Feb. 22, 2011
Head Coach Craig Robinson
On reversing the negative momentum...
"Here's how I plan on doing it -- it's the basic stuff; its hard work. You have to keep working. If you think you're in the gym enough then you have to get in there more, and that's outside of practice. I'm seeing that. I'm seeing guys really take ownership of this slide that we're on. No one is standing back and saying its someone else's fault. We're all saying it's our fault. We have to work harder and we have to play better. That's what you have to do. Then you have to have a little bit of luck, a little bit of confidence. You have to sprinkle in some magic dust, too."
On the lack of assists against Oregon...
"I think that our effort has been there and that our intentions have been honorable, I just think our execution has been off a bit. Our guys have done just what you're saying in the last game - everybody tried to do something on their own. We have to stick to what works. When you have a very young team, it can happen. Our guys in the past have come to realize at the end of the season, if we stick with our stuff, we can be very successful. That's what we have to do. We have to stick with our game plan."
On losing on the road...
"To start off, we have a young team. We've been starting three sophomores and two freshmen most of the time. Those guys are playing a lot of minutes. Secondly, we have tried to do it on our own rather than as a team. Thirdly, I think it's been the timing. We had a couple of bad luck games, and when your momentum starts going in the other direction, it's kind of hard to snap out of it. When I say `momentum things', it seems as if we have a lull in the first half where we get behind, and then we end up playing even from that standpoint or we catch up and spend all of our energy catching up and then we're exhausted when it comes to finishing. Those are the things I'm looking at. If I had the absolute answer, I would press that button and fix it. Since we're at home this weekend, I'm happy and looking forward to trying to win these games and then worrying about the road when we hit the road again."
On Daniel Deane and his potential to play more...
"It's possible. You guys have been around me long enough to know there's a reason why he hasn't been playing and I think he's taken care of that. It's possible, but he still has to work his way past the guys who are in front of him. It was good to see him do well. It was good to see him on the court and we'll see how practice goes this week."
On the possibility of starting all young guys this weekend...
"I could be tempted to do that. Our seniors haven't given up, so I think we're going to do what we've been doing. Guys who have been playing well get to play more, and the guys who aren't playing well play less."
On the impact that Rhys Murphy and Eric Moreland may have had on the team this year...
"That's true, and I appreciate you bringing that up. I haven't brought it up just because there's nothing you can do about it. Those were two guys who are very athletic. Rhys is a very good shooter. Eric showed flashes of really being a play who could contribute, especially on the defensive end when he was playing. Yes, we miss those guys. This is a team that has 15 guys on the team, so we have to have guys step up. Other teams have had injuries, so I appreciate you bringing that up, but it's not an excuse."
On practicing later this week to help keep the team healthy...
"We actually went early (yesterday). I wasn't feeling well last week. A couple of players aren't feeling well, and when we go early it's usually me saying that our effort isn't there. That's not something I believe. What I wanted to do last week was get the camaraderie and the boot-camp nature of it. I shouldn't even say boot camp, but the sleep-away camp feel, the Kumbaya-effect. Given the bug that's going on, I don't want to cut off my nose to spite my face. We've got enough going against us, so we're going to go at our regular time and hope we can shake this before the weekend."
On what determines the starting line-up...
"The way we're playing, I think that we're going to stick with the starting lineup we have and try to work with that. There's nobody playing great, so I don't think switching it around is going to do any good. I think we'll just start with the guys we start with and see who's playing well. It's more important to know who finishes the game than who starts it."
On how performance during practice influences the lineup...
"There's still a meritocracy. It's not like you cannot play well in practice and expect to get a lot of time. It just doesn't work that way. Typically, the guys who play well in practice play well in the games, so there are no secrets or anything. We're just trying to get everyone to play better and figure out a way to do that."
On how the team's performance affects him...
"It's tough to lose games if you can't see the bigger picture. Me being an adult and a coach and sort of at the forefront of the program, I'm looking at what we've taken over, where we've gone, and where we want to go. It's way too early for me to be negative. I'm not a negative person. I've been absolutely ecstatic with the direction of our recruiting. I've been ecstatic with the experience that the younger guys are getting. You look at guys like Ahmad Starks, who's starting to play like a Pac-10 player. You're looking at guys like Devon Collier. I can't wait for Eric Moreland and Rhys Murphy to get some more experience. Angus Brandt has taken some really big steps, so I'm really excited about that. I mentioned our recruiting; the guys who are coming in are going to be exciting to play. I see that.
"I also see that we didn't inherit a program in limbo. We inherited one that was at the bottom of the ocean and we're trying to resuscitate it. I am really excited, but having said all that, it's hard to lose when you're used to being successful and used to winning games and all that kind of stuff. You're dealing with young adults and some of these guys are still kids, maturity-wise. I want to be positive for them all the time, but I also want them to understand what hard work can get you."
On looking at the big picture versus each game at this point in the season...
"It's still focusing on each game. I think that everyone is focused on the very next day of practice. All of our guys are focused on winning today's practice, and then they'll win tomorrow's practice, and then they'll hopefully win the game. We're still training them is I guess what I'm trying to say. We have young guys, and this is their first foray in the battle. We have older guys who know that you have to keep your eye on the prize, and that prize is the next day of work."
On going through a similar experience earlier in his coaching career...
"It was just as bad at Northwestern, similar at Brown. You have to understand that guys like me don't inherit jobs that are ready-made to be successful already. Every single job I've had has been a rebuild, and when you're rebuilding a program from the ground, you have to be able to take your lumps and see it from 30,000 feet as well as up-close."
On the difference between this team and his past teams...
"Having been in the assistant's seat and watching a guy like Bill Carmody manage, it has helped me see things kind of differently. I think I'm well-prepared for this; I just don't want to make it a habit."
On what Bill Carmody did as a coach...
"He never took his eye off what he was doing. That was something that can be tempting. It's very easy to only hear the negative when you're not performing. That's what we're trained to do; let's figure out what's wrong and fix it. In our business, most of the stuff you hear out there is negative, that's just the nature of it, and you can't let that get in the way of teaching the kids the positive stuff or not teaching them; teaching them as well as emphasizing the positive stuff. I want our players to see, first and foremost, that we as a staff haven't given up on them, and No. 2, that you have to, in our situation, pick out the positive things and take a look at that and do those as well as fixing the negative things. You can't just harp on the negative stuff."
On what the team needs to do to improve offensively...
"I'm going straight negative, just what I said I shouldn't be doing, but it's easy to see for us. What we aren't doing is making shots. Seeing how that is the key in basketball, that's the hardest thing. From the time we started this little slide, we haven't had trouble getting good shots. We've had trouble converting them, so we're spending a lot of time doing that in practice. Some of the good things, I am astounded by how well we are playing defense and still not winning games. We're playing some good defense here, but we're just not converting on the turnovers that we create. We're rebounding well, at least better than we have my first two years here, so there's a lot of stuff to be excited about. Rebounding is toughness, and toughness is another thing that we weren't very good at when I first got here, so there's plenty of stuff to be positive about. Being the high-achieving folks that we are, we just kind of concentrate on the negative things."
On how the guys are doing in practice...
"It's not translating into games. Part of that is youth, because the difference of intensity of game and practice is always there, especially for the younger players. For our veteran players, they're really under a dark cloud. What you saw in Lathen Wallace in the loss against Oregon was the Lathen Wallace we expected for the whole season. He just had a tough season, and it's not for the lack of trying and not for the lack of hard work, it's just probably putting too much pressure on himself being a senior. Same with Calvin Haynes; same with Omari Johnson. Again, I don't want to keep repeating myself, but I couldn't be happier with the effort. Our effort's there. It is the execution."
On a figure he'd like to see for three-point shots...
"Yes, not as many. You don't want to shoot 21 when you're only shooting 19 percent. I think we do well when shoot about 11 or 12, because when we stick to the number we're always around the 40 percent mark. We're just trying to get good shots. We've been getting good shots and we just miss them. I thought it started on the last Cal-Stanford weekend. We were able to throw the ball to our guys very close and we missed a couple of them, and then the other team goes on a run and you start doubting yourself. You have a weekend like that and it kind of snowballs. If you're shooting 21 three-point shots, you're usually behind, trying to catch-up, or you're a little bit behind and you think one shot will catch you up. It's more of a discipline thing than it is a strategy. We talk about that all the time. I would like to see us around 11 or 12 (per game)"
