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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

May 21, 2018

Jim Morris

Durham, North Carolina

JIM MORRIS: Well, I mean, it's been an interesting season for us. We've started five or six freshmen all year and will again the opening game in the tournament. So it's been an interesting year with these guy, watching them mature and get better.

Right now, we got Romy back playing and Reyes back playing which is a huge offensive part of our team so I feel like we're playing good. We won our last ten games in a row coming into the tournament. Your goal as a coach I think is always to be hot if you can, but it's a great league. It's a great league.

As Dan said and you can lose anybody or you can beat anybody on a given day it looks like, and we've got a better record in our conference because of those ten wins than we did two weeks ago. So we're excited about the tournament. We're ready to come up to Durham and get ready to play.

Q. I know this is your final year of being coach of Miami. Is there a lot of things you remember being with Miami? I know you're having a tough season and you were in the post-season for like 35 straight years. Is that stuff you'll always remember, being in Omaha and all that stuff?
JIM MORRIS: Of course. I've got a lot of great memories, here and Georgia Tech to be honest, the last 41 years. It's been an exciting time. You would like to end your career in Omaha, no question about that and we've been there 13 times since I've been here but we're going to have to get hot in the tournament. These freshmen got to play good, but I've got a lot of great memories. Of course, winning the championships are the best memory.

Q. You said you're getting hot at the right time. Do you think your freshmen are learning the way Miami Baseball is?
JIM MORRIS: I know we always talk about that and that's win of our goals to be hot at the end of season. We are playing tournaments and playing our best. That's a combination of the freshmen getting better and it's also really getting Reyes back in the lineup and getting Romy hot and just some of the young guys playing better, so it's a combination of everything.

Q. You mentioned your freshmen and some of them have had ups and downs, Zamora had the slow start, but what's enabled him to have such a consistent year, especially at the plate?
JIM MORRIS: Freddie was an MVP on our team, not just as a freshman but an MVP on our team. He's a talented player that's gotten approximate big hits for us and he's a leader at the RBI spot coming from -- and he's a lead-off hitter.

He's just a good player but he's got a high ceiling and he's going to be a lot better I think in the future and he's got better as the year goes along, but he's got to work hard and continue to do that and have the drive to be the best. I had a talk to him about it yesterday after he got the MVP for our team.

Q. Have you decided on your rotation? I know we had spoken about Cabezas before. Is he the one that's going to go to open?
JIM MORRIS: Yes, he is. He's going to start the opening game, yes.

Q. And what, also, have you seen from him when he's been a starter since you've moved him into that rotation?
JIM MORRIS: Well, he's a guy that can really close and he did a great job for us there doing that at times, but you know, he really wants to start and he's pitched better in that -- in that role as a player, and I think that's part of it, too. But he's got a chance, if he locates, he can beat anybody and he's proven that this year.

MIKE FINN: Can you talk a little about the strength of the ACC? Since you've been in the League for 36, 37 years, just wanted to get your opinion on how strong the league is this year.

JIM MORRIS: Well, from my times at Georgia Tech, starting from that point to now is tremendous change in this league. From top to bottom, used to be lower echelon teach and higher echelon team. When I took the job at Georgia Tech, they never finished above last in the conference, so they were one of those lower teams.

And the facilities, the concession stand was the Coke machine. You remember those guys, Mike, I know, and didn't charge the gate and you go into the great facilities now at Georgia Tech and a lot of the facilities are unbelievable and just the race for that and the number of teams are good from top to bottom in this league.

Everybody's getting after it and to me it's amazing how equal it is in the league and how many good teams, how many good players you see when you go out there and play every team. To me, that's a big change. Of course, the facilities is a huge change. You're seeing the recruiting, all the things that go with it.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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