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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: NASHVILLEMarch 15, 2012Ron Anderson, Jr.Toarlyn FitzpatrickStan HeathNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE THE MODERATOR: Okay. Questions for the USF student athletes. Q. Ron, you have guy have a lot of players that started out elsewhere and found themselves at USF. Do you guys ever think of it as a second chance, and what does it say about your team that you come from so many different places and unify and play the way you guys have played this year? RON ANDERSON, JR.: I mean, I think a lot of that starts with the coaching. It starts with them.  They go out and recruit and they bring the guys in, and then we have to build the chemistry. We have to go out during the summer and become a team. I think this past summer we really did a good job of that, building the chemistry and really become a family out there. Q. To Toarlyn, ask you, it's your first swing around in the NCAA Tournament. Ron has had the opportunity before. But for you, having this quick turnaround, is this a help to you and to some of the guys that have not been involved in this tournament? TOARLYN FITZPATRICK: Yes. Outside of Ron, I think all of our teammates, this is their first go-around. Everybody is excited about, you know, our team and our program. It's an exciting time for all of us. It's even an exciting time for our city of Tampa, for everybody that supported USF for all these years to see a team make it to the NCAA like for only the third time in history. It's an exciting time for all of us. Q. Ron, I'm sure you guys believe in your philosophy and you guys believe in your commitment to defense, but at halftime last night when you saw the score, was it a little bit of a "wow" thing for you guys just how well it was going? RON ANDERSON, JR.: Honestly, I think it might have been a little bit of "wow" for the people watching. You know, the guys in the locker room, we really believe that we can go out and play that type of defense every night. Coaches been talking about putting together a full 40 minutes, and, you know, for the first 20 minutes, we probably played the best half of basketball we played in a long time, and fortunately it came at tournament time. Q. Ron, when you look at what you have accomplished here now and you've done it, as coach always said, in the ugly way with the defense. But do you think that that defense is now becoming a little more in the NCAA Tournament? Do you guys think you're getting more recognition from outside the local media, the national media, and how they perceive your basketball team? RON ANDERSON, JR.: I mean, I would hope so. Playing defense, I said in Dayton playing defense has kind of been our foundation. It really becomes a problem for a lot of teams. Lot of teams, they kind of pride themselves on scoring 80 points, and if they feel they can get to 80 points or like in the 70s, they have a good chance of winning. For us, we feel like if we can keep them below the 60s, we'll have a good chance of winning. So, you know, we go out there and try -- bring out our energy and intensity in the first half, especially the first four minutes of the game, we'll be in good shape if we start off right. Q. For both of you guys, Coach Heath mentioned last night that he thought maybe because of the way you guys had so much pressure on you the entire last month of the season, you kept playing every night like it was an elimination game, once you guys actually got in the tournament, even though it was an elimination game last night, there might have been a lot of pressure taken off ever you. Do you guys feel more relaxed and less pressure and maybe that's why you had such a good night offensively last night? TOARLYN FITZPATRICK: We take it one game at a time. We never look at it as a pressure situation where it's a must-win, even though last night's game was a must-win game.  We just focus on preparing our team for what the other team is trying to do and, you know, take that away with our defense, our athleticism, our size, and try to cut back on some of the things that they're trying to get done, frustrate the other team, and I think as long as we continue to do those things, we'll be fine. Q. Question for both of you guys. What sticks out to you about watching Temple? RON ANDERSON, JR.: Temple's guard play. We were able to -- we had a quick turnaround, we flew in this morning and able to watch some film on them and their perimeter play is probably very good. Probably some of the best we're going to face. Especially after coming out of Big East conference play, we feel good about where we're going and playing good defense. We feel like if we're able to defend in our conference, we can defend with anybody. Q. Can you tell me about the feeling of when you go on one of your defensive -- Villanova game up there at the Garden the other night, you could just see them getting frustrated when possession after possession would knock a ball away, not give them a clean look. When you sense teams getting frustrated because of the way you play defense, talk about when you see it happening and what that feeling is like for you guys and if you feed off that feeling? TOARLYN FITZPATRICK: We definitely feed off that feeling, because that's what we try to do when we step out on the court. We embrace that as our identity as a team to be a defensive team, and, you know, I think that -- I think we like to play defense a lot more than we like to play offense at times, because we know that, you know, getting stops is what's going to keep us being successful. When we see other teams frustrated and our plan unfolding out on the court, we definitely feed off of that and give us a lot of confidence on the offensive end as well. Q. Ron, what happened after the Georgetown game? Was there some sort of switch that flipped for you guys, because it has been since that game a little bit night and day. RON ANDERSON, JR.: Going into the Georgetown game, after the Georgetown game rather, we really felt like we didn't play our style of play we had been playing all season and we knew we were capable of bringing. Really just went up there and, I mean, really got embarrassed and knowing what type of team we had, knowing what we were trying to position ourselves for post-season play, knowing in we were even going to be in the conversation, we certainly can't go on the road and lose like that. You know, I think our team did a great job of responding. We finished our conference really well. We went up to Louisville, our last road game of conference play, and we were able to beat them. So, I think that, you know, that really kind of helped us moving on on into post season. Our games were really close especially at the garden. We lost another game in overtime, a game in which our team really felt that we kind of let it slip away from us. So, you know, I think our confidence for everybody is high, especially after last night, seeing how well we were able to defend, the energy. The energy level is extremely high. Somebody last night said when we scored on offense, we only got like a few claps from the bench, but every time we were playing defense, the whole time the whole bench was up, energic and yelling and screaming. That's our identity. We're going to continue to do that to help us win games. Q. Ron, you sort of took some of the answer away from the question I was going to ask, but I want to ask both of you guys, do you feel vindication at all with the way you handled California? Maybe didn't surprise you, but I'm sure there's a lot of people out on the West Coast right now -- RON ANDERSON, JR.: We can't really worry about that too much. We know -- we do know about everybody picking against us and lot of people feeling like we might not be the favorite, but we know what type of team we have. We know the conference that we played in, the competition we just went up against, and, you know, going into the Carrier Dome, like I said, and playing Syracuse, one of the top teams in the nation, that also built our confidence, too. So it's really a lot of what we did closing out the season that's really, you know, just put us in a good place here and making us really want to continue to go on and make a run. TOARLYN FITZPATRICK: Can you repeat the question? I'm sorry. Q. The question was, did you feel that there was vindication in the victory in the first four games against California with a lot of people on the West Coast wondering what in the world happened in that game? You guys basically destroyed them. TOARLYN FITZPATRICK: That's really something that if we play our best basketball, that can happen any given night on a defensive end, especially. But as you guys mentioned earlier, you know, we don't play the most beautiful brand of basketball, you know, not being a team that scores a whole lot of points. So we're a team that depends on our defense, and that game showed that our defense is one of the top defenses in the country. I think the first half we were up 13, 36, something like that. We just wanted to go out there and give ourselves a chance to win and that chance was on the defensive end, and we wanted to make the better statement and that's the statement we're going to continue throughout the tournament. Q. You have a kind of personal history with Temple. Maybe looked at them as an option. Ask you about that and what story is with that. RON ANDERSON, JR.: When I transferred from K State, came down to Temple, it came down to Temple and South Florida. Obviously I chose South Florida. I know the coaching staff for Temple. I have a lot of respect for them. I love everything about Temple. And Ramone Moore is a great player. I got a history with Temple. I know they're going to come out ready to play, and I know their coach wouldn't have it any other way. Q. Ron, when you first arrived on campus, this program didn't have a lot of tradition, lot of history. What did you first hear about and what did people warn you about and why did you think you guys were the ones to turn things around? RON ANDERSON, JR.: Well, just from a lot of what I heard that the program just couldn't win. That was the only thing. They were in the Big East. They competed every night. They just didn't really win. My first year, I was sitting out. It was a year Dominique Jones was here. They had a great season. The following year when I came, my first year back we had a lot of new pieces, lot of knew faces. Didn't really have the chemistry level that we needed to finish the games. We played really well for -- when the coach says 35 minutes, but we just needed the extra chemistry, I felt like, and that trust level that I feel we really have this year. And I feel like when you have a team that you really trust everybody out there on the court, if I have a switch, somebody is going to be there helping me out. I don't feel like we really had that all the way last year. I feel that's why we're in the position we are this year, because the trust level, not just from player to player, but the coaches trust each other, just program-wide. THE MODERATOR: Two more questions if there are any. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you, guys. We'll take questions for Coach Heath. Q. You guys have so many people who started their college career elsewhere and wound up here. Could you guys ever talk about being a team with second chancers trying to prove people wrong? I guess that includes you as well. COACH HEATH: No, we never talk about that. It just worked out that way. We don't have a -- in our league the way I looked at it was, we've got to compete against schools that get McDonald's All-Americans and top 50 players and we haven't necessarily been able to grab that guy. So, we've got to find a way to get enough talent to compete against that level, because, you know, obviously we want to win and we want to be successful. And so it's worked out where probably the most talented guys recently that we were able to get were the transfers, and we've been able to have success with guys like that and I've never had a problem. I think it's more with guys, hey, why are you leaving? What's the situation? What's your academics like? What's your character like? You know, if it's a good fit, it's a good fit. There's no rhyme or reason. We have Anthony Collins, one of my best players, a freshman. We never talk about second chance or anything like that. My guys are all -- Augustus Gilchrist has already graduated. Ron Anderson will graduate this spring. Nobody in trouble. Q. Stan, I asked the guys this question, I'll ask you, did you feel that it's an advantage that you guys had that first game last night coming in here? COACH HEATH: You know, sometimes I overanalyze things. I'm sure most people do. There is two ways to look at it. We got our feet wet a little bit and got out there and maybe worked out the kinks and the nervousness and all those different things, but we've got a quick turnaround to play. The other team is a little more well rested, may have a little more energy, but may not have the same rhythm that we may have from the previous game. I think there's two ways to look at it. I think the good thing about our team is we have some depth and the TV timeouts aren't forever, so we get to rest there, too. Q. You talked last night about some of the pressure maybe coming off these kids because they had played so many games going back to even January like in the elimination game. Are there things you've seen from them in the last couple days here that just show you how relaxed, how laid back, how easily they've taken all the pressure that the come with the NCAA Tournament, even away from the basketball court? COACH HEATH: You never know how your team is going to respond in their first appearance, and we have one guy, he's a terrific voice, Ron Anderson in the locker room, I'm sure he's had conversation with his teammates. I've talked to the guys as well. But I was very pleased with the way they stepped out on the court and played with confidence, played with energy, and played with aggressiveness, and I expect the same out of these guys. You know, I was not shocked by their performance, especially in the first half yesterday. I see that in practice. It's funny, I'll have people come up to me and they'll say, you know, even my bosses will say, "How come this guy is doing this? Hey, if you see him in practice, you understand what's going on. I've seen what they're capable of doing. I know we're a team that can put the ball in the basket and we have some talented players. Q. Five years ago, you had another 21 team, you made the NCAA Tournament and you promptly got fired? COACH HEATH: Thanks. Q. Is this some -- I know you prefer to talk about players, but for you, is this some personal gratification involved in this that you did it again, that you and your second chance made good? COACH HEATH: Well, you know, I don't know how to answer that. Probably when it first happens, it stings and you do have, you know, a chip on your shoulder, you have that edge. You really do. Because you feel like, you know, sometimes the rug was pulled underneath you, and especially in that situation where we not only went to the tournament but we had our whole team returning back and had a chance to be really, really good. But you know, at some point you just move on. You really do. I don't know when that happened for me, but I've fallen in love with USF, I've fallen in love with Tampa. I come up north, now I can't handle the cold. That was my life most of my years. So, I've kind of moved on from that. This is totally a thing right now where my I guess my motivation is we're creating history, we're building on something special, something that really hasn't been done before, and I feel very proud to be a part of that, and I know our guys feel proud to be a part of that. It's fun when I get a chance to talk with Chucky Atkins or Redenko Dobras or even Dominique Jones that text me, all that guys, Brian Lamb that were part of USF program and they see where we're going right now and they're proud. I guess that's more where I am right now is just doing something special at USF right now where a lot of people, Dickie V, hey, that's the toughest job in America. Those kind of things, knowing that we've moved forward makes me proud. Q. Coach, Ron mentioned that you all flew in today. That helped maybe get a good night's sleep, or how tough was it to come down from last night and playing the last game tomorrow night? Does that help maybe having a little more time in the day, get the legs back up? COACH HEATH: I know the guys didn't sleep much last night. They were watching Sports Center 2:00 in the morning. They were watching each other's dunks and getting excited. I was trying to put them to bed. We had an early flight. That was the one -- I wish we could have flew a little bit later, but it is what it is. I think the guys are fine, because I let them sleep until about 3:00 this afternoon. They just been sleeping the whole time, but me and the coaches we've been watching film trying to figure out Temple. They're a very good basketball team. We'll be fine. You know, the thing -- the Big East tournament, I think all these tournaments kind of prepare you for this. The good thing is when we're in a tournament with back-to-back nights where we played at 9:00 at night and we had to play the next night at 9:00 at night. So we've been in this situation, have a one-day break in between. So tomorrow we'll be fine. It's not going to bother us one bit. Today will be a little bit more of a mental practice than a physical practice. Q. For you, for this team, you came into it with a very humble attitude. You sense it from the way that the attitude was of the players and how questions were answered. Do you think that that victory against California, the way you handled that team and the talk of what California was bringing to that first four game, do you think this team is strutting a little bit more and that humbleness has sort of subsided and the confidence is starting to take over? COACH HEATH: Well, I certainly -- I want my team to be -- the old saying, humble, but I want them to be hungry and I don't want them -- I think arrogance and being over-confident, that can certainly get you beat in a hurry. We won't win if we don't play with the same intensity and tenacity that we've been playing with, especially on the defensive end. Once we let go of that identity, we're in trouble. So, I think it's important for our team and I think the guys know we can't start reading our clippings, and all of a sudden people say, oh, they do have an offense and they can, all of a sudden we start taking bad shots, we can't change who we are. I don't think they will. It's really important that we continue to do and build on what or not we've been doing. Q. Stan, ten years ago you had your Elite 8 team at Kentucky State and that was your big national splash and here we are ten years later. I wondered how you might have evolved as a head coach in that time as far as handling a team and approaching a season? What have you learned in a that decade that's made you a better head coach? COACH HEATH: I'm always learning. I have I think learned a lot since then. I think I still have a lot more to learn and, you know, I do feel differently now than I did ten years ago. I can tell you that. I do think I handle our team a little bit differently than maybe I did in the past. You know, you're always constant pushing and prodding and pushing and prodding. And I think sometimes when you have a team that you really trust and you feel like they get it, you can kind of, you know, pull the reins back a little bit and let them go. I think that's where I am right now. I'm trying to let them go a little bit. I'm not trying to let them go too far, but I do feel like there's a strong trust level of all of us kind of being on the same page in what we're trying to do and what we need to do to accomplish it. Q. Stan, you played in this building almost four years ago when you played Vandy here. Where have you seen the biggest change in Gilchrist as a player from where he was then to where he is now from you at the end of his career? COACH HEATH: He's night and day, two times over from that year and one time over from last year. His maturity is totally different. The way he handles coaching, his commitment to doing little things out there on the court. His defense is so much better, his passing has improved. Not quite where we like it to be, but it's improved quite a bit and his unselfishness. More importantly, his commitment to winning and really I think it started with him. Once he caught up to I'll sacrifice some numbers to win, then our team became totally different. He's never complained to me. His scoring average was somewhere around 14, 15 points two years ago and maybe it was 12, 13 now and now it's 9. It's actually gone down, and he's a better player. I don't know how to figure it out. I know his shooting percentage is the one thing that's not as high as it normally is. I think all of us who really follow him know on a given night he can be as good as any post player around with his arsenal, his ability to go inside, outside, all the moves and stuff he has. But I just like his team attitude right now and I know his teammates like it, they respect it, and it's been -- you know, I guess as a coach, you get certain things that you know maybe stick to your heart a little bit, and that's one of those things, just watching him mature as a person more than a basketball player. I know people are saying they probably see his numbers, he's having a down year, haven't gotten better. This kid has gone way beyond my expectations as a person, as a player this year. Q. Coach, if you could, tell us how Hugh Robertson has done. Update us on what role he's played for your team. COACH HEATH: Hugh is really probably one of your most underappreciated players out there on the court for our basketball team, and I know when he first came to us and I was kidding him the other day, a few people were saying, are you sure he can play in the Big East, this, that and the other. If you don't know it, he is one of the best lock-down defenders in the country. If you go through his resume of the guys he's guarded, Ashton Gibbs and different guys like that, what their scoring average is and what they had at the end of the day, even the PAC-10 Player of the Year, you know, this current year and what he does to guys. He frustrates the heck out of you and he's -- it really starts with him, and he's a guy that I can put on several different people from one through three and sometimes four, and I feel very confident when I enter into that game that guy's in trouble, and, you know, when he's aggressive offensively, then watch out for US.F. When he's putting double figure points and you saw -- one of the -- it's funny, I saw some of the highlight plays that they talked about our team the other day. The one I thought that was the most incredible play, the most difficult play was a pass Vic made to him late in the game. I don't know how he caught it and threw it down. I just shook my head on that on one. To have a kid, I don't want to go too long, but to have a kid who is willing to say my job is to shut down the other team's best player and I accept that role and I'm okay with it, it doesn't happen very often in this day and age with kids. Q. Talked about the transfers and the way the guys have played defense this year and the way that Gus has played. A lot of unique things about this team. What do you think has been the most unique among the teams that you've been around for this group? COACH HEATH: Well, when you look back at what I remember we started, you know, seven and six in nine conference play. Most of the time you're in a major conference, you're going to be ten and four, worse case scenario, something like that. To see where -- you know, we came off a year where we only had ten wins last year and then we got off to a poor non-conference as well. Lot of that was because of injuries. We didn't have most of our key guys during that time. And to find that the guys were still willing to figure out a way to win and be successful, handle that adversity and come together, I think that's the most rewarding thing for me this year. And we won a lot of games that we were down, Seton Hall we were down maybe eight, ten points and close games with Rutgers, went on the road to Louisville and had so many games that could have gone either way. I'd say 75 percent of them have gone our way. I think that's another big thing, being able to close and win close ball games is something we've been good at. Not great, but very good at. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions for coach? Q. Coach, surviving in the Big East, getting to play Temple, which we now know will be joining in a couple years, chance to show Temple just what Big East basketball is about this time of year? COACH HEATH: First, I'm really excited to bring teams like Temple, Memphis, Houston, SMU and UCF, but those, especially when you look at Temple and that doesn't mean anything against the other guys in Memphis, their history and tradition really adds a lot to our league, especially in the future when we're losing some very good basketball teams as well. They won't need any introduction. They play on a national scale. They beat Duke this year. They beat Duke this year. So, they don't need an introduction. They're going to be fine. They're a great program, and they'll fit in extremely well with the Big East. THE MODERATOR: One more question, back left. Q. I'm just curious, and I apologize if this is repetitive. Could you maybe pinpoint a couple things Xs and Os, why you clicked offensively last night? You guys have been waiting all year to kind of have an offensive performance like that. COACH HEATH: If you look at our scoring average, our numbers, you'll see that there's really nobody that sticks out like a sore thumb. There's guys that average eight, nine, seven, just go on through the line. If you look through our year, you'll see there's been games where Gilchrist has had 20, Collins has had 15, Anderson has had 17, Fitzpatrick had 20, Poland has had several games of big scoring nights. Rudd had a game where he had 25 and a half, 30 for a game. This was the one game where I thought we had more than just one guy, two or three guys, we had four guys in double figures in this game where they all clicked at the same time. I don't know why it hasn't happened more often, but last night it happened and it can happen regularly. I don't understand why it doesn't happen more often. I think the other thing that happened in this particular game, when we have 12 or less turnovers, we average 67 points a game. If we have 12 or less turnovers, we average 67 points a game. We had 11 in that game, we had 67 points. And so when we take care of the basketball, we are a different team offensively, give ourselves more chances. We did that last night. THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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