ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL TIPOFF MEDIA DAY

October 12, 2022

Leonard Hamilton

Caleb Mills

Matthew Cleveland

Florida State Seminoles

Press Conference

LEONARD HAMILTON: We have a commitment to energy and the closeness where I think all we have to do now is go out and reach our full potential.

There's no doubt that we've become accustomed to playing a certain style of system. Like I said, last year we had injuries that didn't allow us to be able to sustain our effort for longer periods of time, so now having a rotation of four and a half, five minutes, we're playing guys seven, eight minutes in a row, and that was a little challenging for us.

We couldn't play at the same pace with the same level of energy that we've become accustomed to. But right now we feel that we have a full complement of who we are, and I think we'll be back playing the way the culture that we've developed.

Q. Matthew, tell me about leadership; if Coach is saying that you're not as experienced, how does leadership play in it for you to make sure this team is led well?

MATTHEW CLEVELAND: Just making sure that everyone, the transfers and the incoming guys, that they have the information that they need to play within the system and to be comfortable so that when our first game comes, they're not playing and thinking too much.

It's playing off instincts. So I'm trying to provide them with all the information that they need so they feel comfortable even in practice to ask a question and just let them know that I'm here and open for anything they have to ask.

Q. Caleb, how do you define what a leader is?

CALEB MILLS: Knowing the right things to say, how to say them, and when to say them, as well, especially with -- that's the biggest challenge coaches usually have is trying to get all the different personalities to come together as one and for the reason to win.

It's hard to do, but with the right leadership, you can go as far as you want to.

Q. Coach Hamilton, 20 years as a coach at the school. What are two or three of your favorite memories or accomplishments?

LEONARD HAMILTON: I've been doing this since 1971. So I've been doing this a long time. I've been fortunate and feel blessed. I enjoy every day. I think what keeps me going, I enjoy working with these youngsters. I look forward to going in and helping them develop and grow as individuals, looking past their college life into young adulthood. Those things are important for me.

Being at one school sometimes is unusual, as long as I've been at Florida State. But Florida State was the only job I was interested in. So I'm happy where I am, my family is happy, and we're expecting bigger and better things. Don't ask me when I'm retiring. As long as I can come out of the locker room and not accidentally go sit on the other coach's bench because I don't know where I'm at, I'm going to hang in there.

Q. Coach, the moderator mentioned the transfers. What's been your thinking about transfers over the years?

LEONARD HAMILTON: What I'm thinking about transfers, I think it's always good when you give kids opportunities to make adjustments, when they feel like they can better their opportunities.

But when I look at the reality of the portal, we've got 450 basketball players that did not get scholarships, and so now how is that working where we had 1,800 kids I think with their name in the portal, 450 of them didn't get picked up.

So now I think football had -- I think they had about 4,000 guys with their names in the portal and you've got 43 percent of them did not get picked up.

So we're creating now an opportunity for guys who were in schools, on scholarship, getting an education. Now we've got, what, almost 2,000 kids now who have made mistakes where what are they going to do with their lives with no opportunity to get a scholarship and move on.

So I'm not very fond of the way it's set up now. I do like the fact that guys can move and have that opportunity, but we've got to come up with a system that works where we don't have very many of those kids that are put at a disadvantage.

Not one to make a racial issue out of it, but probably 95 percent of those kids are African-American.

Q. Matthew, along the lines of transfers, the team dynamic seems to change more and more throughout the season. How do you create that cohesive bond fast to get ready for the season in?

MATTHEW CLEVELAND: Just learning your teammates and everybody. Learn how everyone plays, their spots on the court. I feel like once you know everyone and you have everyone as a friend and a brother, it's really easy because you can treat everyone differently but the same.

So it's really just knowing and growing as a team that really can help you with incoming players.

Q. Coach, looking at your schedule for this year, you don't leave the state of Florida until the first week of December. What's been your scheduling philosophy of late, and has that changed since 1971?

LEONARD HAMILTON: Well, for us, we're at a point now where we get so much exposure by being a part of the ACC, I don't feel like it's necessary to go to Hawai'i and some of the places, Alaska, a lot of places that I've been accustomed to going to in the past.

What we try to do is we look to go play competition that we feel like will help prepare us for the ACC. That's what we've done.

Obviously we play Florida every year. We've got ACC-Big Ten Challenge, and we always try to play a tournament that challenges us and gives us an opportunity to go and compete and sharpen our skills in preparation for the upcoming season.

I mean, we'll play in Orlando this year. We think that's a very high-level tournament that we're playing in, and we know it's going to prepare us.

Q. Caleb, who is it that we can expect to see fill it up this year? This time next year when we're talking about this season, what names are we going to be talking about?

LEONARD HAMILTON: Well, we're fortunate now that every one of our returning veterans, our two-year veterans, they have improved with hard work over the summer.

Our kids to each man, they've improved in the areas that they've felt that we needed them to improve in for the upcoming season, and to my pleasure, the incoming players that we have are farther along than I thought they would be at this stage.

It's a very good feeling, realizing that the returning players have improved in the areas that we thought they need to work on, and the new players we have coming along are a little farther along at this stage than what we thought they would be.

So I'm excited for the upcoming season. I feel that we're going to be surprising the country.

When you look back even at the times we've won the ACC, men ranked in the top 10 at the end of the season, those years we've never been preseason in the top 25. Us not being ranked is not really an indication of where I think we are. I'm expecting to have a really good year this year.

Hopefully we'll be a surprise team in the country.

Q. You've got coaches like Coach Scheyer and Kenny Payne who obviously first year coaching in the ACC and then you have guys like Jim Boeheim, Jim Larranaga and you, some of the longest tenured coaches in the ACC. What has your experience over time taught you that these guys will potentially be going through this year?

LEONARD HAMILTON: Well, it's always been my philosophy to not worry about the coach sitting on the end of the bench. I'm not playing against him, I'm playing against those players. Every one of those teams that you mentioned, even first-year coaches, have outstanding players returning.

I was in that position at one time, and they're not worrying about me being a grandfather, and I'm not worrying about them being initially first-year players, because, man, they've been sitting by the hand of some of the greatest coaches in the history of college basketball. I'm sure they're well prepared.

So I think that's what makes the ACC such an outstanding league. If you're not prepared every night out, you get your head handed to you. 70 percent of all games are decided by four points or less.

So it doesn't seem to matter who you play, whether you're home or on the road. It's an extremely competitive league and we have to treat everyone with the highest respect.

The most important thing is we have to find ways to make sure we're at our very best every game that won't allow us to have those dips, those ups and downs that sometimes you did with any sport.

Q. One of your former players, Andrew Wilson, has taken a job as the coach at VMI. Could you talk about your coaching tree and how you follow former players and coaches?

LEONARD HAMILTON: I think you can expect Anthony to be very, very good. I mean, he reminds me a lot of Bill Self when he was my assistant, Andy Enfield, Dennis Gates, guys who are born to coach. He has that it factor. He has those instincts to evaluate, and I also feel good that he'll be able to implement a system that fits the players that he has.

I think you can expect them to get better and better because he's a thinker. He's always on the job mentally and emotionally. He's not spending a whole lot of time making mistakes.

I think you can expect him to bring that program along a lot faster than what maybe you might suspect, only because he's one of those guys who just has that it factor. Reminds me an awful lot of some of the guys who I've had in the past.

Q. If I read the roster right, you've got one seven-footer this year. In the past we're used to seeing several seven-footers. Does it change your style or game plan at all?

LEONARD HAMILTON: Well, there's pluses and minuses in having seven-footers. I really feel that Naheem McCloud will surprise most people with the progress that he's made. I'm very excited about where he is in terms of development.

We might be a little different of another 16 guy that I really like, freshman, Cam Corhen. I think you can expect great things from him.

His father was a good college player at the University of Georgia, and he has that little special toughness about him and skill that I think is going to really, really give us a nice rotation.

Then like most teams, we might go to a little small ball where we put one of our perimeter people in the post and see how productive we can be in those areas.

We feel like we have enough talent on our team that we can make some adjustments, and we have another -- a wing player that's seven-foot. So we feel like size won't be a problem.