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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2013Steve DonahueOlivier HanlanJoe RahonGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA Boston College: 84 THE MODERATOR: We would like to welcome Boston College head coach, Steve Donahue as well as student athletes, Olivier's Hanlan and Joe Rahon, Coach? COACH DONAHUE: Thanks. I thought it was an interesting game to say the least. I don't think I have had too many of those where you fall down by 15 before the first time‑out. I think the good thing is it happened to quickly, I think it woke us up understanding getting through the nerves of the tournament, we got rid of that in the first four minutes. We have been through a great deal this year with a lot of adversity, times where we didn't play well and we came back and I think that's what we relied on at that point. Q. Olivier Hanlan, are you aware, coach or players during the course of the game of any of those types of records, are you aware of it at all? He broke the freshman scoring record. COACH DONAHUE: I had no idea. OLIVER HANLAN: I had no idea at all. COACH DONAHUE: With all due respect to the scoring record it's not anything we care about. It's nothing I talk about. These two have had an incredible season and it's all about our team and I would never want to take something like a record that an individual does is more important than what we do and I would never put it ahead of the team, I'm sure Joe and Olivier feel the same. Q. Olivier's Hanlan, can you talk about the steal on the in bounds, and how that got you going, and how big was that? OLIVER HANLAN: Before that play Coach told me to play aggressive on that president because I got the same steal last time at home and I got it and finished and it gave us more energy to get another stop after that. COACH DONAHUE: I thought the press was good to us today and I thought we were tentative at first and one of my assistants actually mentioned that they're beating it by getting it out quick and "O" and I spoke about getting up there and making him back dribble and it was bang‑bang, we score, we steal, we score, and all of the sudden the momentum is going our way. Q. Coach, this is the first time the team has advanced since 2007 into the quarter‑finals, talk about what it means to the program, biggest winning streak, a lot of momentum and good things happen. COACH DONAHUE: Well, I don't want to call on you that but we came to the quarters my first year here, too. I know you do your home work. Q. I try my best! COACH DONAHUE: I know! It's a big deal, both these guys know. We have had our times where we questioned how good we were with the incredible amount of youth. I don't think there is a team in the country that starts and plays by rotating freshmen and sophomores, we have no juniors or seniors, necessarily in the rotation and I give these guys credit because to play 35, 36 minutes a game in this league as freshmen without senior and junior leadership just speaks volumes of how far they've come, so to be advanced and one of the eight teams left it's a big deal in a quality league like this, no doubt. Q. Coach, based on your last answer I guess I can guess the answer to this but the record for scoring in a game was 45 and it was set 56 years ago, do you have any temptations to leave Olivier's Hanlan in any longer? COACH DONAHUE: Who was that? Q. Lennie Rosenbluth. COACH DONAHUE: I had no idea‑‑ we were just locked in, I had no idea if one guy was making 'em or what, but the funny part about 8 for 10, I think he missed his first two and I think I said something like "you gotta take that," and both of these guys I've harped on them all year about taking the three. That's gotta be a weapon that we use and both of them over the last month have utilized that and I think they sense if he's not making shots we can keep him out of the lane and he made him pay for that. Q. Olivier's Hanlan you start 2 for 6 and make your last 12. What were you thinking on that last shot that went around the rim off the backboard and found its way in which gave you the 41? OLIVER HANLAN: It was a lucky shot, I was lucky enough to have Ryan give me a beautiful pass. My last 12 shots were not really tough but my teammates were finding me in spots and I was trying to move around the wing because they were guarding me well so I was trying to spot up and get my feet and not miss the shots. Q. Joe, even if you're not aware of the exact numbers you got to have a feel that Olivier is making everything he fires up there, when you have way guy doing that do you try to get him the ball? JOE RAHON: Absolutely. Olivier has done a great job, second leading scorer behind Ryan and today he was putting on a show. As a player on the court you try not to get caught up in it and you try to keep playing and doing your best but there is no doubt whenever you're penetrating you're looking at wherever his defender is at, and he has it going, it's going to more than likely go in. There was no doubt I was trying to get him the ball and he was doing a great job of moving without the ball and he put 'em in, it was a great performance. Q. "O" you get another shot at Miami, especially after that first game at home with the free‑throws, do you take the excitement into the fact that you get another opportunity to beat them? OLIVER HANLAN: It's another challenge for me, and we could have got the win but we will rest up tonight and bounce back tomorrow. Q. You guys have been in situations and it's different falling down 15 points given a 5‑minute head start, where were you at that point and how did you dig yourselves out of that? OLIVER HANLAN: We have been in so many unique situations this year, recently we played and we were down 10 with 10 to go and we came in after a time‑out and Coach gave us confidence to get going because we knew we could come back and we said being down 15 with 35 minutes to go is much easier than being down 10 with 10 to go so that loosened us up a little bit and it made us get going and you have no choice but to start playing basketball when you're down 15 in an ACC Tournament so it helped us turn it on and we will be ready tomorrow. Q. Having played Miami twice already what is there to do to prepare for them tomorrow? COACH DONAHUE: Obviously it's not anything physically that you can do. They present so many issues on the offensive end and defense, just their age and experience. I think the physicality is the first thing, they have big bodies, we've talked about it all the time, most of the times in this league have physical attributes over us so we've got to be playing the way we play, move the basketball, make them chase you, utilize the three. Pushing the transition, all those things still apply. On the defense we have gotten better at that, there is no way you can guard and we're buying into it more and more but that's a team that‑‑ Shane is running the team and everybody else playing off of him so it's a heck of a test, there is no doubt. Q. Steve, for a lot of ACC fans this is their first realization of the player that Olivier's Hanlan is. Can you talk about what you saw in him on the recruiting trail and whether you thought he could be this good this early? COACH DONAHUE: We have known "O" for quite a few years through a guy named Dave Smart a guy at Carlton University who just won his ninth national championship in Canada, and he ran a great program. I think he's probably the first guy we looked at from Canada. I think he got underrecruited a little bit. He did get offers when it went down, but I think he's not a freaky‑type athlete, necessarily but he's a good athlete, and he's extremely smart and I think those are the things that drew us toward him. I had no idea‑‑ and I say this to a lot of recruits now, I don't know when you get guys like these two on campus, are they going to be hard workers, everyone says they are but are they going to be dedicated to the game? Both of these guys from day one in the gym watching film, understand it. Two, are they coachable, willing to hear criticism? Willing to say, you know what? We've got to share it better there, both of these guys are selfless in that manner and I think Olivier obviously with all the work he's put in it's coming to the top at this point. Q. Steve, Georgia Tech plays better defense, you must have been satisfied with the way your offense was functioning getting shots against them? COACH DONAHUE: Extremely. I think Brian is as good of a coach as there is in the league. I think the two of us are playing the best basketball in this league right now. Over the last 10 games and the way they played and we played. I thought it was a hard match‑up because we beat 'em and I think they're good. These young players are good, his veterans played well and I think we did some things offensively moving the basketball that you have to do. A guy like Ryan Anderson is not up here but to be honest we go through him and a lot of times it's a hockey assist, it leads to something else but if we don't have a kid like him sharing it I don't think these guys get shots and no one gets shots. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very  much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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