UF Men's Hoops Returns Home To Face Alabama On Wednesday
Monday, February 16, 2009 | Men's Basketball
On upcoming game against Alabama
"Alabama is a team that has played very well since they made a change with Mark (Gottfried). Mark and I have been in the league for a very long time and we played against each other in college so there has been a relationship there. Philip (Pearson) has been with Mark for several years and I think the system and what they are doing is relatively the same. They have a terrific player in Alonzo Gee, he has basically been a starter for four years in this league. They have some really good play upfront, at the point guard spot, (Justin) Knox up front, and (Demetrius) Jemison. They have a team that looks to pound the ball inside. They are not taking a lot of three-point shots but I think they are a capable three-point shooting team. We have an opportunity to go up and play a team from the West and see if we can play well."
On Florida's frontcourt
"I have kind of evaluated this and have always looked at it as are they trying to do the best they can and are they trying to give me everything they have? There is no question that there are some limitations there but I do feel like they are trying to do whatever I ask them to do. There are certain things maybe inside the game that they do struggle with that is challenging for them but I really do not apply that to their effort. For any coach, you always want to see players perform and your guys play better statistically, and do whatever they can to help us. I think our players have made a nice jump from last year to this year. Dan (Werner) has had maybe a tougher time shooting the basketball since SEC play has started but he still does other things to help our team. Our young guys really are a work in progress and we are spending more time on some of the bigger guys. I thought (Allan) Chaney was getting better. It is disappointing that he is hurt now because I would have liked to see how he could have progressed as he was starting to get better. You would like to see those guys play better and perform better but I think also performance goes into effort. In order to perform well you have to give great effort. I think that those guys are giving good effort and that there are just some kinks and some situations where what their role is, is sometimes maybe larger or bigger than what we are asking them to. It is tough for Dan to line up 30 minutes a night and expect him to grab 10 or 12 rebounds but inside of what his ability is, I think he is giving us all that he can possibly give."
On the reason for Florida's lack of size
"I don't think the situation with us being undersized has anything to do with those guys at all as players. We really felt that Dan was going to be a great compliment. The one thing you can never forecast is guys leaving early. I don't think that when the season started last year, that people thought Marreese Speights would be gone. I haven't talked about Maurice because he is not here but as a sophomore, because of his progress and what he has been able to do, our frontcourt complexion this year would look totally different. In that case you would have Maurice, Alex (Tyus), Dan and (Kenny) Kadji, we would have more pieces, but because of his early departure, and at the time when we signed some of these guys, there is no question that the role we are in right now is definitely a different role than from what we envisioned when we signed them. I think Kadji's development is really important and his consistency is important. Does Eloy Vargas get any better? Does Allan Chaney get any better? There is no question that our lack of size in the frontcourt had nothing to do with necessarily wanting to recruit that way. We won two national championships with three monsters up front and a 6-9 small forward. You would like to have that size across the frontline so we can match up with other teams, but we don't have it. We have to go with what we do have and make the best out of that."
On if UF will make a NCAA Tournament run
"I am not really worried about that. That question always comes around this time of the year and I understand the attention towards that but our main focus right now is Alabama. I think sometimes people worry and are focused way too far down the road. That will come here and whenever that day does come, we will find out whether or not we performed well enough to play in it. The big thing right now for us is to come out and play well enough to beat Alabama. Outside of maybe the Tennessee game on the road, we've been in every game and we have had a chance, we just were not able to get over the hump and have been a couple of plays short here and there. For the mot part, I think our guys have really tried pretty hard. We are limited this year, there is no question about that but they are trying. When you talk about making a run, I am not really worried about making a run as much as that the run doesn't really make a difference if you don't play well against Alabama."
On being just a few plays away from being 23-2
"You can look at it that way but I never really do because there is probably a team that is 23-2 that have been a few plays away from being 18 and whatever. It is just kind of a game there. I think you want to try and put yourself in a position to win at the end and I think we have had an opportunity to do that but I think the things that have come down during the course of the game are always how well do you rebound the ball coming down the stretch, what kind of discipline do you have on defense to not break down, and then you have to take care of the basketball and make free throws. At certain points in time, those things have probably come back and have caught us a little bit in some different situations like when we had some turnovers late in South Carolina. I don't really worry about the shooting that much because when a guy shoots the ball and if he gets a good look and it is a shot that a guy can make, I think he will want to get a good shot. It is really hard to come down and just try to get this guy a good look, I think it is the defense and the way they are playing. There is no doubt that our guys are shooting the ball with confidence and are in the right frame of mind. You have to live with balls going in and out but I also think that there are certain things that you can control and we want to be focused on what we can control and that is being ready to shoot and more importantly it is things that we can control defensively, we can control taking care of the basketball, and we have to coming down the stretch, make some more free throws.
On allowing Erving Walker to run in transition instead of calling timeout against Georgia
"In those situations, there is always a level of second guessing what you have done. I think in those situations as a player or coach you realize that. Certainly, with the outcome of the game, yes, I would have loved to call a timeout but I do not have that luxury. Erving could have made a play and a shot could have gone up. We could have called a timeout but that could have allowed them to set their defense and in that case, we would say that we should have let them play in transition. I think what happened was at the end of the game, Erving really had a great matchup. It was a long rebound, we were good in transition, and there was a level of trust I had with those guys coming down the floor. They had Albert Jackson on Erving Walker and Erving had made some plays and had made some shots in that position but you still have to score coming down in the end of the game. The spacing was not great for him and instead of going left he probably really should have gone right. He could have got around him and put himself in a help situation but Erving went left. I felt like on the half court we went through such a long stretch where we didn't score, with the stretch we had three or four minutes period where we didn't score, and we were doing relatively well in transition. That was an opportunity to maybe get a transition basket, quick ball movement, and get their defense offset. I didn't think they were really matched up the way they wanted to be matched up. They had one of their guards on Alex and a big was on Erving so the floor was good for us but we probably didn't have the best spacing."
On if the last play of the game against Georgia was a learning experience for Walker
"Erving is one of those guys who makes plays and makes some big shots. He made some big shots against Auburn for us and I thought he made some big shots in the game for us against Georgia. I do think it is a phenomenal learning experience. I will never forget years and years ago, I had Mike Miller. He was trying to win games from behind the three-point line and we probably lost three games because at the end of the game, he wouldn't drive the ball to the basket. You have to drive the ball to the basket and he went through that and the best drive and play he made was when he made the Butler shot. There is going to be a learning curve that all of these guys are going to go through when they are put in those situations like that. Erving is the type of kid that will look at that and really become self-reflective and think what could I have done differently. That is what you want in that situation from your team, are they self-reflecting on what they could have done better. I think the same thing can be said for coaches, what could we have done better? In a lot of ways, Erving did a pretty good job because he probably got fouled at the end but I also realize that maybe they are not going to make that kind of call, but he did get bumped and he tried to create some contact."
On Alabama guard Alonzo Gee
"We had a serious matchup problem with him out on the perimeter. Because of his size, athleticism, strength, and experience he is definitely a tough matchup for a lot of people, not just us and he is a very good player. He had a huge game in Alabama last year and we were fortunate to win it there. He made some threes late and we were able to win. I think he had 30 plus points. He is just one of those guys who can get the ball off the dribble against us, he also can get to the backboard and rebound, and he also can post players so he certainly requires a lot more attention than just a man-to-man type of attention."
Comparing the play of Alonzo Gee and Terrance Woodbury
"I think they are a pretty good comparison. I think Woodbury may not be as physically strong as Alonzo. I always thought of Alonzo as a big, strong, physical wing and Woodbury is more of a slasher, driver, and spot-up shooter. Alonzo may try to do a little bit more off the dribble in terms of really driving the ball where Woodbury is more of a one or two dribble, pull up guy who likes to shoot threes. He is a dangerous guy because he does have some good quickness. He can drive and stop and he can kind of shoot over some small people."
On playing against second straight interim coach
“I had a conversation about this the other day. It is all so fragile in a lot of ways. There are highlights of when things are really incredible and then there are times when you have some challenges. When I look at my time here, I feel I have really grown as a person and as a coach through the challenges as opposed to things just being great. One of the things I looked at and knew going into last year was the opportunity I had after 2007. It was the challenge of taking on and knowing there was going to be a drastic drop off in talent, in scoring, and in just having a lot of guys coming in that were going to be thrusted into situations with no level of leadership above them and having to go through that and figure out as a coaching staff, how to help them. People wan to think to look at it this way but the reality is I thought our team totally overachieved last year. There were some games where we came up short but we really had an opportunity to make a run for it. We had a loss against some teams that were frankly better than us and going into last week we had a great opportunity against Kentucky. I remember when we were the number one team one year and we lost to Kentucky by 30. Our guys competed pretty hard and put themselves in a position to win. We have been in a position to win and now we have to learn how to go about doing it. When you are starting off from ground zero, which is where I think we were a year ago, you have an appreciation to go through the process and try to get back to that point. You also definitely have an appreciation for how fragile a year is in terms of one year to the next and how quickly things can change.”
On if Florida's defense was a reason for the loss against Georgia
“I think you are always looking at statistics as a measurement stick of what has been a team's performance from the field, from the three-point line, and from the free throw line. There is no question that Tennessee shot the ball great from their place a few weeks ago, and the way Georgia shot the ball was very uncharacteristic of how they have shot the ball all year long. There were some looks where I wish we were a little more aggressive defensively than we were in the half court. There were a couple of shots, and I really think this happens with shooters, when all of the sudden a couple of shots start going in, it creates a level of confidence for a player and I think Woodbury was 7-7 in the first half, not all threes I think he made 5 or 6 of them, but when he made his first two and then banked in his third one, that is what happens sometimes. They made a lot of timely shots and a lot of times it was not our defense. I was much more disappointed not with the fact that they made some of those shots, but I was more disappointed with the fact that up three, we fouled three consecutive times. I was more disappointed that with two seconds on the shot clock, Woodbury got the ball in a bind and we had him trapped by the sideline in their half-court and we bumped into him, bailed him out and got a foul. There were a lot of plays like that and that is the stuff that we can control. When the shot clock is winding down and the guy launches it, as (Devan) Downey did here several times or (Ricky) McPhee or Woodbury did, sometimes there is not a lot you can do, but you can control your fouls and you can control defensively the type of shots you want the other team to take. The problem was not them making 14 three-point shots; we lost by two. The problem was our discipline in key situations, of fouling, and not coming up with the ball which probably bled into really focusing more on seeing how well they shot the ball behind the three-point line.”
