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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: CHICAGO

March 18, 2011

Chris Singleton

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Florida State Â– 57
Texas A&M - 50

GREG GREENWELL: We have Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton along with student-athletes Chris Singleton, Derwin Kitchen, and Bernard James. We'll start with an opening statement from the head coach and take questions from the student-athletes.
COACH HAMILTON: The first half I thought that both teams played pretty good defense, from our standpoint. Their defensive schemes caused us to stand, and we didn't have very much ball movement. They kind of stymied us a little bit. We couldn't get any type of offensive flow.
I thought the second half we executed a lot better, shot a much higher field goal percentage. I thought our players committed themselves to reversing the ball and moving the ball and making an extra pass, and we got higher percentage shots.
Obviously, having Chris on the floor gave us some good leadership. Bernard and Derwin, I thought, stepped up and made big plays when the game's on the line. They showed their maturity. I thought it made the difference in the game.

Q. Bernard, did you feel like at some point you just wanted to kind of demand the ball? I think there was a stretch that you had four straight possessions with buckets. That really is when you pulled away. Did you feel like you could exploit something down there?
BERNARD JAMES: That was the game plan from the beginning was to try to throw it down low and get their bigs in trouble. We didn't do a very good job, the bigs, we didn't do a very good job posting up and just getting the position we wanted to and calling for the ball in the first half.
Coach Ham just called us out in the locker room, and when we come back out, we were a little more aggressive and focused on getting where we wanted to.

Q. Chris, with about 10:30 left, you went over and said something to Stan Jones, and a couple seconds later, you were in the game. What was your message to him?
CHRIS SINGLETON: It wasn't about getting in the game. Just probably about something I saw. Him and I have a good relationship during the game, and if I see something I usually tell him.

Q. What did you say?
CHRIS SINGLETON: I don't know. I can't tell you right now.

Q. Chris, how did you feel out there?
CHRIS SINGLETON: I felt good.

Q. Were there any issues at all with the foot or anything or conditioning?
CHRIS SINGLETON: Like I said before to everybody, I feel like I'm in pretty good condition. I mean, I don't think that was a factor. The factor is if my foot was going to hold up out there, and tonight it did.

Q. Derwin, the -- I guess the layup with the foul, that kind of salted the game away. What did you see there? What was that shot like for you?
DERWIN KITCHEN: I seen Bernard had his man sealed, and I had a clear lane to the drive. I just tried to get a shot up. He fouled me.

Q. Did you kind of know -- it was pretty obvious to everyone it was over after that. Do you feel like that?
DERWIN KITCHEN: Not necessarily. In the game -- you know this game's crazy. You can throw up any kind of shots and get a few stops and you'll be right back in the game. So we just had to finish out the game after that.

Q. Chris, I think you just said that you're in pretty good condition. The factor was if my foot was going to hold up. Tonight it did. Has that been touch and go. Were you unsure how that was going to go?
CHRIS SINGLETON: I'm a confident player, so I'm pretty much -- I'm sure of myself. Every time I step out on the floor, I don't think anything's going to happen. But with injuries, you never know what's going to happen.
I could have a setback, but I wasn't thinking about that. I'm looking forward, not behind.

Q. This is for any of you guys. To get over the hump to win the tournament game, you're playing on Sunday, what's that like?
CHRIS SINGLETON: I mean, it felt good. We've been here three times. I mean, I can't express how much excitement I feel because I know we got another game. I mean, I'm trying to -- I'm not trying to stay right here and just have this be my glory point of the year. I'm trying to go past Notre Dame. I'm trying to go all the way as far as we can.
DERWIN KITCHEN: It feels pretty good. Like Chris said, this is my third time too. To finally get that win, it feels pretty good. Like you said, we're not satisfied with this one game. We want to keep trying to play as long as possible. Especially me, it's my senior year. I want to ride it out as long as we can.
BERNARD JAMES: This being my first time, it's pretty big. It feels great. These guys have been telling me the last couple years what they went through and how it felt to go home after the first game. It was just something I really didn't want to experience. Thankfully, I don't.

Q. Coach, Florida State talked about how effective your zone was. Why did you switch to it, and what zone do you play? Is that a two-three?
COACH HAMILTON: We don't use very many possessions of zone in our defensive schemes, but we felt that they were doing such a good job executing, we had a hard time keeping them in front of us.
So we thought just a change would be good for our defense, even if we had to go back to our man to man. They hit a couple shots versus the zone, but it seemed as though it was the right thing to do during that time. It was taking some time off the clock. They were not getting the ball inside to Loubeau as much as they had wanted. So we stuck with it, and it worked out for us.

Q. Is it a two-three?
COACH HAMILTON: It's a three-two.

Q. Coach, these guys seem pretty even keeled, but what kind of a boost emotionally did Chris's return give the team?
COACH HAMILTON: You know, Chris has been practicing now for about four days out of the last five weeks. So they really didn't know whether or not he was going to play or not. And it had not been determined whether or not he was going to play until sometime around noon time. I reluctantly played him only because he had doubled up on all his rehab. He had such a strong desire to want to come back and be a part of the NCAA and be with his teammates that I had a hard time not giving him a chance to work through practice and see -- to give him a true evaluation.
I really felt more comfortable with him just riding it out and not playing at all, but he convinced me that he was ready and the desire was there, and I thought he had good practices.
You know, you never know about injuries, and maybe if I err, I want to err on the side of being too cautious when you're dealing with a young man's future. But we had a first opinion and a second opinion, and both doctors told me that he could participate and that he was at a point in his development, rehab that, as long as we didn't play him too many extended minutes, that he could play.
But even with that, I was reluctant to play him. Not that I'm a physician, I just felt uncomfortable in the scenario. But having him back on the floor, I think this gave our guys some stability. He has a tremendous -- he has a very high basketball IQ, and when things broke down while he was out there, even in the first half, I thought he did a great job of getting us back in sync.

Q. Coach, can you just talk about winning an NCAA Tournament game, you guys have accomplished a lot, but this is something you get to do. Can you also speak to the team effort. You had a lot of guys contribute tonight.
COACH HAMILTON: I think everybody who played contributed in some way. That's kind of the way we've been all year. One of the reporters talked about our kids being even keel. Well, that's them having a clear understanding that in this tournament you're one and done and that it's just not -- you're not successful just making the tournament.
I think that they understand that we need to be at our very best in order for us to be successful. So they've had a very business-like, mature approach as we've approached the NCAA Tournament. I feel that this group feels they are changing the culture of Florida State basketball.

Q. I'm just curious what you know about Notre Dame, what your impressions are.
COACH HAMILTON: I believe Notre Dame led one of the top two scoring teams in the Big East, I believe. I think they might have been the best three-point field goal percentage shooting team in the Big East, I believe. I try not to ever start on another team until I complete one game. I always have another coach doing that.
But I watched them, and they run an excellent offense, a very unique offense, kind of the way a lot of teams in Indiana, a lot of high schools, University of Indiana. Motion offense is kind of a traditional offense in the State of Indiana. And I think they do a great job of creating all different type of defensive scenarios for you to deal with.
Whether they're bringing the ball down the court, initiating their offenses, their big, strong guys inside shooting up threes, being good three-point shooters, the perimeter guys tackling the basket off the dribble. So they do a very good job of executing their offense, and they're going to challenge.
Right now we're the number one field goal percentage defensive team in the country, and now that I've watched them, I know they're going to challenge all of our defensive principles, and we're going to have to bring our A-game to the court on Sunday.

Q. Will you look to increase Chris's minutes, or will you keep him about the same?
COACH HAMILTON: I actually played him more minutes tonight than I had intended to play him. I might play him -- he might go in the game, but he won't play long stretches. I didn't want to play him any more than two to three minute stretches.
The pace of the game was so slow in the latter stages of the game, I felt that he would be okay. A lot of time-outs. We call a time-out, they call a time-out. It was a very slow-paced game. I doubt very much I'll put him in a game and play him nine straight minutes like we did tonight.
That's going to be something we have to go with the feel we have, the way the game's played, where we think he fits in, and what I think -- how I think he can contribute to us during the course of the game.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about what Bernard James gave you? He seemed to really spark your team defensively and offensively.
COACH HAMILTON: Bernard is -- this is all new to Bernard. We have freshmen on our team that actually have more experience than him. He's a very humble person. He's extremely unselfish. He doesn't need a lot of touches in order for him to feel like he's contributing. But he wasn't following the game plan the first half. I didn't think he did a very good job of running the floor. I didn't think he did a very good job of posting up strong. I just didn't think he was doing what we needed him to do.
And we challenged him at halftime along with our other guys, just to be a lot more aggressive inside. Bernard's the kind of guy that he follows direction. I guess that's his military background. Sometimes it seems as though he likes it better when you treat him like they treat guys in the Army. He likes to hut, two, three, I guess.
But Bernard has a tremendous competitive spirit that he brings with him, but he has an unselfish spirit. And we challenged him, and I thought he rose to the occasion. He got big rebounds. Even the shots he didn't block, I thought he changed a lot. He was determined that he was going to catch the ball on the plays, and I think he's only scratched the surface of his potential.

Q. It looks like -- you said you were uncomfortable letting Chris play, and even your face looks like you're reliving it with some emotion. Did you -- were you nervous the whole time he was out there?
COACH HAMILTON: No, I mean -- obviously, the doctors -- I talked to Dr. Thompson, who's a tremendous physician. I know Dr. Andrews, one of the leading doctors in the country in that field. We sent his X-rays to him. So I had confidence that we were in a position where he could play.
I just -- I was uncomfortable with just whatever level of risk that we were taking. It's important to me that, when these guys come to school, that they get their education and they create an avenue by which they can have a better way of life. And I realize that he has an opportunity to play at the highest level, and I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize that.
We wanted to win the basketball game, and I want him to -- I wish we could have gotten through this game and won a couple more games and got a little more time under our belt. But he convinced me that he was fine, that he really wanted to play, and he'd worked so hard and been so aggressive with his rehab, doubling up on all of his rehabs.
Even when he was not able to practice, he was shooting free throws and dribbling the ball and doing a lot of things. The other day, when we were at the ACC, we let him -- this was the first day he was able to work out. And we wanted to see what his condition level was on the court by himself. And I never seen a guy slide the court so well and running sprints forward and backwards and sliding. Most of our players probably would have passed out with the workout that he was putting himself through, and he'd only done -- he only had been in swimming pool workouts, where he would have low impact while he was getting his cardio in.
And so I recognized that he just has that ticker, that different thing that they call, that "it" that's inside of him that stays at a high level of conditioning at all times. I was amazed that he was able to come back and practice and go as long as he did.
I kept him out of drills, certain drills I didn't want him to get into because I was just trying to allow him to work and let's see how his footwork would respond. And we never had a negative reaction. So he felt comfortable. I just was a little anxious, and I guess that's the mother hen in me.
GREG GREENWELL: Thank you, Coach.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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