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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 16, 2013Shane LarkinJim LarranagaDurand ScottGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA Miami: 81 COACH LARRANAGA: Before the game I said to the players this is exactly the kind of game we needed to play, an opponent like NC State, a weapon at every position and a real challenge for our defense, and I said to the guys, this is the time we need to play great at both ends of the floor, and I told them at halftime, I thought we played a great first half and they needed to continue to do that in the second half and we did that and came away with a great victory. Q. Coach, you have an extensive active background in the ACC, how great would it be to win the tournament? And can you talk about the defensive plays on the boards and the rim today? COACH LARRANAGA: Well, I thought our defense overall was very good. The tough part about guarding N.C. State is when they get into the open court, and you've got their big guys who run, C.J. Leslie, T.J. Warren, Richard Howell, they get out in front of you, and you got Scott Wood, who is a threat the moment he crosses mid court. So it's hard to key on any one player. You rely heavily on your team defense and the individuals to rise up and guard their own man. We did a good job of helping each other on several occasions and prevented baskets, but it's a team defensive effort. I think for these guys, they have earned the right to play in the championship tomorrow by how well they have played in this tournament. The tournament is a separate entity. We did a terrific job last night of moving on to the semifinals and did a great job today in moving to the finals. Q. Coach, you bragged on your backcourt yesterday and I'm going to give you a chance to do so again, Coach. For the players, do you guys take pride in being the best backcourt in the ACC? COACH LARRANAGA: Let me answer that this way. There are a lot of terrific back courts in this conference. And you can't take away anything from any of those teams and their programs, because those guys are really, really good. I think what makes our players so special is they love that challenge of proving themselves every single night. They're both so competitive. We do drills back home, if we're not keeping score, they're bored. But the moment we say, okay, we're playing to 5 or the first one to eleven, all of the sudden they light up the room and they want to win. They did everything they have to do to win the game. That's really what it's all about, the tremendous effort they put into helping their team. Whether it's scoring or defending or rebounding, they do it all. DURAND SCOTT: Yeah, most definitely I'm grateful to have a teammate like Shane Larkin next to me, who makes the game easier for me. I just feed off him and hopefully he feeds off me and going to the game every night we don't try to worry about everything, I just put everything on my teammates and they allow me to play the way I do. Like Coach said, give credit to all the other back courts in our conference. We just try to prove ourselves every night and go out there and be the best we can be and that's the only thing we can control. SHANE LARKIN: Like Durand said we try to be the best backcourt every night and I feed off his energy and he feeds off me. We play well with each other and I know if he's driving he's going to have his head up and if I'm open he's going to find me and hopefully he thinks the same of me. We challenge each other in practice, most of the time we are going against each other and we try to make each other better in practice. I'm just grateful that he's on my team. Q. Coach, defense stopped an explosive N.C. State team, couple of steals, couple of charges. Did your strategy change from what you normally go into a game with? For the players, what got you going on defense and got you into the groove? COACH LARRANAGA: Well, we have been emphasizing defense all year long. Probably the greatest emphasis tonight was to be sure we didn't let Scott Wood go off for another seven 3s. We held him to six. He is who he is, he's a phenomenal 3‑point shooter. Sometimes the thing about him is you're playing great defense, and he still makes the shot. Doesn't need any space, he doesn't need anytime so he's like Star Trek, right? Space and time? He's just really, really good. The thing about the defense is, we were trying to play team defense so whoever was guarding Scott was responsible for him but the other guys have to guard outstanding offensive players, too. The thing we emphasized and we're going to have to put points on the board. No matter how good our defense is, we need points. They shot 50% for the game, and that's not normally what our defense is and 43% from 3. We want to hold an opponent to 40% overall and 30% from 3 so as good as our defense was we knew we had to put points on the board and Durand and Shane they put a ton of points on the board. Q. Durand, you had a career high in points and threes made tonight. Can you talk about the groove you were feeling? DURAND SCOTT: I picked my opportunities and tried to take advantage of it. My teammates found me and got me open, and once I got a couple of baskets I got confident in myself and especially from the 3‑point line, I think I missed my first two but after that I told myself, when I'm open shoot it. That's what Shane tells me every time, and when I don't shoot it he gets upset at me. So there were two I shot and made and once they went in I said, I got to shoot it every time before he gets upset. COACH LARRANAGA: He's not the only one! DURAND SCOTT: My teammates stress to me and so does my coaching staff, and I tried to make the best of it tonight. Q. Shane and Coach, can you talk about Durand and his leadership? He sometimes doesn't get media attention but everyone on the team says he's the heart and soul and I heard yesterday during halftime it was his tough talk that helped motivate the guys for the second half. COACH LARRANAGA: In actuality, I think it was on the court during the second half that he pulled everybody together and ripped them saying, "Hey, pick it up." I didn't hear it, I don't know if his vocabulary was inappropriate, in an audience like this, but maybe he can share with you exactly what he told his teammates, because they responded as a unit. They didn't pull apart, which happens sometimes. Guys become defensive, they didn't. They pulled together, and that's important at this stage of the season. SHANE LARKIN: I don't think Durand gets the media attention he should get. He's one of the best guards in the country not just the ACC. He's proven that over his four years here and with the amount of points he has, the steals, rebounds, he's the leader, heart and soul of the team definitely and what he said on the court wasn't bad at all, he just let out a roar, he was upset and he said "I can hear myself out here!" And he was the only one talking on the court and he wanted everybody to talk, and he wanted to hear others talking with him. He got on us and that's what a leader does and he led and you say that's what picked our defense up in the second half yesterday and that's pretty much what got us to this point today to be able to play in this game. Because if we didn't play defense yesterday we wouldn't have been able to play today. He's a leader, heart and soul of the team, and does a great job in every single way. DURAND SCOTT: The gym was quiet at that moment in the second half, and over the years the best thing in defense is communication. When you communicate everybody knows what they are doing, where they're supposed to be, how they're supposed to do it. Sometimes you don't notice it, especially me, and I was talking out there but then it came to a point, I noticed nobody else was talking. So it revved me up and I was screaming at the top of my lungs, like I can hear myself talking and I could hear myself talking, which sparked Kenny, which sparked Shane, which sparked Julian and Trey and from there we picked it up on the defensive end. Q. Durand, there was one three you hit in the second half that ended a spurt by N.C. State where you kept your form there for a second or two. Were you admiring the shot or just kinda feeling it then? Did that mean anything? DURAND SCOTT: No, it was just a shot. I knew I had to get myself into position to shoot and my coach was telling me to hold my follow‑through and that's probably the longest I've ever held my follow‑through. Q. Durand did you think back to the other ACC performance you had as a freshman? DURAND SCOTT: No, when I walked into the building a lot of people remembered me and they were like "Do you remember this building and how you did your freshman year?" And they reminded me of my performance, but that was the past, that game can't win us the game today, yesterday, or tomorrow. So I had to go out there and do what I had to do for my team to win and that's what I did tonight. Q. Coach, Durand had a great night statistically but he also helped you with ball handling and Scott Wood actually made threes every time Durand was not guarding him. Like his eyes lit up as Durand had to go to the sideline is this the best you've ever seen him play? COACH LARRANAGA: I see him play great every day. There are different forms of being "great." Tonight he was on fire offensively, but he plays great defense every night, that's why he's the defensive player of the year. He rebounds, one of the best rebounding guards in the league. He shares the ball, he leads us on and off the court. In my estimation this game just symbolizes the kind of player he's been for four years. Q. Shane, talk about your ability to answer, it seems like State was able to get it down top 9 or 10 a couple of times and you guys were able to come back at them and keep the lead where it was. SHANE LARKIN: We are a poised team and after we get out of the huddle after every timeout, Coach always says "Stay poised down the stretch," and they had a lot of fans there so the arena was loud and we could have easily broken down and started yelling and not stay poised, but we stayed together as a team and we pulled it out. We have confidence in ourselves and in each other and we're a great offensive team so there is no reason why we shouldn't have answered and we just had to answer and we did. We got it done. Q.  For the players, after winning the regular season what kind of maybe sense of completeness or something like that do you get from getting to the final here and showing that you can always run through it in a handful of days? SHANE LARKIN: This is a totally new season, the postseason is the postseason, the regular season is the regular season. When we came here we were 0‑0 just like everybody else in the ACC, records didn't count, we were playing on a neutral court with no home crowd and two teams going at it. We just came in with confidence in ourselves and a lot of confidence in our coaches and our game plan and we executed each night that we played. Like I said before, we're a hungry team, and we want more and more. We're not satisfied with winning the regular season, we want the ACC Championship and then eventually we want to make the national championship game. We're hungry and we're not going to settle for anything less, and hopefully we can get out there and get it done. DURAND SCOTT: I agree with Shane. We came here 0‑0 which means every team believes they can win this championship. Every game you're going to get the opponent's best. I've been watching Florida State and seeing Shane come out and help his team, and North Carolina, P.J. shooting the ball well, so everybody is going to play their hardest, trying to win the game, especially teams on the bubble and things like that. It should be a great opportunity to take this up to the NCAA Tournament, so we had to come out here more excited, more hungry, more thirsty to win a basketball game and we have to do the same tomorrow. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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