|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYOctober 28, 2011Jared CunninghamCraig RobinsonLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA COACH ROBINSON: Welcome, everyone. I can't tell you how excited I am to be here today and how excited I am about this team. Over the past few years, as you know, we've been rebuilding the place at Oregon State, and I've sort of had to be -- I've had to couch my statements with terms like, well, we're going to try our best and all that kind of stuff. For the first time, I think I've got a team that can compete in every single game we play this season, and I couldn't be more excited. It starts with this guy sitting next to me. But we've got a whole team of guys that are all on the same page and have worked hard over the off-season, the summer, and now in the fall to prepare us for this terrific opportunity. So with that, I'll open it up for questions from you folks. Q. Over your rebuilding the last come years, as a coach, what have you learned to implement this season? COACH ROBINSON: Well, the first thing I learned is to be extremely patient, and that's kind of a hard thing to do when you're in this industry. We've had to philosophically we felt like we couldn't just come in and make a wholesale change personnel-wise. We had to kind of work the guys through the system, and get them graduated and move on and develop younger guys. So patience is the number one thing. The second thing is the biggest thing that I've found in our culture is that we have to change a losing culture into a winning culture. That's been the biggest problem, the biggest issue for us. And I think with this group recruiting guys who have won their whole lives, number one, and putting them in a position to win games with strategies and experience, that helps. Those two things have been the two things that I've noticed the most. Q. As you've watched all the conference realignment happening and it's been mostly all about football, how do you see basketball fitting in? Does it make you feel at all like a second class citizen in the sport when it's all about football, all about football? COACH ROBINSON: Make me feel as a second-class citizen as a basketball coach? Q. Yeah, as far as basketball. COACH ROBINSON: No, not at all. As a matter of fact, I think Commissioner Scott and his staff have done a great job of positioning the Pac-12 to be in a terrific position from a television standpoint, from a conference standpoint, from a student-athlete standpoint. I'm a team player, and I feel that this alignment at least in the Pac-12 has been terrific for student-athletes across athletics, not just football and basketball. It's been great for us, but great for them as well. Q. Is it surprising how football driven it is? COACH ROBINSON: No, the question is, is it surprising how football driven it is? It's not. I don't know how much you know about my background, but I spent 14 years in investment banking, so I understand economics, and economics drives things, and there's nothing wrong with that. Q. Look over during the off-season and seeing various teams, what made you that much confident in your current team and being able to come out here and compete? COACH ROBINSON: Well to be honest with you, I didn't look at other teams, I looked in our own locker room and I looked on the court when we started working out. What you have is albeit a young team, we only have one senior, the juniors and sophomores have had an extraordinary amount of experience because we haven't been that good. So they were able to sort of develop on the job. That's what gives me confidence, and then I see how hard they're working. I'm really pleased with how much work they put in over the summer and really pleased with how much they put in, work currently. And, again, we have a nice leadership crew on our team that's sort of gotten to know me and understand what the expectations are, so that's what gives me the confidence. Q. Besides Jared Cunningham, which player do you see stepping up this year to take on a bigger role and be a key part of your season? COACH ROBINSON: Yeah, funny enough, that's a tough question. We've got players who have had a tremendous amount of experience at an early age. Ahmad Starks who will be playing alongside Jared in the back court is one. We've got Angus Brandt who spent the summer playing with the Australian National, Under-20 National Team in the university games. We have Devon Collier who is a sophomore who started all but five games for us last year, who is a finalist on the Puerto Rican Olympic team. Then we have Roberto Nelson who is really coming into his own at the end of the season last year who has put in a whole lot of time over the summer to get better. So you take those guys, add Jared to them, and take your pick. I'm hoping they all play well at the same time all the time. Q. How has Daniel Gomez adapted to your system? How have Rhys Murphy and Moreland been doing physically? And how much improvement have you seen in Joe Burton offensively up to this point in practice? COACH ROBINSON: Lot of questions there, Joe. First of all, Daniel Gomez has adjusted really well, unfortunately, he's injured right now, so we haven't had him on the court a whole lot. But he's going to fit right in. He's probably of the mold of an Eric Moreland, which brings me to him. That is the guy you talked about next. Eric has adjusted really well. You have to remember last year before he got hurt, he was with us through the summer and the preseason practice. Played a few games, so he knows what we're about, how hard we work, and what we expect. So we're really looking forward to having him in the lineup this year. The same with Rhys Murphy. I think Rhys Murphy is in a position very similar to what Roberto Nelson was in when he first came back after being out for so long. Rhys has been out for two years with injuries, so this is his first time to be able to play in practice for a long period of time without missing time. You can see the rust, but you can also see the rust wearing off. So that's good to see. Finally, you know, I've been kind of quiet about Joe Burton because I think he's probably going to be our big secret weapon this season. He has really improved in every single aspect of his game, and I couldn't be more excited for his development. We depended on Joe to be a play maker for us last year without having to scorch, I would like to see him score a little bit more this year, and he'll still be that play maker for us. Q. You played in Boulder last year. How difficult do you think the new Utah-Colorado road trip will be for the old Pac-10 teams given the altitude and the travel? COACH ROBINSON: I suspect -- we played Colorado, I think every year since I've been there, so I suspect they're going to be a great, competitive addition to the league. The trip will be like any other road trip. The way it's set up this season, you've got to play two games, so Thursday, Saturday, or Friday, Sunday. That's going to be a challenge like it is anywhere else you go in our league. But the addition of Colorado and Utah is very exciting for us from a basketball standpoint, and we look forward to competing with them. Q. Do you still plan to play the 1-3-1 zone, or is it because you have sort of more athletes and sort of more of the players that you always wanted to bring in? Are you going to do something more, I guess, different? COACH ROBINSON: Right. I think at the risk of you telling Lorenzo what I'm going to do -- no, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding -- we'll play more man-to-man this year. We have in the past I've always talked about playing it, we've played it at times in the past. But we haven't had the athletes, the athletic ability, and the depth to play man-to-man. You've got to have a little bit of depth to do that. But we would never, ever stop playing the 1-3-1. Not until he leaves. Q. How hard have you found it to be to move up in this conference and to make headway passing other teams? COACH ROBINSON: Well, it's tough, but it should be tough because this is one of the best basketball conferences in the country. So you just can't walk in with a team that has had the level of futility that we've had prior to me getting there. We've had to move in stages. But it should be hard. This is a great basketball conference. Now, having said that, I can't tell you how excited we are as a university for all the new things happening from a conference standpoint. It's helped in recruiting. Each year we have gotten one player from west of the -- from east of the Mississippi to come out to Oregon State and play. Our recruiting has gotten better, hence our play will get better. While it's been tough, the incremental step that's we're taking and the patience that we've had make it exciting for us this season. Q. Do you see yourself as one of the top defensive players in the country having finished fifth in the NCAA last year in steals? COACH ROBINSON: Yes, I do. Defense I take pride in, and with our defense this year, it should help me get more steals and playing man-to-man will benefit me and the team. You'll be able to see the guards get into the other guards and play full court man. Q. Jared, we've heard how confident your coach is talking about your team. How about you? What gives you reason to think that the Beavers will be more competitive this season? JARED CUNNINGHAM: I'm definitely confident in our team. We show signs every day in practice and everybody's working hard day-in and day-out. Just from being a co-captain, helping out the guys and showing them what to do, they're very willing to learn, and that should help us in the long run. Q. The history of OSU, Oregon State going back to Ralph Miller and everything, it's been a long road getting back there. Are any of the alumni, anybody that was around the program, are they involved with you in rebuilding where you guys once were? COACH ROBINSON: That's a great question, and we have been very fortunate to have a group of alums and former players be extremely helpful and receptive to coming back and sort of having a presence in our program. It hasn't been a surprise that those guys have been sort of disenfranchised with the program for a while. But we've had tremendous, tremendous support from A.C. Green, Gary Payton, Steve Johnson, Mark Radford, Ray Blume. As a matter of fact, we just had our tip-off dinner, and we had over 20 players -- over 20 former players attend the dinner, and it was extremely exciting. Those were past players. More recent grads, David Lucas, Lamar Hurd, all of these guys have brought sort of their winning mentality to our program and to our guys. It's really meant a lot to the team. It's meant even more to the program. Q. Coaches typically like to ignore outside distractions, but with the media poll being released today, is that a way to use it as motivation? Is there a difference between maybe someone like UCLA who was picked at the top of the conference, and the motivation you would bring to your team with where you guys are picked? COACH ROBINSON: You know, we are really spending a lot of time on ourselves and what we need to do to ratchet our play up. So we can use that as motivation. I don't think we need it as motivation. We've been motivated since the end of the season last season when we ended with our first Pac-10 win in four, five, six years. So we can be motivated internally, but that doesn't mean we don't get motivated by external things. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|