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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 4, 2013Mark TurgeonMIKE FINN: We're now joined by Maryland head coach Mike Turgeon. We'll bring on coach, ask for a brief opening statement, then go to questions. COACH TURGEON: We were happy to get a win Saturday. We needed it. It was a big lift for us. Looking forward to Virginia Tech. But more importantly just having an extra day. Feel like we've been playing a lot of games. Haven't had the bye yet. Having the extra day is really good for us, get refreshed a little bit heading into Blacksburg on Thursday. MIKE FINN: Questions for coach. Q. Coach, can you talk about the improved offense, flow and scoring balance you saw Saturday, what kind of factors went into that. COACH TURGEON: Well, I thought we flowed pretty well in the first half against Duke. I thought we flowed pretty well the whole game against Florida State. The other day we made shots, we made a lot of shots. That always makes the offense look better. But more importantly we are executing better. We're screening better. We know what's a good shot. We're shooting a lot less bad shots. I thought the second half of the Duke game, our shot selection was better at Florida State, better against Wake Forest. We've added some things, continuing to add some things. With so many new guys, it's taking a while. The inconsistency, it's taking a while to figure out how to play. We have a rotation that we're sticking with as far as trying to keep shooters on the floor for spacing. We'll see if that helps us. Q. Coach, going back to the first matchup with Tech, what did you think of the way their big men played against Alex and your guys? COACH TURGEON: Well, I haven't looked at that film since the day after the game. Barksdale didn't play against us that game. I think they sat him out. But Raines is having a good year. A big, strong kid. I thought he played well. They had a couple kids come off the bench and play well for them. The thing I see about Virginia Tech when I watch them play, they're a team that has a ton of fight in them, competing like crazy, got a first‑year coach that's coaching every game like it's his last game. He's coaching his tail off, doing everything they can. What I've seen on film, Virginia Tech is playing a little bit more zone than they were playing when they came here. That would be the biggest thing. But I can't really remember how Alex played in that game and the job they did. I'm sorry, we play so many games, I can't remember.  I haven't started working on Virginia Tech. I'll do that tomorrow. Q. How about in general of playing a team a second time. They were successful, but they've gone more to the 2‑3. Do you have to really dramatically change what you're doing or do you try to get the same game at the end because you were so successful? COACH TURGEON: We made shots against them. We've been up and down with that. If they're going to play 2‑3, we're going to have to make some shots. That's something we'll work on this week. We'll continue to work on our execution. There were some defensive mistakes we made. We'll have to do a better job guarding them. That will be the biggest change. But offensively if they're in man, we'll run our six tough. If they're in zone, we'll do what we do against the zone. Defensively we have to do a much better job than what we did here to give ourselves a chance to win on Thursday. Q. I want to ask you about Alex's season overall. How have you seen him develop this year compared to last year and what do you attribute that development to? COACH TURGEON: I think it's pretty obvious. He's a whole different player. I think he's got to be in the running for most improved player from one year to the next if he continues to play like he's playing. He bounced back Saturday. Six for seven. But more importantly he rebounded and protected the rim. Just things we've been talking to him about. He just added strength. He's added confidence. He understands the language better. He's been through it, so he knows what he's getting into. I think he's just been so much better on the defensive end. Offensively he gives us a lot. He demands double‑teams which opens up things for everybody else. Did a great job on Saturday versus the double‑team. Just really improved in all areas. He's just 19. He's been fun to coach. You keep working with him. You know there's just so much more there. That's what's exciting. We still have a lot of basketball left this season that we can hopefully have a lot more improvement with Alex as we move forward. Q. You saw this coming, I assume. He was going to make leaps and bounds improvements this year. COACH TURGEON: I knew he would be better. I didn't think he would jump this much. I'll be honest with you, we were two weeks into practice, I was like, Holy smokes, this kid is not going to get it, he's not tough enough. Then something came on. My thing with players, I tell them to be consistent. There's a certain way I want Alex to play for him to be successful. Last year was one day out of four or five. This year it's been four days out of five. He's been consistent playing that way. He's much better than I thought he would be at this point. He's really, really improved. He's understanding. He's got a pretty good feel for the game in certain areas, but we have to increase his feel for the game in others, keep teaching him. But much further along. Q. It was on Friday you said that Seth was letting his offense affect his defense. Did you see a reversal of that on Saturday? COACH TURGEON: Seth responded. He did not play well at Florida State, didn't act right, and he responded the right way. He showed a maturity he hadn't shown this year. He made a mistake on offense one time and ran back and stopped the ball, got a rebound and blocked a shot or something. I can't remember what it was exactly. Just a maturity. He would have hung his head and gave up a layup normally. With young kids, you just keep working with them in all aspects and hopefully the light bulb came on Saturday for him, what he has to do, the way he needs to act to be a great player at this level. Of course, he made shots. That helped. I do think his defense was better, his team defense was better, his rebounding was better for us, even if you take away the jump shot. That was a step in the right direction. Q. Is this the best you've seen Padgett finish in a while and do you think he'll remain in the first five? COACH TURGEON: We're going to stick with that lineup. James played well at Florida State. They started a small lineup, went first play to James, made a tough shot, got him confident. More so than his finishing, he was great defensively. He had tough matchups. He knew when he wasn't guarding him that he could be a help defender. He was a great help defender. I thought all our of our post guys played well, protected the rim well, our interior defense was great. I was happy for James. It's been an up‑and‑down year. That was the James of last year. For us to have any chance to do what we really want to do down the stretch, we need Padgett to play that way. It was great. I was really happy for him. MIKE FINN: Coach, thanks for being with us today. Good luck this week. We'll talk to you next Monday. COACH TURGEON: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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