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NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: LOS ANGELES

March 21, 2018

Leonard Hamilton

Los Angeles, California

THE MODERATOR: We welcome Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton. Coach, do you have some opening comments?

LEONARD HAMILTON: We've been very focused the last couple of days, and I feel like the team has a sense of the importance of where we are. They realize how we've gotten here by playing extremely hard and giving a tremendous amount of effort with an unselfish spirit.

So I feel that we're in a pretty good mental state, and we're anxious and excited about the opportunity to play against an outstanding team that has traditionally been very successful over the last number of years, a team that's basically dominated this part of the country.

So our guys, because we have a lot of young, inexperienced guys, I think they feel like this is a tremendous opportunity for us, and we're excited about it.

Q. You're 69 years old and could easily pass for somebody who is 20 years younger. Do you have any aging tips for us that are trying to age gracefully?
LEONARD HAMILTON: Wow.

Q. You weren't expecting that one?
LEONARD HAMILTON: No, I was not. I think my mother was 97, and obviously she passed some pretty good genes down to me.

But I think more than anything else I enjoy what I do. I don't really feel stressed or pressured. I really enjoy working with young people.

I think the most important thing that we do is we take youngsters when they're teenagers, and we nurture them into young adulthood.

I think sometimes as coaches the pressure to win and win championships, where I have plenty of rings, plenty of watches, Coach of the Year awards, but I get more excited when I'm invited to their wedding, when they ask me to be the godfather of their kids, when they call me and ask me for personal things that are going on in their life or decisions they need to make.

To me, what type of husbands, fathers, neighbors and citizens they become are probably the paramount thing that we do.

So I take my job seriously, and I enjoy what I do. That's part of the reason why I'm able to feel as good and maintain the level of health that I've been able to because I'm excited every day I come to work that I have the opportunity as a staff to impact young folks' lives. I enjoy it.

I think sometimes when you enjoy what you do, it allows you to eat well, prepare well. I don't sleep very much, but I never have. So other than that, I try to eat right. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I do curse every once in a while, other than that, I said some things that my mother probably wouldn't be happy with, God rest her soul.

Q. You've been at this a while with all of the upsets and lower seeds winning this year. When that happens, does that surprise you?
LEONARD HAMILTON: All the what now?

Q. The upsets and the lower seeds winning in the tournament, does that surprise you and do you have an explanation for what's going on this year?
LEONARD HAMILTON: See, I think that basketball is in, as I said earlier, a revolution. I think kids are playing basketball, they enjoy it. They play in summer leagues. They've got tournaments. They've got AAU ball. They really enjoy high school ball. And I think you have kids playing good basketball all over the country. But the schools that get the players with the most recognition have notoriety, and the expectations for those schools are at such a level that sometimes you get disappointed when the notoriety doesn't meet the success.

But in reality, I turn the TV on all the time, and I see a school that I hadn't -- I know very little about, they're supposed to be categorized as a mid-major school, and I say, boy, I wish I had that player. I wish I had those guys.

So I don't think the word upset is something you can use as much as we used to because there's parity. There are guys that are really, really enjoying how to play. And when kids find the level that they feel that they're comfortable with, and they meet, and they're in a system that allows them to be successful, then I think you see kids being successful and programs being successful.

You guys, I guess you guys would consider that it was an upset when we played against Xavier, but I didn't know very much about all of Xavier's players, and they're really, really a good basketball team.

So I think that the media has not caught up to how much kids -- where kids are improving or how kids are going everywhere. I think when you find those programs where kids are happy and they're in a system that they can flourish in, you see them playing good basketball. Once we get into the NCAA Tournament, I think anything can happen. That's why they call it March Madness, and I like it.

Q. I was reading about your passion for gospel music and your record label. I was wondering where that originated and how the label is going currently?
LEONARD HAMILTON: Well, you guys are coming from left field on me today. As a youngster growing up, I'm not really sure I ever lived -- in the first 19 years of my life, maybe first 20 years of my life, I never lived more than 50 yards from a church. And every time the church bell rang, I could hear it. Whenever the piano or the organ played, I could really sing with the songs in my bedroom.

I grew up in the church. That was kind of a way of life for us. Sunday school, BTU, vacation bible school, choir practice, Easter programs, Christmas programs, Easter egg hunts, all those things were part of who we were and what I've become as an individual. So the church has always been a very important part of my life. Going to church and worshipping has been a very important part of my life.

I remember even as a youngster going every Sunday night with my grandmother to a different church in town. So I kind of grew up with that. I enjoy it. It's part of who I am. I enjoy it.

I do have a record label, but it's not as much as an income producer for me as to try and provide people with access to opportunity and hopefully help them do what I feel like is important to them -- spreading the word, spreading the gospel. Having an opportunity to express themselves in song has always been a part of my life, and I always try to work hard to encourage other people who want to do that, to do it, and it's kind of my way of giving back.

Q. Leonard, you use, I believe, a ten-man rotation which is unusually large, I think, in this day and age, and the tendency among coaches might be to shorten their rotation this time of the year. It appears you're sticking with yours. Have you always believed that? Are you aware that you might be going against the grain there?
LEONARD HAMILTON: Well, I haven't really thought about whether or not it's going against the grain. That's the way we've always played, even from when I was in the Big East. I felt that that was the best way for me to compete with the rich tradition of programs that are always loaded with the top seven, eight players who are some of the top players in the country.

I just felt that it would be important for me to not worry about competing with the top five or six players, but let's try to get a team of guys that would allow themselves to win by committee.

Our philosophy is we have the same with our team, we're 18 strong, that includes our walk-ons as well. We feel that that's important for us to find a way for everybody to contribute. I'm in a conference with some of the most heralded, rich, traditional, successful basketball programs in the country. So we, Florida State, was independent for many years. Then they joined the Metro, then we evolved into having an opportunity to go into the ACC.

But you have programs with 75, 80 years of -- Notre Dame, Louisville, Carolina, Duke, Syracuse, Virginia, programs with rich, traditional, successful programs over a number of years.

So in order for us to compete, we feel that we can compete a lot better if we have more guys to share the load where we don't put all that responsibility on one or two particular players. It's been working for us for a number of years.

Q. Have you considered shrinking it at all?
LEONARD HAMILTON: No, I have not. I don't think that's who we are. We're 18 strong.

Q. You've lost some guys early in the last few years to the pros. How have you been able to compensate for that?
LEONARD HAMILTON: Well, we try to be selective in our recruiting process. We try to find youngsters that are comfortable with who we are and the style that we like to play. We try to get youngsters with as high character who like being in the kind of environment we like to create at Florida State.

So we feel good about those youngsters being able to come to our program and move on with their careers. We're very proud of our graduation rate. So those guys that have been with us for four years. I think we've only had five or six kids not graduate in the last 25 years.

So we are not compromising ourselves by not emphasizing the things that we're supposed to be emphasizing and getting kids coming to college and getting education. But those guys that have opportunities to move on, we encourage that if those opportunities are available.

So we find it easy to find kids who feel good about who we are and want to be a part of the system that we have, and we just try to look under a whole lot of rocks and knock on a lot of doors, and we've been able to find the kids who fill the void of what we feel like we need.

Q. Your impressions of Gonzaga, any particular concerns that they present for your team?
LEONARD HAMILTON: Well, I look back and see that they won almost 30 games for the last ten years in a row, I'm extremely impressed with the job that coach has done. They play with a spirit, a level of toughness. And they seem to be so fundamentally sound. They execute their systems very, very well. They have been one of the most successful programs for a number of years.

It's extremely difficult to do that year in and year out, to have guys move on and bring guys in. They've got guys developing, and the program seems to go on and on and on.

As I watched them play, I'm just extremely impressed with how well they play together. They're confident in what they do. I don't want to say they have -- they've got a little bit of a confident edge about who they are and what they represent. And when you have as much success as they've had over the years, and you come into a tournament believing in who you are and your program, your system.

So the challenge for us is to allow our hunger -- it might even be hangry. But my point is, seriously, what I'm saying is we -- I'm sure we're going to be the underdog, I'm sure we're a team that people are saying have a tremendous challenge.

Well, are we more excited about being who we are? Are we going to put ourselves in position to be the best Florida State team to negate who they are, or their level of confidence and their talent and the system that they have to be more successful against us?

So, like I said earlier, we're looking forward to the challenge. We're excited about being here. Especially playing against a great team that we have a tremendous amount of respect for. And I'm hopeful of the fact that they've been so successful, they're going to bring the best out of us.

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