February 23, 2009

Warchant.com Staff
Warchant.com

Florida State's Leonard Hamilton and Boston College's Al Skinner participated in their weekly ACC teleconference on Monday afternoon. The two head coaches talked about their team's upcoming match-up on Tuesday evening, All-ACC Player of the Year Candidate Toney Douglas, defending Tyrese Rice, and more.

Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton

Opening Comments:

"We traveled to Blacksburg and played a very fired up, emotional, hard charging Virginia Tech team that really, really fought us the whole second half. We kind of found a way, Toney Douglas hit a shot there at the end and they missed a last second shot to give us the win. It was a very, very important game for both teams. We were very fortunate to have come away with a victory."

Q: Could you talk about what Toney Douglas' leadership has meant this year with so many newcomers?

Hamilton: I think his play has been as good as anybody in the country, especially this year. He is the best on the ball defender I have ever coached in my coaching career. He gives it up on the defensive end. I don't think he has had a turnover in the last two or three games. He leads us in scoring. I think he is the only player in the country that has been able to take six first-year players on a team that needs them to perform well in order for us to be successful. We are really only play two experienced players, he and Uche (Echefu). Ryan Reid is a junior and all of the other players are freshmen or first-year players and Jordan Demercy. I think his leadership off the court and on the court has been just tremendous. Most coaches would know that when you have this many first-year players and you are counting on them every night to help you, as a coach you need to have someone whispering in their ears in the locker room and the dorms to try to help them get in the mind that they need to be in. I can't say enough about the leadership he has given us this year. He has definitely in my opinion, done it all for us this year.

Q: Tomorrow night Toney gets to face one of the other elite guards in the ACC, do you sense he gets up particularly high for these match-ups?

Hamilton: Toney has been really even keeled. Because he has played so many major minutes for us sometimes we don't allow him to guard the opponent's leading scorer as much. But in this case, the match-up I am sure he will be playing Tyrese (Rice) a little bit more. Obviously we try to encourage Toney to play solid defense and not get overaggressive and understand it is not about him and the point guard who he is playing, it is our defensive system versus their offensive system. He just needs to keep that in mind and make sure that we as a team are defending Boston College as well as we need to and not necessarily as much about he and Tyrese.

Q: Can you talk about how Toney has evolved as a leader in his time at Florida State?

Hamilton: The first thing that Toney has done, he has set an example. Back in the summer and the spring, he is in the weight room, in the gym, all the time. He is a well conditioned athlete who can play major minutes without very much fatigue. If you check his numbers you will see that they have been really up in the second half and that is because he trains so hard during the summer. He has led by example in terms of getting in the gym, getting shots up, getting in the gym, taking care of his body, eating right, getting stretched, and all those things. Then from a vocal standpoint, he has stepped up. Whenever we have team's meetings on scouting reports we are asking the veterans if they have anything more to add and he is always insightful from a player's standpoint. For instance, he might say things like we need to stay in a stance, if we don't, if we get out of our stance it is going to be hard to get over these screens. Things that sometimes players have a tendency to slack up on, he is emphasizing those things. ? He is reminding the players that these are the things that we need to be concerned about because he has been there and done that. That is something that is invaluable to a coach.

Q: Did your team's defensive effort against Miami and Jack McClinton recently at home give you a blueprint of how to defend Tyrese Rice?

Hamilton: Not really because Miami uses Jack McClinton a lot different than Tyrese. Tyrese is one of those guys that if you start reaching for the ball and overplaying him and putting too much pressure on him, that is when he is at his best ? creating for other people, going by, attempting the floater, the runners, as well as the jumpshots. We have to have a different approach going into this game against Tyrese. He is a handful.

Q: You mentioned not allowing Toney to always defend the other team's best player because of the amount of minutes he has to play. Has that been tough on Toney given his competitive spirit?

Hamilton: Well, don't get me wrong, what I am saying is he always is going to guard the other team's best guard, it just might be only 70% of the time as opposed to 100% of the time. We try to mix it up a little bit just so he will get a breather here and there and because we need him for so many other things. I am not trying to say we try to shy away from matchups. I am just saying that sometimes it is in our best interest to allow Derwin (Kitchen) to get the experience. It also depends on whether he is a set-up guard or a scoring guard. ? For the most part he defends most set-up guards regardless of what the circumstances are. I imagine he will probably be on Tyrese a little more than he was on Jack McClinton.

Q: You went to Wake Forest and absorbed a pretty good licking, but your team quickly bounced back. Your guys seemed to obviously put that behind them. How that difficult is that for a team to put a loss behind them and come out and keep taking care of business?

Hamilton: We try to keep things in a realistic approach. There is no doubt that Wake Forest kind of took it to us but we also have to be mindful of the fact that if you look around the league most teams have taken one of those kinds of lickings. ? So that is the nature of the way you have to be in the ACC. If you are just not totally sharp, you can get your head handed to you, there is no doubt about that. But to be very honest with you, and I think you have heard coaches say this, sometimes if you can learn from a loss, six first-year players, they are still learning and adjusting to being on the road, the emotions of the game, and adjusting to the caliber of the opponents. I thought the Wake Forest game, as much as I was disappointed during the course of the game, we grew up a lot because they were hungry. It was a game they put a lot of importance on, the coach (Dino Gaudio) had made some comments in the paper that this game makes or breaks their season. They had a little more emotions invested in that game than we did. You don't like to admit that but they came with a real emotional, exceptional, intense mindset that we did not match. We all know they are a quality team, they were ranked No. 1 in the country. I think it gave our young players an understanding that this is the frame of mind you are going to have to be in if you are going to compete at this level and be successful. It kind of woke us up and taught us a lesson that I think our youngsters are responding to in the appropriate way.

Q: Again you are facing another team that is somewhat desperate, can you talk about how your team has handled that on a game-by-game basis? Also, a lot of people are probably counting the team as a lock for the tournament but you remember a team that was 9-7 in the league a few years ago who didn't find their way in?

Hamilton: We have not even allowed that to enter into our thought process because we have been here before and we are just fortunate that this is the first year we have had in the last few years where we have actually had the team that we planned to have at the beginning of the year. We are just holding our breath and trying to make sure we get through this but we realize that in order for us to have the type of year we want to have we have to got to stick with the one game at a time type of approach. We cannot allow ourselves to get too far ahead of ourselves. We have not earned the right to be cocky or conceited. We haven't had enough success to do that. We have also been burned by winning nine (conference) games and not even getting in. ? They go into a room, close the doors, and whatever criteria they are using we are not always aware of so one thing we can control right now is our mindset going into these games. Hopefully we will be in the right frame of mind to play against a very aggressive, hungry, and talented Boston College team. You look at the fact they beat Duke and they beat North Carolina, that gets our attention and we just hope we respond in the appropriate way.

Talk about it on the Tribal Council or the Hoops Message Board.