|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
DICK'S SPORTING GOODS NIT SEASON TIP-OFFNovember 25, 2011Markel BrownTravis FordNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK VIRGINIA TECH59 THE MODERATOR: Coach will make an opening and we'll take questions from the players. TRAVIS FORD: I want to first congratulate Virginia Tech. They played very hard and were very, very competitive tonight and really rebounded the ball extremely well on us. I thought they did a good job to finish out the game. I thought our team took a step in the right direction tonight. Nowhere near we want to be or where we need to be or anything like that, but it was definitely a step in the right direction. I saw a much better body language from our team tonight. I saw much better effort. We played to win rather than play not to lose. I thought we did that against Stanford. We competed much better today than we did our last time out. So that's a step in the right direction. We still have a lot of areas to improve on, beginning with rebounding, finishing around the basket. We missed some free‑throws that you got to make. You have to make some big shots and you have to make your free‑throws. So there's some areas to improve. I thought in the first half we gave up way too many points off turnovers. Way too many. And then we corrected that in the first half‑‑ or in the second half. But we still just‑‑ it's tough to win any game when you give up 21 offensive rebounds. Very tough. 21 offensive rebounds to go with 30 free‑throws is tough to overcome, you know, in a game like we played. Because I thought our half court defense was decent. It was good. We just didn't reward ourselves by rebounding the basketball at times. I thought our kids competed. We played better than we did last time out. You always hate to lose and learn. You hate to do it that way, but I do think we got better. I've never been a coach to have moral victories, but that was a step in the right direction for the basketball team. Congratulations to Virginia Tech. They finished the game out which was impressive. They did finish the game out on a tight basketball. We played a couple of runs. They held their composure and made the plays when they needed to make them. I congratulate them. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the players. Q. Markel, could you talk about the comeback in the second half? Especially down the stretch when you guys closed to within three. MARKEL BROWN: We just went out and played hard. Got back in the game, did the things that we need to do right, defensive transition and cutting down turnovers. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for the players? Players get to go. Anyone have questions for Coach? TRAVIS FORD: No problem. Q. Can you talk about the revamped starting lineup and Philip and putting him in and getting Cezar his first start? TRAVIS FORD: That's just‑‑ I've said this way before the season started. This will be a work in progress for this young basketball team. We wouldn't have any definitive starters on our basketball team. It will probably change until we find the best five that fit together may not be the best five at the time. But the five that can start the game the best. We were trying to go with a little bit of a defensive lineup. I haven't been happy with our defense a little bit with Philip inside and rebounding. We let JP stay in the starting lineup because he normally can play some pretty good defense for us. We were concerned about starting Keiton Page and Guerrero together because they are big. We actually put Keiton Page on their starting four man. But we were concerned about that. That was a concern. Our starting lineup could change game to game depending on who is playing well in practice. It could be a situation where you are just rewarding a player at times. It could be because we might need offense or defense. We're not to the point yet where we know the best five yet. We're just a tight team at this point. Q. Specifically with Cezar, you mentioned Philip you wanted in for defensive reasons. For Cezar? TRAVIS FORD: A little bit of a reward. I thought Reger (Dowell) played well tonight at times. Nothing against Reger or anything like that. Defensive purposes. I think Cezar, even though he's a freshman, he has some toughness about him. A real toughness. His competitive edge, he doesn't like to look bad. He can accept a challenge. I thought Guerrero played well. Dowell played‑‑ played hard. At this point it should be just about playing hard. That's the first step. I'm not worried about the percentages. Those are not very good. That's to come later. Right now our basketball team, the first that needs to be focusing on how hard we have to compete every time out in order to give yourself a chance or to give yourself a chance to make shots. We didn't do that last game out. We didn't give ourselves a chance. Tonight we took a first step in understanding how hard you have to compete every second of the game. The rest we hope will come. Q. With their bigger front line, JP in foul trouble, he had to miss long stretches, they seemed to take advantage of that. TRAVIS FORD: They did. JP I thought was playing well. He was giving us a scoring option. When he got in foul trouble, it definitely hurt us a little bit. Took a little bit of‑‑ it stung us a little bit. We dropped off a little bit offensively when we went out of the game. But everybody played hard. Everybody played to win. You know me, I'm not one for moral victories at all. This is not a moral victory. I sure liked watching that game more than I did the last game. I tell you that. Q. How do you think Le'Bryan dealt with playing only 11 minutes today? TRAVIS FORD: I don't know. I don't know. I haven't been‑‑ I haven't even thought about it, to be honest with you. It hadn't crossed my mind. I don't know. Q. Markel not only had the double‑double, but he was making a lot of shots to keep you in the game in the second half when you were trying to cut the lead down. Do you think he's making the kind of leap you want to see? TRAVIS FORD:  He is. He got a lot of minutes last year as a freshman. He started 10, 12 games, whatever it was last year. Markel, I never faulted his competitiveness. He's a competitor. Sometimes his competitiveness gets the best of him. He gets a technical called. He plays with emotion. The ultimate competitive. We needed his skills. He has to start making more positive plays than negative plays. He was playing so hard, he was making negative plays. Now he's making more positive on defense and on offense. Still work every day with him on shot selection. He gave us a winning effort. The defense he played tonight was tremendous. One of the best‑‑ it was a really, really good defender tonight. That was his job. That was his job. First and foremost, to defend one of their best players, he did that. He came up with ten rebounds to go with it. And he scored the basketball in a variety of ways. But his experience is starting to show. You would hope it would with the minutes he got last year, you would hope that would start helping him right now. And I think it is helping him. I think you're starting to see that a little bit. He's a guy we're counting on. We need to count on him every game. THE MODERATOR: Last question. Q. Speaking of Le'Bryan, how important is it for him to be consistent, especially in December going into the rest of the season? TRAVIS FORD: Le'Bryan is a very important part of the team. A very talented individual. We're trying to focus to get the guys to play hard every second, to make winning plays, and he's trying every day to do that. He's going to get it. It's great that he gets to be surrounded by some good guys who played hard tonight and to see that and feed off that. He'll learn. I think he can look at the freshmen for Virginia Tech tonight, he's very, very active, an extremely active basketball player. And maximizes his ability. He's a very, very active player for a freshman. Le'Bryan is going to be fine. In the process of learning. Typical up and down. We understand. We need Le'Bryan. For us to maximize our team, to get the most out of it, you need your best players playing hard, you need your most talented players. And two of our most talented players on our team are Jean‑Paul Olukemi and Le'Bryan Nash, two guys that didn't do much the last game. That's why we weren't successful. Just because you're talented, things aren't just going too come easy for you. You have to get the most out that of that talent by playing hard and playing with a sense of emotion and playing with a competitive edge and playing as if every possession is your last possession. All these things, he's learning. He's willing to learn. Tonight I didn't go into the game thinking he was only going to play‑‑ I was just‑‑ we had such a great energy level going out there. We stuck with some guys. He may play 30 minutes next game. Who knows. Our team always knows that. You may get 35 next game. Somebody else may be playing well, and you only get 10. That's the nature of our team. We're equal on this basketball team. I don't know if that's good or bad. There's a lot of guys from 1 to 9 to 10 that are similar. We're young. We're a young, young basketball team. Inexperienced. Even the guys returning are inexperienced. Tonight was a step forward. Still a long way to go. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. 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
|