Mark Gottfried's Weekly Press Conference Transcript
12/4/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
On Georgetown:
“You watch them and start to study their team, it’s real evident real quick that they are a legitimate Top 5 team in the country. They’ve got all the pieces. They’ve got perimeter shooting. I think Jonathan Wallace has really done a great job for them at the point. Obviously (Roy) Hibbert is a terrific player. I think (DaJuan) Summers and (Patrick) Ewing are both terrific players as well. So you kind of start going through their roster and the way they play, the style they play: they are a very unselfish team. They play well together. They don’t turn the ball over very much at all. They earn your respect real quickly when you start watching.”
How did it work out that UA was paired with Georgetown in the SEC/Big East Invitational?
“The SEC office and the Big East office (selected the teams). I think Mike Slive and the staff at the SEC did a great, great job in staying with the idea of a challenge with another conference. The agreement that they came on would be that there would be four games each year??(this year) you have the two here in Birmingham and the two in Philadelphia on Thursday night with South Carolina and Providence and LSU and Villanova. And how they selected it, which four it would be from our league? I don’t have any idea. But we feel very privileged to play, to play in Birmingham, to play a team like Georgetown. It all came together well for us and hopefully we’ll have a good showing.”
Will Alabama be a part in the next two years (of the Invitational)?
“We will not. No. The way it works, from my understanding is, that over the next two years you’ll have four and then four; and then there’s actually a fourth year which then the SEC can choose four additional teams against the Big East. So it’s a four-year contract, I believe. But for the first three years, it will be four, four and four, all different teams each year.”
Can you break down Roy Hibbert’s game and how he matches up with Richard Hendrix?
“Wow. Roy Hibbert’s game is really a good one. He’s a player, number one because of his size at seven-foot-two, 275 pounds; you’re not going to move him around much. He can get to places on the floor that he wants to get to because of his size. I think he’s probably seen every possible way for teams to try to defend him, whether that’s double the post, push him off the block or double him with the guard, zone him, or trap him. He’s seen everything so it’s nothing new for him for somebody to try to guard him a certain way. But he can score around the basket with either hand. He’s a terrific 15-foot, 16-foot shooter. If you back off of him around the free throw line area, he’s good enough to make that. I think one of his biggest strengths as a player is his ability to pass the ball. He’s a very good passer and he’s got a high, high basketball IQ. He’s going to be, hopefully for him and I hope for him because I really grew to like him a lot, I hope he’s a long-term pro and just has a great career. He’s a terrific young guy. He’s an excellent player. A very skilled player for his size.”
Will Hibbert and Hendrix match up one-on-one?
“I don’t know per se. I’m sure there will be times that they will. But I’m not sure it would be just a situation where the two of those guys would go at each other for 40 minutes. The way they play, they’ll zone a little bit. We’ll zone a little bit. We’ll man. They’ll man. There will be some different things happening within the game but I do think it’s a great challenge for our inside guys. Patrick Ewing compliments him well as another inside player and Vernon Macklin who is a sophomore does as well. So they have guys that complement him really well where you can’t just concentrate on Roy Hibbert. He’s not a 28 points per game scorer. He averages 14, 15 points a game. They are a very balanced team because of that.”
How much was Alabama in on recruiting Jonathan Wallace?
“When he was in high school we thought he was an absolutely terrific player. He was in the same class as Ronald Steele. We kind of zeroed in on Ron, obviously, very early, and you know you can’t take everybody. So we did not recruit Jonathan that hard although we had a lot of respect for him. We just found ourselves in a situation that particular year with a guy named Ron Steele, so it’s worked out well for both players obviously. He’s done a great job there.”
Georgetown doesn’t score a lot but doesn’t give up a lot either. What’s their style of play?
“The pace of the game they play??they kind of play at their own pace in talking with some other coaches who have played against them. You have a difficult time of disrupting their pace. They don’t turn the ball over very often. They take pretty good shots. They are a very disciplined team. Hopefully we can get them out of their rhythm a little bit, but they’re rhythm team. They get in a good rhythm offensively and kind of going through Hibbert in the middle they do a good job with that.”
How important will it be to have a pro-Alabama crowd at the game?
“I hope we have one. I think that was kind of the idea, even with the SEC office, of having us and Auburn both play a home game there. I can remember, Alabama’s had some great nights in the Civic Center (BJCC). I remember in 1987 when we came out of the tunnel as players, it was in the NCAA tournament against New Orleans, it was a sea of Crimson. Just as a player, I know how much that meant to me and our team, and I think we actually set an NCAA tournament record that night for highest field goal percentages up to that point of any team in the history of the NCAA tournament. But I hope we have a big crowd. I hope that people are excited about the opportunity that we’re playing a team like Georgetown. And you’re following up with a great game, too, with Auburn and West Virginia. So it should be a great night of basketball.”
How does Hendrix maneuver around a 7-2 player like Hibbert?
“I think that Richard will be very aggressive. That’s number one. I don’t think that he’ll shy away from it nor do I think that Roy will either. Those two guys will battle in there. But it won’t just be the two of them. I think with Richard, I think every player, you’ve still got to play your game. You’ve got to play your game. You’ve got to do the things you do well. We can pull him away from the basket a little bit but he can pull us away from the basket, too. He’s a good shooter. And they set a lot of ball screens with him out on the floor where you’ve got to get out and guard people away from the basket sometimes, too. But I think Richard and our other guys, they just need to play their game. Be aggressive and stay with the things that we work on every day.”
Can he comment on the toughness of his non-conference schedule?
“It’s a very good schedule. It’s a rugged schedule and we’ve talked about it enough. We’re playing teams like Texas A&M and Georgetown here early. We’re playing some teams where sometimes your general fan out there may not recognize how good a team is by their name sometime, but we’re looking at playing a lot of upperclassmen and good teams. You want a balance in there because our young players have had to play against a lot of veteran guys. But I think all of those things combined, they’re going to make us better. What a schedule does like that, it forces you to learn what your team is all about. Where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are because there’s no hiding right now. You’ve got to play, and if you don’t play well, you get exposed. And so it brings out those areas where you know you have to get better at. So, hopefully, in the long run all that is going to help us.”
Have you had much interaction with John Thompson III?
“I know him pretty well. He’s a terrific coach, terrific guy. He’s done a great, great job there. He’s got a great background, not just being John Thompson’s son but the coaches he’s coached with even as an assistant coach. We’ve been on some NIKE trips together, some coaches trips where we’ve eaten dinner together and had a good time. I’ve gotten to know his wife some as well. He’s done a phenomenal, phenomenal job at Georgetown.”
These events are designed for exposure for the leagues. How much benefit does a team get from playing in events like this?
“I think it helps. There’s no question. Just the fact that the SEC and the Big East have a challenge together, I think it helps both leagues. But to be honest, I think our league gets a lot of exposure regardless of this game. I think this is just an additional game. I think Mike Slive, he deserves the credit for this. I think at one point our league was talking to the Big 12 and that fell through after three or four years. But our commissioner stayed after it. He kept plugging away. He didn’t want to let it to die. He tried to find a way to do something extra that’s going to be good for our league and I think it is good for our league. I think the additional exposure is good but like I said, we get so much exposure anyway. Hopefully our league can do well in this event every year with all four teams every year. I think that then gives our league more credibility as well.”
Can you talk about the concerns you have going against such an upper-class backcourt with guys on your end who haven’t played as much?
“We’ve seen that a bunch already this year. We have times where we have three freshmen in the game together. That’s a scary thought to be honest. But we’ve played against some senior dominated teams just about every night we’ve played this year. It’s just been one of those unique situations with our schedule. So Georgetown just becomes the next team that has a lot of upperclassmen again. We’ve been there a little bit this year. Hopefully we’ve learned from it and we can go from there. I was thinking about sending Roy a text message this morning and see if he could just stay at home on this trip. But I don’t know if he’d like that or not.”
Can you talk about the teams from the Big East and the characteristics people tend to label them with?
“I think sometimes we like to try to label a league. When I was at UCLA people would say West Coast basketball is a little soft or West Coast players are soft. Or the Big East players are tougher. And I have never been one to buy into all of that. I think kids are kids. Young guys are young guys from wherever they are. I think there’s great basketball in the Big East. I think there’s great basketball in the SEC. I think there’s tough basketball in a lot of different leagues in the country. Georgetown is a really good basketball team that’s well coached from a great league and they’ve got a lot of ingredients that are going to make them a good team this year.”
What makes Georgetown good defensively?
“I think what they do a good job of is their positioning is good. Where they are supposed to be on the floor to help one another is very good. I think again, experience. When you have a number of seniors playing you should be better defensively in that situation. I think the experience factor for them is good. I think their players have seen a lot, have seen a lot of different situations and I think that helps them a great deal as well. And then obviously you have to give their coach credit for that. I think they do a terrific job with that. And then at the end of all the equations, you have a guy that 7-3 at the basket that can protect and make easier shots difficult. Or they’ve got a guy at 7-foot-3 that does a good job of finishing the defensive possession with a rebound. And your chance to get a second shot is much less than it would be without a guy like that. So all those things combined: the experience, the coaching, a guy like Hibbert. They’ve got a lot of ingredients to be solid on that end of the floor.”
Talk about the game being in Birmingham. Is that going to be a different crowd than being at home in Coleman?
“We would like to play more in Birmingham. That’s something we’ve talked a lot about. I think since I’ve been here we’ve only been in there once or twice. And we would like to do that more if it’s the right opponent, the right way to go about putting that game together. I think Birmingham is a great Alabama town. I know we’ve got fans from other schools there as well but I know we have a ton of Alabama fans there. I think they’ll come out. I think they’ll be excited about Alabama playing in Birmingham. You know I said this on the post-game radio show. We may not be a great team right now but I think we can be a fun team to pull for and a fun team to come support. So, hopefully we’ll have a great crowd there that’s going to be excited about helping this team any way they can.”
Would you like see your backcourt, who is very young right now, score a little more and depend less on the inside game?
“I think for us, we haven’t settled really on our point guard situation yet. And I think that’s what November and December is for, to learn about your team. But we’ve got to get settled there at some point. I think that then can kind of settle everybody else down and then you get a little bit more in a rhythm. We’re not really there right now. We’re a little bit out of sync. Mykal Riley stepped up, made some big shots. But we need him offensively to score. We need our point guards to give us some points. I think it’s hard to play when you play a lot of minutes and you’re getting zero points out of a position. Basketball is too hard now. You need everybody to participate on both ends of the floor so we need a little more scoring out of our guard line. We need Riley to step up and score. We had one of those nights the other night, and we talked about this yesterday with a couple of guys??we took 71 shots. We had six turnovers. One of our turnovers was an offensive screen. Alonzo Gee was trying to set a screen so really five ball-handling turnovers, 71 shots, and of those 71, there weren’t a lot of them that were bad, bad shots or contested shots or forced shots. We just had a night where we couldn’t make one. Take Mykal Riley out of the mix at our foul line, our guards went one for 10 at the foul line? So we talked about all that yesterday, put that one behind us. We need everyone to step up and be a little bit better and they will. They’re going to be fine.”
