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NCAA MEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: JACKSONVILLEMarch 20, 2010Patrick ChristopherMike MontgomeryJerome RandleJACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. Let's get a few questions for the Cal student-athletes. Q. For Jerome and Patrick, talk about your impressions of Duke, this particular team, what you've seen, and also just the idea of playing against Duke. JEROME RANDLE: I think a lot of people are making a big deal out of just playing them. They strap on their shoes just as well as we do. They're a basketball team just as we are. You know, I know they're going to come out and play hard, which they do every time they step on the court. We just have to come out and try to match their intensity and just really do the things that we do best to try to get a win. PATRICK CHRISTOPHER: Jerome said it pretty well. We're two teams coming out here to compete, five guys on the floor for each team. Just coming out here, play hard, play aggressive, do the things that we need to do. We got a chance to watch film this morning and see the things that they do, check out their personnel. Q. Jerome, what, if anything, do you remember about playing against Jon Scheyer in the AAU in Chicago? Do you remember him at all? JEROME RANDLE: I do. He was a heart breaker. We had a young guy on our team who I think was probably three seconds left and passed the ball directly to Scheyer and he got an and-one to win the game. But I remember eighth grade he used to whip my butt like every single time, like they would beat us by like 30 points every single time we played them. But that was eighth grade, and he beat me again in AAU. He's a real nice competitor. He plays hard every time he steps on the court, has great fan support from his family. That's what I remember. Q. I just wonder if Jamal was giving you guys any insight into playing Coach K or Duke at all. PATRICK CHRISTOPHER: I don't think that -- well, he hasn't really given us any insight as far as their plays or anything. He obviously has some great stories about Duke, and he's definitely also excited to be playing against them, having gone there. Q. Almost everybody who grows up playing basketball has an opinion of Duke. They love them, they hate them, whatever. When you guys were growing up, what was your opinion of that school and its players? JEROME RANDLE: I loved them. They was great. They had a lot of great players playing for them. Me and Sean Dockery is actually good friends, and just watching him play for Coach K was great. So I never had anything against them until now. (Laughter). PATRICK CHRISTOPHER: Same here. I grew up one of the young guys that respected their program for being a successful program and building a great legacy, and just like Jerome said, as well, now, having an opportunity to play against them is an opportunity of a lifetime, I believe. So we're just going to take it possession by possession and cherish every moment of it. Q. In conference play, over time you're used to seeing the same teams and the same players over and over. Now you're playing Duke, only have a day and a half, two days to prepare. What are the biggest challenges in preparing with such short time? JEROME RANDLE: The challenge is you just have to go out there and really put it all on the line. You know, they obviously have a decent scout of us as well as we do of them, but I mean, they don't really know what we're really capable of. The same as we don't really know what they're capable of until we both step on the court. You know, so it's just going to be whoever goes out there and puts it all on the line. PATRICK CHRISTOPHER: And for me I think that's what makes the NCAA tournament so exciting, the preparation for it, the attention to detail, and the focus that you have to bring to everything, watching the film and everything being magnified so much more. You know, as well as Jerome said, once again, who wants it more, who comes out and just leaves everything on the floor will be the team that will take it away. Q. Jerome, you guys have already said Jamal is pretty excited about this game, too. Does anyone have a fear, though, that he may be too excited tomorrow, and will you try to say something to him and say don't go out of your limits here? JEROME RANDLE: One thing we know about Jamal -- well, we have five seniors on our team, so Jamal knows his limits. And Jamal is excited to be able to play against them. We're definitely not worried. We don't have to go to Jamal and tell him not to be too excited because we know he's going to be just mentally prepared to try to go out and get a win come tomorrow. It's not even an issue. Q. Jerome, can you talk about the match-up against their style? I mean, there are teams you could play like when you played Syracuse and they had a couple of big guys inside so that was a difficult match-up. Is this a style that you at least feel comfortable playing them? JEROME RANDLE: We're comfortable just playing basketball. It doesn't matter about the height or whatever, style, because we're great players just like they're great players. Like I said before, it's just going to be who puts it on the line and who plays hard come tomorrow. Q. What does it mean for Cal -- what would a win over Duke mean for your program? You guys are seniors obviously, but what would it mean for the program? PATRICK CHRISTOPHER: You know, playing against a team that, I've already said this before, already been established and already has a great legacy, being seniors, being here for four years and trying to establish something for ourselves and for the future of this program, I think, is what we're trying to accomplish here, for the recruits coming up, for the underclassmen, and really for ourselves at the end of the day. We're trying to go out as seniors the best way we can. Eventually this has to come to an end, so ending on a high note is, I think, the way we want to. JEROME RANDLE: He really answered it. I mean, I agree with him 100 percent, with the things he said. Q. For either of you, this has really nothing to do with tomorrow's game, but did you watch the St. Mary's game at all, and do you start thinking about how weird that would be to see them in the regional final if such a thing happened? JEROME RANDLE: One thing that I don't do, I never look past the game that we have coming up. That's great that they won the game, but Duke is our focus right now. We won't be able to get to that game if we don't win tomorrow's game, so we just focus on Duke right now. Q. Describe what it was like last night once you guys left the arena and went back. What was the feeling like among the team? PATRICK CHRISTOPHER: Well, I missed a lot of it because I was selected for a drug test, so I was here until about 1:30 or maybe close to 2:00 because it was so thorough, but I'm sure the team enjoyed the win. (Laughter) Q. And how did you enjoy it, Jerome? JEROME RANDLE: I enjoyed it. It was great. I mean, my senior year, just to be able to win an NCAA game was great. Last year was a heart breaker, but coach told us it was going to be hard to get a win, and it was tough just trying to sustain a lead. It was really hard. They came back and kind of got me a little nervous at the end, but we was able to hold the lead, and it was great. Q. After watching the tape of Duke this morning, do you feel better about things? Do you feel a lot better kind of knowing what you can do and who you'll be going up against? JEROME RANDLE: One thing about film, you see them do a lot of great things. There's a lot of highlights, so you're seeing all the things that they do great, which is good for us because we get to see it on tape. But you never really know what players are capable of until you step on the court and guard their first move or whatever. You know, so it is good that we got the feel of just looking at them and seeing what they can do, but we'll never know until tomorrow. THE MODERATOR: Guys, thanks a lot. Coach, good afternoon. If you could, coach, please give us a few opening thoughts about tomorrow's ballgame and we'll take some questions. COACH MONTGOMERY: Well, Duke is, in college basketball, Duke and Mike Krzyzewski are probably as good as it gets. Mike is a good friend and a guy that I really have a lot of respect for. His teams play very hard. They're always well-coached. They're very skilled, and this year's team is no exception. I'm looking at the scouting report, and I'm seeing 7'1", 6'10", 6'10", 6'10", I'm thinking, my goodness. Of course they can't play them all at once, but they've got a lot of depth size-wise. The Singler kid is just a fantastic basketball player that does so many things for them. Scheyer, knew his dad and knew of him in high school. I think we tried to recruit him a little bit way back when, and just a very, very sound player and grown into a very good player. It's going to be a tough match-up. We put so much time into Louisville just in terms of preparation, and it's interesting, you get to the biggest game of your career potentially and you have an hour and a half really to get ready. But fortunately or unfortunately, the things that Duke does we've seen. We know what they do, they just do it better than most people. It's a great challenge for us without question. That's why they're a No. 1 seed. But I think our guys are excited for it. Q. What kind of concerns do you have about your depth in this game? It was only six guys really that got what you call significant minutes last night. COACH MONTGOMERY: Well, we've played this way all year. We've never really gone big minutes past about seven. Big minutes, we've played more players, but we've never really gone big minutes past seven or eight. Of course it's a concern. We're always at the mercy of foul trouble. If a key guy gets in foul trouble, it changes things appreciably. But at this stage of the game, what I worry about has no bearing on what's going to happen or what we need to do. We need to do the things that we do well. We need to be smart. Last night I was worried about Jorge got one early, and he tends to get feisty out there sometimes, and if he would have got a second, I probably would have had to bring him out. But we're capable of going deeper. We just feel like our best chance to win is with the players that we are playing with, and that's why we're here. If I have to play five players 40 minutes and that gives us the best chance to win, that's what we'll do. Q. Mike had said that he could not remember ever coaching against a team that had as many guys who could shoot from as deep as your three and maybe four. Is there anything unique in your experience about this Duke team, or is it pretty much standard Krzyzewski? COACH MONTGOMERY: Well, I've played against them twice. I would say it's pretty standard Mike's teams. They really defend. They really play hard. They share the ball. They know their roles. They don't get outside their roles very often. They know who's supposed to shoot it. They know who's supposed to rebound it. They've got some physicality inside. Zoubek is a monster that sets screens, he goes to the boards and he fouls out. As long as they can play, that's what they -- So no, I think it's pretty standard. I mean, how many times have they been a No. 1 seed in the tournament? How many times have they won the ACC and the ACC tournament? He's just got a program that's almost second to none as far as -- and he does it the right way with good kids. I think it's pretty standard Duke. Q. Conversely, is this a standard Mike Montgomery college team, and has your time in the NBA changed things a little bit? COACH MONTGOMERY: No, I miss some of those NBA guys. Well, I shouldn't -- I know what you're thinking. (Laughter) No, for me, I've always played big. Over the years that was kind of the trademark that we developed, even going back to Montana. I had a bunch of good big guys, and continuing on at Stanford, and this was just a team -- we had some bigs, but we just, through injury and attrition, mostly injury, we lost all our bigs. So we tried to adapt our style to the kids that we had, and it's worked very well for us. But no, I've never shot so many jump shots. But it seems to me that what you're supposed to do as a coach is give your kids the best opportunity, the best chance that you can to win, and for us that's what this is. There are times when you'd like to have an inside presence that you could go down to to squeeze the defense in a little bit. But we just don't have that, so we play on the perimeter a little bit more, and we've caused some people a lot of problems with that. And if the ball is going down, as you saw last night early, it can be a little bit startling. If you can do it for 40 minutes, obviously that would be the perfect world. We knew we wouldn't going to be able to shoot like we started last night. But no, this is a little bit different. We've gotten better defensively, though, I will say that. I'm pleased with how much progress we've made defensively in terms of fundamentals and the little things. You know, we're not very big, but we haven't gotten dominated on the boards all that often. You've got to do what you can because the bottom line is to try to win games. Q. Talk a little bit about the Duke program. Every kids that grows up playing basketball kind of has an opinion of Duke one way or the other. Talk a little bit about what a significance of a victory would be over that team, and talk about if you need to demystify Duke to your players or are they beyond that? COACH MONTGOMERY: I don't know that our guys spend that much time -- pay that much attention to Duke. Obviously Jamal Boykin will be geeked. He may ball fake more than you've ever seen him. He's going to be fired up to play. I think for him, he feels like this is a dream come true or fate or whatever, because he's gone to school. I think for -- well, again, I go back a long way with this thing. I think for the student-athlete in the country, the real kid that is at the top, Duke was always the school we felt at Stanford that we had to compete with for that kid. We knew that they were a player in that arena. But I don't know that other kids that don't have that specific desire academically or have done that level work or so forth, which is 99 percent of the kids, I don't know that they spend a lot of time worrying about that as far as a school. They're looking at a lot of schools that provide basketball opportunities for them, a vehicle for which to try to show what they can do. So I don't think they'll be that with us. I think the first time they climb over our backs and knock us into the second row going after the offensive boards, that's when we're going to find out what we need to do. Q. Regarding the style of play, and particularly their three-point defense, what do you see there that you can sort of tell us about in terms of -- in your hour and a half of study? COACH MONTGOMERY: Well, Duke forces you to put it on the floor. They overplay everything. I mean, for you guys in the Bay area, Stanford is a microcosm of what they do, minus the extraordinary talent that Duke has. It's the same principle. They try to force you to put it on the floor. I mean, I don't know that their thought process is you have to put it on the floor, but if you're playing against them, you end up having to put it on the floor because they're not going to let you catch, they're not going to let you shoot an open shot. So you have to provide help opportunities for your guys, and they will help if you drive. They try to drive you into their bigs, and the bigs are going to take no prisoners and try to have to make you make a play in traffic. The success that people have had over the years is by being able to do that. Now, obviously in a day and a half or a day or an hour we'll have on the floor, we're not going to be able to change everything that we do. Part of what we do is a little bit of that anyway, as long as we're making good decisions when we go on the floor. But they have a very specific way of playing, and anybody that knows Duke over the years will tell you that you have to be able to put the ball on the floor. You have to be able to drive them. If you can't do that, you're going to end up in problems. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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