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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 4, 2013James JohnsonJAMES JOHNSON: Well, coming off a very, very difficult week where we played a talented team in Miami and then went on the road down to a talented North Carolina team that's always tough at home, and then going into this week we've got a Maryland team that had a good win with Wake Forest, put up a lot of points this last week, and a Georgia Tech team who beat a very good Virginia team. This young group that we have, we've got our work cut out for us this week, also. Q. I wanted to ask you, you obviously have already played Maryland. How much better or do you feel like your team has improved and made progress since that ACC opener? JAMES JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah, I think the team is playing better right now. I think defensively we've improved, I think rebounding we've improved. I just don't know how‑‑ consistency is still an issue with individual players and with the team. I think that part comes with some of our youth and then some foul trouble and certain things with a depleted short bench. Q. You mentioned after the game at Carolina that you thought the guys ran out of gas a little bit. How will you manage that this week? Will you take more days off, have a light practice? How do you plan to combat that? JAMES JOHNSON: I don't know if there's much we can do to try to combat that now because we've got to do certain things in practice and preparation to prepare for the teams we're playing and to try to practice and get better in certain situations, in certain areas that we need to get better in. But I think it's part of the grind. It's February 4th, and we've played a lot of games, we've played a lot of guys a lot of minutes. I mean, certain guys have played a lot of minutes, and I think that's just wearing on them. I don't know if there's much we can do about practice that's going to help that. Certain guys just played a lot of minutes. You look at a guy like Erick Green, he's playing a lot of minutes but he's also getting double‑ and triple‑teamed at times; and Jarell Eddie is playing a lot of minutes, and he's not the leanest guy out there; Robert Brown, the fact that he's struggling a little bit, he's still playing a lot of minutes; Cadarian Raines, playing a lot of minutes, also. We've just got guys that are playing a lot of minutes, and they've been doing that all year long, and I think that's just taking its toll now. Q. These are two rematches for you this week. What changes, if anything, in your approach? How is it different when you play a team a second time? JAMES JOHNSON: Well, I don't know if anything changes in our approach. There may be a little change in maybe the game plan and how we play those guys, how we do certain things, and I think with how much better or with the changes that our team has made since we've played those guys because there have been changes, so we'll look at the opponent and then we'll look at ourselves and see what we need to change or what we need to do different from that. Q. Do you sense at all any psychological downness, if that's a word, but are the guys down right now? You mentioned the grind and people playing a lot of minutes. When you see them, when you travel, when you see them in practice or in the film room, how do they seem to you? JAMES JOHNSON: No, that's one thing that I've been very surprised about to be honest with you. The confidence level is still up, and after the game on Saturday you've got guys were in the locker room talking about the guys were right there. We've just got to finish, we're right there, we're going to be all right, we've just got to finish, we've got to keep working hard, and that's coming from the players. I'm trying to preach that, but that's also coming from guys in the locker room, and I thought that was very good to hear. The fact that we're coming out and we're playing hard, we're getting off to good starts, we're competing and fighting, it also shows me that the guys still have confidence. I just think now it's a matter of being able to finish, and whether that's because we're getting tired down the stretch or because the other team is just making plays, whatever it is, I do think we still have some confidence, and we're going to continue to try to fight and compete down the stretch here. Q. And Erick had one of his rare poor shooting games at Chapel Hill on Saturday. Do you sense any fatigue in him, or are you confident that, like you did say after the BYU game, that he'll immediately bounce back and be scoring 25, 30 points again before you know it? JAMES JOHNSON: Well, I sense a little bit of fatigue, some wear‑down in him. It's one or two guys that you‑‑ he's seeing a lot of different defenses, and he's seeing a lot of big strong bodies now as we go through the course of this ACC season. You're looking at guys that are 6'5", 205 pounds that are guarding him now, and they're sending 6'9", 240 at him, trapping him in ball screens and bumping him. In the whole game played on Saturday, he played 43 minutes of that. That's a lot. You're looking at the games we're playing, and this week we've got the turnaround game in Maryland, big, strong, physical, deep, and they come back at 1:00 on Saturday and play a Georgia Tech team that's big, strong and physical, also, and they play a bunch of guys. So I think it's carrying over to him a little bit. I think he's‑‑ mentally I think he's handling it and being positive about it, but at times sometimes your legs just don't have it, and I think that he wore down a little bit on Saturday. Q. With Alex Len coming to town this week, what was your impressions of him from seeing him in person the first time you played him and what kind of challenges will he pose for your defense? JAMES JOHNSON: Well, I thought our big guys, that's the game that we played the big lineup for the first time with Joey and Cadarian, and I thought both our big guys did a very good job in that game. Looking back at tape, we left some offensive rebounds, let them get some offensive rebounds in the game, but once we kind of settled in a little bit, I thought our big guys did a very good job versus all their big guys, not just Alex, who he's a handful for anybody. But I think they did a very good job with all those guys, their big guys up front. Layman got off a little bit and hit some threes, Seth Allen got off a little bit and hit some threes, but we held Alex to 16, and I thought we did a good job with him. Q. I wanted to ask you about the game Saturday in terms of‑‑ Erick has been carrying you guys so much. Is it at all gratifying that in game where he was not at his best, you hung in the game and had a chance to win it, took it to overtime, you might have had contributions from other people that impressed you? JAMES JOHNSON: I don't know, I mean, it's not gratifying when‑‑ we're going in and our objective is to win the game, and we prepare and we game plan to win the game. So however we can do that, we'd like to come out of there with a win. We did have some guys step up and contribute a little bit; Raines contributed, Eddie contributed, Brown still struggled a little bit, and then Green struggled. For us to have a couple guys struggling when we're not that deep anyway, we had a couple guys struggle, our best player, leading scorer struggled a little bit, and then one of our scoring guys who can take it and put the ball in the hole for us is still struggling, and those things happen and we're still able to be right there in the game and have a chance and opportunity to win the game, we're getting better, and we're taking some steps forward, but we've got to take the next step, and that's learning how to finish the game and win. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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