thank you very much.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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