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 Head Coach Mike Montgomery |
Mat Beale (Stanford, CA)
Coach Montgomery, the upcoming trip to USC is looking more significantevery day. The Trojans are looking like the type of team that Stanford hashad difficulty against in the past: athletic at almost every position, anda great point guard running things. Considering our defeat last year atMaples, what do you think are the keys for the Cardinal to come outvictorious?
Coach Montgomery: Haven't even looked at 'SC yet. We've got Washington and Washington Statethis week, and we'll deal with 'SC next week. They're a very goodbasketball team; they're playing well. They're playing with a lot ofconfidence. If we don't play well we won't win. The key is performance, andwe'll deal with them in the appropriate timeframe.
Matt Poppe (Van Nuys, CA)
At Saturday's Cal game, it seemed from my vantage point (which was not verygood, up in the rafters), that on several occasions Cal's point guardstarted to penetrate, got a step on his man, but then passed the ball backout to the perimeter instead of taking the ball to the basket or passing toan interior player. The one time he did attack the basket, he scored on anice layup. Any idea why he didn't attack more? Are Stanford's big men justthat intimidating? Are you concerned about Stanford's ability to defendother quick point guards with more resolve to take it inside?
Coach Montgomery: I thought he had one good move. Shantay (Legans) is very quick. He got oneopportunity where he kind of lulled us to sleep and took it to his lefthand and finished. We just lost our concentration. Other than that, Ididn't feel like there were very good penetration opportunities, so I woulddisagree with that in terms of them having penetrations. I do think thatLegans with his quickness, but he is small, probably has been cautioned notto take bad shots, and I think had he continued to go he would have gottenhimself in trouble inside.
Unknown (Unknown)
I was wondering why the team seems to start games slowly. Often the teamlooks a bit flat and has a hard time scoring points at the beginning ofgames. Even last year the team the team had this problem (eg U. Conn). Theteam usually responds with a run and often wins, but it seems they would benearly unbeatable if they just had even a mediocre start. I welcome yourviews.
Coach Montgomery: Well that's not giving credit to other teams. Certainly other teams arecoming out and they're fired up and playing hard. It's not like we coulddominate just because. We are a team that needs to play for 40 minuteshard. I think we have had a tendency to try to gauge a little bit what thetenor of the game is, how it's going to be called, what the other team istrying to do, and we've been fairly effective in that situation. We havenot been flat in very many games this year, so that has not been a problemfor us.
Derek Blaisdell (San Francisco, CA)
Coach, you have been at Stanford for quite some time now and I feel thatyou have done a marvellous job in building the program. I know that's a bitobvious, but had to say nonetheless. My question is, what do you feel thatsays (your longevity) for giving coaches time to do what you have done? Itseems more and more these days that (especially in football) coaches havevery little time to produce a consistent winner and do not always get afair shake. Did you ever think during the lean years that you were underpressure to succeed quickly? Thanks and best of luck the rest of the season!
Coach Montgomery: Well we really didn't have too many lean years, so it's hard to know. Ithink that sometimes there is impatience with admisistration for instantsuccess, and that's part of what causes coaches to break rules. Because inmany instances the schools have not provided the coaches the adequateopportunity to be successful, and yet expect them to come in and turnthings around. You need players, and recruiting players takes time, ittakes facilities, it takes commitment. So if you take a bad job, youprobably need to know what their expectations are. Sometimes time works outwell; sometimes you have the wrong person in the wrong spot and it doesn'twork. I've just been fortunate to be in a place that we've been able to doreasonably well and the school gives us a great opportunity to recruitquality people.
Andrew Armbrister (Baltimore, MD)
What do you think is the makeup of a great point guard? In football, someconferences are better suited for quarterbacks, some for running backs, andso forth. Do you feel this is the case for the Pac-10 and point guards? Anextraordinary number of good points have come through the Pac-10. Thanksfor your time.
Coach Montgomery: No. I think that point guards can be extremely important. There have been alot of West Coast guys that have been real good point guards that havestayed in the Pac-10 and ended up having a great deal of success.Temperment, certainly ability, speed, quickness and skills are criticalelements, but I think the mental aspect of the game for a point guard --understanding the game, willingness to make a team run -- is equallyimportant, particularly in our situation.
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