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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: DENVERMarch 16, 2011Malik BootheDwight HardySteve LavinDENVER, COLORADO THE MODERATOR: We're joined by St. John's. We'll open it up for questions for the student-athletes. Q. Dwight, as a New York kid, how much did you follow St. John's growing up? Did their hard times that preceded you ever discourage you from considering them at any time? DWIGHT HARDY: I followed them a little bit growing up, not that much. I heard of some of the great players they had. Through the tough times, I still always wanted to come here. I always wanted to be close to my family and play in one of the best conferences in the nation. About them struggling, it didn't change my mind. I just wanted to come here and help this program any way that I could. Q. Gonzaga might throw a lot of zone at you guys. How do you play against that? What do you expect? MALIK BOOTHE: Got to move the ball, swing the ball, get their defense shifting. Be able to penetrate gaps, just be aggressive. I think we got one of the best shooters in the country right here, Dwight Hardy. He'll be able to knock shots down and hopefully get them out of their zone. Q. Can Gonzaga's length pose a problem for your team? MALIK BOOTHE: It can if we let it. Our style is get the ball out quick and try to score within the first six seconds. I figure if we do that, it really shouldn't be a problem for us. DWIGHT HARDY: Yeah, if they do throw zone at us, the main thing is get it out quick, not allow them to set up their zone. If they do set up they zone, we have to find the open spots on the floor, try to find the open man, move the ball as quick as we can to get the defense shift and take the best available shot. Q. Coming from New York to Denver, do you think the altitude has affected you at all? DWIGHT HARDY: No, I don't think it will be a factor now. We traveled to the West Coast a couple times this year. I think we should be used to it now. I mean, if it does, I'm sure we'll get used to it as the game go along. We just gonna play the way we play and it shouldn't really affect us. Q. How is the bracket looking for you? Without looking past Gonzaga, obviously it looks like a good bracket. Do you like where you're sitting right now? MALIK BOOTHE: I don't know about Dwight, but I didn't look at the bracket. I just looked at the first game. We can't really look too much past Gonzaga. They have a great team. They have so much experience in the tournament, we can't look past that. DWIGHT HARDY: I seen the bracket. It's a tough bracket. People may say we in the weakest bracket out of the four. But they're some great teams in this bracket. We can't look ahead. We just have to focus on Gonzaga. Hopefully we can win, focus on the next team, just keep rolling like that. Q. You watched Steve Lavin on ESPN for years. Never did? MALIK BOOTHE: No (smiling). Q. How about, you Dwight? DWIGHT HARDY: Probably seen him about once, but I didn't really pay attention. Q. How is he to play for anyway? MALIK BOOTHE: He's great. He brings a lot of energy to the program. One thing he did bring before he even coached us was he brought fan support. Fans really wanted to see us play our senior year. I think that was great for us. We really fed off their energy. DWIGHT HARDY: Just his passion overall for the love of basketball just gave us the will to compete at a high level and do so well this season, just make everybody back at home proud. We just want to continue it and hopefully make a deep run in the tournament. Q. How difficult is the loss of Kennedy? Who needs to step up or is it a full-team thing? DWIGHT HARDY: I mean, it's a tough loss for us, man, 'cause he's so versatile. He can do a number of things for us out there on the court. I think as a whole we have to step up, not just certain people. I think we all have to step up and do the little things that he did on the court while he was playing with us. I think we kept on doing that and we have enough pieces that can fill that role and we should be fine. Q. Trying to spring a trap on you. You play in a very difficult conference. Where do you think Gonzaga, having seen tape of them, they would fit in the mix? Would they make the NCAA tournament in the Big East? MALIK BOOTHE: Uhm, I don't know. Our conference is a tough one to look at and just judge them by the name of the team. I think there's a good team. If they were in the Big East, I think it could have been easily 12 teams in the tournament. DWIGHT HARDY: Yeah, I mean, I know they're a pretty good team. We haven't really seen tape on them yet. But from recent years, know they got a great coach. I think if they were in the Big East, like Malik said, probably would be 12 teams in the tournament. We know they're a good team. We know they can play with the best teams in the country. We're not putting anything past them. It's just going to be two great teams going at it. Q. This is your first tournament experience. What does it mean for you to finally get to the NCAA tournament? MALIK BOOTHE: It means a lot because we've worked so hard to get here. My first three years here, we haven't really done so well. Turn it all the way around our senior year, makes it all the more special for us. DWIGHT HARDY: Yeah. For me being a transfer, coming here and playing with these great players, just turning the program around for our senior year, knowing this is our last shot is just something special to see. This is what we all wanted. Now it's here. We just got to make the best of our opportunity. Q. Dwight, can you talk about the zone defense, maybe some of the principles of it, how much it leads into your offensive output. DWIGHT HARDY: We want to kind of force teams into shooting the three ball. We don't want the ball to get in the paint that much. Our zone is kind of weird because it's like we're all over the place. It's mainly about stopping penetration. It's about the SI game. We try not to allow no points on the inside. If team's gonna beat us, we want them to beat us from the three-point line. The reason I think our zone is successful, the misses, one through four, any possession, somebody could bring up the ball off the rebound. When we get the rebounds, we fill up the lane, get fast-break opportunities. Q. Dwight, how did you feel about switching to a point after you've been playing a shoot guard the past year? DWIGHT HARDY: I mean, I felt comfortable. I worked hard in the summer with my ball-handling drills with Coach Rico and Coach Chiles. Plus I got a great point guard that works hard next to me in practice, pushes me, plays great defense on me. I'm just prepared for anything at this moment. THE MODERATOR: You guys can head out. Thank you. We'll get started with St. John's head coach, Steve Lavin. Coach, if you want to just begin with some opening remarks, then we'll turn it over to questions. COACH LAVIN: I think I speak for our staff and all the players that we're pleased to have an opportunity to be in the NCAA tournament and looking forward to our upcoming game against Gonzaga. THE MODERATOR: We'll start with questions. Q. When this program reached rock bottom back in '04, you were starting out as a broadcaster, were you aware of what happened at the time? When you started being interested in the job, did you think about any of that stuff, what it would mean to the city to have St. John's prominent again? COACH LAVIN: The last part to your question, you know, I thought of that in terms of the great history, you know, tradition of St. John's basketball, and how important it is to the city because of the passionate fans that follow basketball in New York. The first part, I was so focused on trying to improve as a broadcaster and transitioning into a second career, I wanted to, you know, put myself in position where I could have some longevity in the business if there wasn't the right fit that came along in coaching. So I really never delved into the details of what happened in 2004 or during that stretch where the program, you know, fell on some tough times. Q. In the big picture as you look back at the UCLA days, did you get the job maybe too young? COACH LAVIN: Well, naturally in my position I don't feel that way because it's been a 23-year magic carpet ride with the game that I love dearly. If I hadn't started my coaching career under Gene Keady at Purdue, I never would have had the opportunity to coach at UCLA for 12 years, and then wouldn't have had the chance to be at ESPN for seven years barnstorming through the country with my partners Brent Musburger and Dave O'Brien, then wouldn't have had the opportunity to come to St. John's and be here today in the NCAA tournament. Naturally, from my perspective, it's worked out as ideally as one could hope for. Sometimes you get one dream job in your life. But to be able to have four, you know, Purdue, UCLA, ESPN, now St. John's, I just pinch myself. I've said before, it's humbling. I'm grateful. You just hope the magic carpet ride can continue. Q. Malik and Dwight said they didn't see you on ESPN very much, which surprised all of us. But how has that exposure helped you as a coach, seeing all that kind of ball, and also in recruiting? COACH LAVIN: You know, it's hard to gauge because I'm not sure how you would measure it. I do know that the time away was very valuable for a number of reasons. It allowed me to spend time with my mother and father who were coming down the homestretch of their life, and time is so precious. So being able to take advantage the seven years prior to St. John's, you know, to be fully present in their life, that was one of the best aspects of being in broadcasting. I think there's value in developing a second career, have to kind of learn a different set of fundamentals, and to work for a company like Disney or ESPN. There was value in that as well. And then I think just the basketball sabbatical dimension of the job where you're traveling coast-to-coast, barnstorming through the country, watching the best coaches and the best teams prepare for a high level of competition. So sitting in on the film sessions with the staff the day before a game, you know, watching the shoot-arounds, the preparation for the opponent. Then having the best seat in the house with the telestrator right here to watch replays and to see the chess match within the game between a Bo Ryan and Tom Izzo one night, and Lute Olsen and the Ben Howland the next week. That was valuable in terms of increasing basketball acumen and knowledge, and then not only being able to draw on the 15 years at Purdue at UCLA, but then the seven years away studying the game from a different perspective, a wider-angle lens. And then return to coaching and to bring those 22 years of experience at the highest level as an assistant, head coach and a broadcaster is a real positive. Q. How about recruiting? COACH LAVIN: In recruiting? It's interesting. The reality is the stars at ESPN are Jay Bilas and Dick Vitale. The rest of us are on the JV team trying to have a job, make a paycheck, pay bills. I don't think the part on TV really helped in recruit. I think my time at UCLA helped, and I think the number of players drafted and that are still playing helped the most. We have a number of players that are having tremendous careers that came up during my time at UCLA. Q. As a West Coast guy, how do you characterize New York after a year? COACH LAVIN: It's intoxicating because of the energy, the people, the culture, the diversity. It's such that when you get up in the morning and you hit the pavement, there's this kind of rush. The vital signs go north in a hurry. I find that part exhilarating. It has so much vitality. Then in terms of the love of basketball in New York, it's such a high point. If you're a coach, it's a good fit. Q. How do you characterize the players, whether it's recruiting the West Coast versus recruiting the New York area? COACH LAVIN: I think New York and L.A. are more similar than they are different. While there are striking differences, I think being at UCLA for 12 years was great preparation for becoming the head coach at St. John's because there's a dynamic that's similar. In terms of recruiting, in terms of the number of people that have an interest in your program, the scrutiny, entertainment centers of the world, programs with great tradition and heritage, legendary figures like John Wooden, Lou Carnesecca. I find there are parallels that have helped with this transition back to the sidelines for a second tour of duty in coaching. Q. You have a unique perspective. You've seen Gonzaga a lot in the past, now obviously this year in the Big East. Much has been made about your conference. I'd like to know how you think Gonzaga would fare in your conference? Do you think there would be 12 teams coming in and where Gonzaga would be in your conference? COACH LAVIN: They'd be near the top. It's hard to know is it the top two teams in our league, is it top three, four. You have to play those games. We're speculating here. Their firepower and personnel would put them near the top in terms of talent. They're as gifted a team as we faced all year offensively. You look at the numbers. I don't think there's a player in their rotation that shoots below 33% from the three-point line. They shoot 76%, if I'm not mistaken, from the foul line, and nearly 50% from the field. I would guess if you put those numbers offensively against any of the teams in the field of the 68, they'd be at the top of the list, if not by themselves, in a cluster of a couple other teams, a handful of teams. This will be - I've told the team as much - the most gifted offensive team we played all year. We played a tough schedule, come out of a tough league. I put them near the top. I don't know if that's one, two, three, four in our league. Would they win it? I'm not sure, but they'd be up there for sure. Q. What kind of defensive strategy do you expect against Dwight? A lot of zone? COACH LAVIN: I think probably mixing their defenses, giving us different looks, trying to keep us off balance. They do a nice job on ball screens, of really helping. They bring a lot of lumber, a lot of timber, appropriately for where Gonzaga is located in the northwest. You don't have a part of the country with more tall trees and timber. When you face them, the depth, the length, the size, then you add the skill, which makes them an unusual team. Sometimes you have the big lumberjacks, but they're not skilled offensively. This team not only has size and length and can bring bodies at you, influence the game at both rims, they're highly skilled big people that can run, pass, shoot, make free throws if you foul them. That's what makes them as tough a team as we faced this year in terms of their offensive firepower. But I think those tall trees, the size they have, make it tough 'cause there's no daylight. It's like skyscrapers all over the floor and you just can't see anything because of their great length and height. So that will make it a challenge for us to try and get good looks at the basket. And Dwight in particular, who is more diminutive in size, is going to have to be creative in order to get shots, be conscious of that to set screens and transport the ball in a manner that will allow him to get some good looks at the bucket. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks very much. COACH LAVIN: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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