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 Head Coach Mike Montgomery |
Kevin Wack (San Francisco, CA)
Coach, you mentioned recently in an interview that your teams at Montanaused to play a lot of zone defense. I've only followed the Stanford programsince 1993, but my understanding is that your Stanford teams have alwaysplayed man-to-man defense almost exclusively. I'm curious as to whetherthat change was the result of different personnel or an evolution inphilosophy? Also, as you've continued to recruit better-skilled athletes tothe program - Justin Davis, for instance, can play 90 feet of defense - doyou anticipate mixing in the occasional press and half-court trap in thenext few years? (Given the incredible efficiency of this year's teamdefense so far, I can see why you would be disinclined to do so.) Thanks.
Coach Montgomery: We tried to play zone when we got here but we just didn't get the sameresults. For some reason by assigning kids responsibility, they were ableto do a pretty good job in man-to-man. So we just never felt the need tochange. We've tried to run the zone every year but just haven't been ableto get it done to my satisfaction. We would like to abe able to full-courtpress more effectively, but I still don't want to get us in a positionwhere we are extending ourselves, giving up shots that we shouldn't begiving up as a result of trying to create turnovers that we may be not ableto create. Unless we are able to get 10 or 11 guys, or nine guys, that canpress full court, we probably won't look to do that as a steady diet.
Fredric Woocher (Santa Monica, CA)
Stanford teams have generally been excellent foul-shooters, even whencompared to other Pac-10 teams with great athletes. What do you thinkaccounts for that? Is this something you particularly look for inrecruiting? Can you "coach" foul-shooting, or is pretty much a naturalthing? Do the players spend much time practicing foul shots as opposed topracticing their shot generally?
Coach Montgomery: We shoot foul shots every day and we try to put them in a situation wherethere's pressure on it, so they have to run or they're in a contest, so itmakes them concentrate. Typically good free-throw shooters are also goodshooters from the floor, and if you look at teams that have better athletesperhaps, but not as good skill players, you'll see a correlation betweenshooting percentages and foul-shooting percentages, and I think that's thecase with us. Kids that are good shooters from the floor typically are goodfoul shooters.
Frank Gerber (Berkeley, CA)
The conference football coaches have been asking for a year-round trainingtable and for the ability to supply creatine (both of which otherconferences already do). What is you take on this and does basketball inthe Pac-10 have similar issues?
Coach Montgomery: Well I'm not sure creatine's the answer regardless. The best means oftraining are good food, natural food and hard work. I don't know thatanybody wants a year-round training table for the purpose of gettingcreatine, which is I think the latest in probably a large number of itemsthat have been fads for years. Training table, if you're really going totrain to the max and really try to maximize your potential, having a dietthat is supervised and allows the kids to muscle-build and maybe is alittle bit lower in fat, might be of value. There would be some value tocontrolling diet, but I think, particularly in college, the experience ofbeing around friends in a normal situation might offset that.
Jared Mollison (San Leandro, CA)
What do you feel will be the key to coming out of L.A. 2-0?
Coach Montgomery: We're going to have to score more points than those rascals. They're goingto be fired up. It's their home court. Both have incentive. Of course, wehave a little bit of a target on our back, given the fact that we've hadsome success, and people have been shooting, pointing, for us now for a fewyears, so it has never been easy to go into the L.A. situation. But if weplay well, if we execute, if we keep our poise and have some greatindividual performances, we're certainly going to have a chance to win.
Oliver Pennington (San Jose, CA)
What areas were you looking to address with this year's recruiting classand do you feel you have what you were looking for? Thanks and Go Stanford!!
Coach Montgomery: We really liked the kid we recruited out of Chicago (Matt Lottich). We'rejust trying to replace David Moseley, basically. You try to keep a balanceof big and little/quick, and all your positions covered. We were lookingfor kind of a combo guard, might be able to play some 1, but definitely canplay the 2 or 3, and we think we have that. Of course, we lose (Mark)Madsen, and we could have recruited another big guy, but we have a playercoming back off of a mission that we'd already committed to (NickRobinson). With Justin (Davis) redshirting, and six big guys, we thought wewere in pretty good shape with big people.
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