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| Mike Montgomery talked about Stanford's matchup with No. 1 UConn during his press conference. |  |
Men's Basketball Coach Conducts Weekly Press Conference
Mike Montgomery discusses upcoming games with California and No. 1 Connecticut.
February 2, 1999
STANFORD, Calif. - At his weekly press conference, Stanford men's basketball coach MikeMontgomery discussed the fourth-ranked Cardinal's upcoming games withCalifornia and No. 1 Connecticut, and the season to date. Stanford isnow 18-3 overall, and 8-1 in the Pac-10, following the team's firstPac-10 loss Thursday, 78-76 at No. 11 Arizona, and a 73-63 win atArizona State.
Q: Your thoughts on Cal?
Well, I looked at the tape (of the first meeting, a 71-62 Stanford winon 1/9/99). What happens is kind of interesting. You know you won thegame so you're like, "That's that," but you put the tape in and you go"Oh!" It was a tough game. They really got after us defensively. Theywere very, very aggressive. We made a couple of steals I remembersecond half, it got loosened up a little bit. It was a tough game. Youknow, the fact is: Cal-Stanford. The fact that they're in a situationwhere they obviously need to win some games at this point in time, andit's their home game. It's going to be very difficult, as always, andit should be. The league's so good that everybody's competitive andtough. So we're going to go and have to really execute. Obviously,we're going to have to do a good job defensively, (Geno) Carlisle,(Thomas) Kilgore, (Sean) Lampley, (Carl) Boyd broke out a little bitmore, (Mike) Gill's a real good player, they go to (Francisco) Elsonearly. I mean it's going to be a tough ballgame. We've got to getourselves mentally in a mind-set that we're going to have to play ourbest basketball. So it should be a real good game.
Q: Do you think it saps their advantage at all playing at the Arena inOakland instead of at Harmon Gym?
I would prefer to play at the Arena than Harmon. I think Harmon, forus, is the most difficult place in the conference to play, that andArizona, just because of the proximity. But (the Arena) it is theircourt. They play there. Their fans. It's still their home court, notour home court. And it's a great place to play. We really enjoyed thePete Newell Tournament (when Stanford defeated Temple in the OaklandArena earlier this season). It just was a very good environment inwhich to play basketball. But it is their home game, and whatever thatbrings with it, that will be there.
Q: Will new Harmon be as tough a place to play as old Harmon was?
I'd have to see it. Hard for me to comment. I don't have any idea.They're talking about maintaining the proximity on the floor; justexpanding up top. So if they're able to do that, it'll be plenty tough.
Q: You mention them being in a need for wins?
Well we all are at this point.
Q: Obviously they are more in need of them lately. Does that help themmaybe, in terms of motivation?
My comment would be if being on top of the league isn't motivationenough, then we're in the wrong business. You should be fighting foryour life every time out. Everybody's situation is different,obviously. Not when you maybe start with a clean slate, but as you gothrough the season, everybody's situation changes a little bit. Itshouldn't be any more important to anybody than it would be to us atthis point in time. Those are things that happen as you go through thecourse of a season: how people perceive, how kids perceive a game, andwhat might happen. Winning on the road in this league has always beentough and we should understand that at this point. Having a veteranteam, those things should be clearer to us.
Q: Arthur Lee's in a bit of a slump, by his standards, the last twogames. Does that concern you?
He didn't shoot the ball very well in either occasion. Of course,people are putting very good players on him. As you go through theseason people scout; they read tendencies; they make decisions aboutwhat to try to take away. "If you take away this, what do you give up?"They're going to work real hard to take Art out of rhythm. He had someopen looks that typically he would make, that he didn't, but he stillhas the ability in a game like that, when the ball's not going down, tobe a very, very good defender, get other people involved, and, ofcourse, he's rarely going to miss free throws or mishandle the ball latewhen it's time to win. There's a lot of things that can happen. It'sdifficult for everybody to be perfect all the time. I think the mainthing that appeared was the fact that he shot the ball S his shootingpercentage in either game was not what it normally might be. I thinkthat more is a temporary thing as much as anything else. I do thinkthat one of the things we'd like to do at this point is to try to gethim a little more rest. Of all the players, he's the one guy that hasto be on the floor the longest, just in light of the fact that Mike(McDonald) had been hurt and was the one guy we thought we could spothim with a little bit. So we were really trying to look at Art being onthe floor a little bit longer. I think that in all fairness to himwe've got to get him a little more time to get him off the court andsit, get a breather, and try to keep him fresh toward the end.
Q: He mentioned after the game that he felt tired.
Gee, I didn't know that (sarcastically). Well, he is tired. He has alot of responsibility. The kids rely on him. You've got not onlyoffensive responsibility, to get us into offense, but you've gotdefensive responsibilities, so there's no question. Plus, as I say,he's playing more minutes than anybody. If you've got to guard the typeof players and quickness at that position, it makes it pretty tough. SoI think, yeah, we would like to get him a little bit (more rest).Mike's got to step up and be able to get in there and play some minutes,along with Tony (Giovacchini), given situational things, so that he(Art) can count on some minutes (of rest). So he knows he's going toget a chance to rest; he knows he's going to get a chance to get out andevaluate and watch. It can help you to watch, to see what's going on.I think everyone gets in a rut. I think (Mark) Madsen gets in a rut outthere, where you tend to get just hunkered down and you lose sight ofwhat's going on. (But) you get out, you say, "Ah, geez, I'm notdoingS," and I think Art needs to have some of that.
Q: What do you think of how Mike McDonald's doing?
We've just got to get him more and more (experience). He's not veryexperienced, missing his senior year in high school and then missing asmuch this year as he has. He's got to get some confidence in hisability. He has the speed and quickness, which frees him up. You can'tcontain him as much, because he can run and so forth. He's got to getused to being screened at the level of screens that are happening inthis conference, and be as good defensively as well. But he can dothose things. He's making progress. We've just going to have to keepbringing him along.
Q: Does putting Lee at the off guard help give him rest?
Sometimes I think it might mentally, just to take him out of thedecision-making process all the time, trying to make others better,trying to lead in in making the value judgement of "should I getinvolved offensively or do I need to get others involved." Where you godown to the "2" (off guard) and maybe you're running stuff just to gethim shots and that kind of thing. I think it could. If we were able todevelop that over the year, it could've been something that allowed himjust a different look, to get him a little more offensively, so he feelslike he's able to get into the flow offensively. I think that couldhelp, and maybe we can still develop that.
Q: How would you rate your team's depth?
I'd have to compare it to what we started with, and it's obviously notvery good given what we started the year with. We don't have theflexibility we had. Even with (Peter) Sauer, with Mendie (Ryan Mendez)out, Sauer's probably playing more minutes and maybe not as sharp, insome instances, as he could have been in-and-out, in-and-out. I thoughtan example against Arizona where Dave (David Moseley) went in and wasn'thaving much luck, went 1-for-7, and wasn't getting much done, that wedidn't have alternatives at that point. And we talked about that, ofnot being able then to come with Mendie to offset that, or Jason(Collins) to stay big and those kind of things. We certainly don't havethe depth that we started off (with). We should be sufficient, as longas we stay healthy, but it's not the same thing. It's not one of ourareas of strength that it might have been when we started the year.
Q: So you'd say "sufficient"?
Yeah. We can spot people, get people down-time in a variety of ways.Of course, you want people off the bench to maybe pick you up and makeyou better. That's what you're looking for. You don't want to just buytime off the bench; you want somebody to come in and get you three orfour quick buckets, provide some energy, get some boards, defend better.And that's where sometimes we've gotten that and sometimes we haven't.
Q: What's Mendez's status?
I don't know that Mendie's in the mix at this point. He hasn't doneanything since the day that he stepped off - anything. So we're in therest mode right now. The next thing we would go to is trying tostrengthen (his knee), trying to make it better so that it betteraccommodates the load that basketball would ask you to put on it, andthat might be another three- or four-week process to get that thingbuilt back up, which wouldn't involve practice or basketball. So atthat point I don't think that you would probably do anything relative tobasketball.
Q: Is Jarron Collins doing other things that he wouldn't have done, butfor the injuries?
We just pretty much got a three-way rotation. When he goes in, if heand Madsen are in, he pretty much moves to the "5" (center), at leastthe "5" side of the floor. It's pretty much the same, but he's on thatside. So you've got kind of a three-way rotation going there wheresometimes you go smaller, I mean when I say smaller, without Tim(Young), and changes our look a little bit, and then your defensivematch-ups change. Sometimes Mark (Madsen) is able to handle the centerdefensively because of his strength, but maybe a seven-footer likeMacCulloch, that might not be the best match-up for Mark because he'sjust not big enough. So you have to weigh that in terms of defensivelywhat you do. We need Jarron to go in and provide usS He had somethings early (against Arizona State) where he got some looks andcouldn't finish. Then in the second half he got back in and finishedtwo, three, four times for us, and that's huge for us.
Q: What would his role have been if everyone were healthy?
I don't know. Everything becomes situational. If you're trying to staybig and you want to go that way, obviously you would use Jason (Collins)probably more with Timmie (Young). But I think now you don't reallyhave as much flexibility. We need to have the ability to score at thepost. So it would be hard to really speculate there.
Q: Does Art at the point give you maybe the biggest advantage over Cal,since they don't have a true point guard?
Well, that depends on how you define that. That position, certainly,both Carlisle and Kilgore are good enough handlers, and they both arescorers. Once they get into their offense I don't think it makes muchdifference who's handling. They've got real good guards. Kilgore andCarlisle are excellent guards. They rotated Carlisle to play the pointto start with and now it looks like Kilgore's back to playing the pointand Carlisle's playing the off (guard) more. But I think in the waythey run their offense it's not as important, because once they get intotheir offense it kind of turns into motion anyway.
Q: Are you disappointed you don't get a shot at knocking off anundefeated UConn team?
No. They'll still be One when they come here. The season's a longseason. Like Jim (Calhoun, UConn's coach) says, you play with the cardsyou're dealt. We'll see an appreciably different UConn team than youprobably saw last night. (Leading scorer Richard) Hamilton willprobably play, and they'll have had an opportunity to make an adjustmentto losing (leading rebounder and shot blocker Jake) Voskuhl, oreither-or. And I'm sure, knowing Jim, he'll remind them of some things.We're not really too concerned about who shows up, about what happens.Connecticut is a premier team in the country, and they'll be plenty.
Q: How big a distraction is that game, because you play Cal first?
I don't know. I can't answer it for the players. Once again, mythought process is it shouldn't be. This Cal thing is extremelyimportant for us because of the way the league is shaping up. We'vejust got to stay competitive in each and every game. I think Wednesday,with two days to prepare and kind of take a look at that, I think that'splenty of time to take a deep breath and get excited about that game onSaturday. I think the Cal game's too important to us: it'sCal-Stanford, it's the second half of league, we've got a one-game lead.I hope it's not a distraction.
Q: Are your five starters doing what you want them to?
Of course they are, Jake. Well, I think we tend to do what we do. Ithink there's always slippage, for any number of different reasons, andthat's why you go back and practice and you pick the things that youthink you may not be doing as well. You're never going to be perfectoffensively because of your execution and people take you out of things.I think we do a pretty good job of playing together and understandingeach other's strengths and weaknesses, trying to help each other besuccessful. We're not immune to being frustrated with other teamstaking us out of things, and many of the things that go into collegebasketball. But this team, by and large, plays fairly close to itsabilities, more often than not, which, I think, is why we win.
Q: Are you getting enough points from Tim Young?
I feel for Tim in there. Bob Bender had said something that was kind ofinteresting and I actually agreed with him, considering, he said, youknow about how MacCulloch had been out of some games, and he said, "Boyyou'd think after the number of years that he's been in the league thathe would get a little more respect from the officials than he does," andI said "Boy, amen."
Q: He was speaking of MacCulloch?
He was speaking of MacCulloch. And I agree with him, relative toMacCulloch. And I would say the same thing about Tim. He's gotten infoul trouble some, and I think that we still need to work onestablishing that position, and making that a scoring position as wellas Madsen, so you've got a double-dip. Taking advantage of mismatches,if they are there, fronting, if that is there, and whatever it is thatthey're doing. But again, I think our team is not a team that has torely on any one spot. We have to be able to go to all five positions onthe floor and get what's given to us. When we do that, again, I thinkwe can be successful, but if we are totally depended on pumping it in toTim, or Mark, or Art Lee, or whatever it is, then that's when we getinto trouble.
Q: Was it good that he got so upset when he fouled out near the end ofthe Arizona game?
There's definitely frustration. I think you're seeing a frustrationaround the league, obviously. It's not confined to Tim. I think Tim'sa little bit uncertain as to what goes, what doesn't go. I don't thinkanybody that watches these games would disagree that it's awfully,awfully physical in the paint. And I think Tim is a little bit curiousas to why he seems to get called for more things, versus what people areallowed to do against him. You get into a game toward the end andgenerally you have a pretty good feeling like, OK: this goes and thisdoesn't go. And then you get called (for a foul). I think he wasfrustrated, and it is unlike Tim.
Q: Some people would say he needs that extra passion.
No, he's got plenty of passion. The fact that he's a good kid, not anidiot, is where people tend to not understand Tim. It's like Tim askedthe question, "why do people question me because I want our team to win,rather than that the focus be on me," which is a perfectly legitimatequestion. Tim is the kind of kid that does not draw attention tohimself, and so sometimes people would mistake that for lack of passion,where that's the last thing Tim is. He's an extreme competitor and heplays very tough out there.
Q: You said you thought the league is difficult to officiate in. Whatdo you mean by that?
You guys watch games. You have to have an opinion yourself. I justthink that it's difficult to officiate. The judgements - it takesextreme experience to understand the flow of a game, and understandthat, "OK, somebody's not getting an unfair advantage," which is reallyall you want. You want for all the players to have a chance to succeed;you want both teams to have the same opportunity. When you get awayfrom the rules a little bit with the "let 'em play," using yourjudgement as to advantage/disadvantage, or "this is OK, we're going tolet this go," it makes it more difficult for everybody, because then yourun the risk of not being as consistent. What might go once doesn't gonext time. And the kids need to know. As you watch what is going on,and I think particularly at the post, because a couple of years ago theyput the hand-check rule in. Guys would drive; as soon as the hand cameout, boom. It's a foul. So now you've got perimeter with not as muchcontact. You take that same thing and put it inside, and, why, it'sobviously nowhere close to being the same thing. I think a lot ofpeople are a little bit confused. And I also think that we as coachesare part of the problem because obviously there are people that are justteaching things that put more of a burden on the official. I think ifyou look around the league, look around the country, you can see that.Some people walk under post people. Some people push people off theblock. You see a lot of different tactics being used to try to minimizepost play. And it puts a tremendous burden on the officials to make adecision. "Who initiated contact; is a guy at a disadvantage," so Isympathize. But I also sympathize with the players a little bit whenone thing is one thing one time, and it's not the same thing the nexttime. And it could be perfectly innocent: different official, differentvenue. So that the thing we all strive for is consistency. We wouldlike things to be the same. But when you have different personalitiesand different venues, I mean even in the same game, an official may moveout front and another official move underneath, and you've just done thesame thing the time before, and the new official says that's a foul.And in your mind you're thinking "Well, wait a minute. At the other endwhen the other official was underneath and the same thing happened to meit wasn't a foul. How could it not be a foul, and thenS" That's whatgets tough, and that's where I think that we're struggling a little bitis getting everybody on the same page.
Q: Do you think the league has gone that was because it's trying tobecome more physical?
Well I don't know that that's the case, and I don't know that anybodywould admit that that's the case. I think that's what you guys conjureup and it becomes the way, "well, we're not a physical league," and sothen that moves along and gets a life of its own. I don't know that theofficials or the supervisor of officials or anybody says, "Hey, we'vegot to let them push more." It's kind of an observation that was madewhen we weren't winning the NCAA because we're not used to physicalplay, i.e. we can't do it there. I don't know that that's been saidanywhere by anybody. I'm not going to go too far down that streetanyway (talking about officiating). That's a dead end and loser.
Q: What do you want to plan to take away against Cal and UConn?
You're always interested in taking away big numbers, which is what wedidn't do against Arizona. We allowed Jason Terry to get off on us alittle bit. You can look at statistics, you can look at numbers and youcan say, OK, here are the people that are more likely to be in aposition to put up numbers. We need to control those people. Sometimeswhen you do that then you run the risk of allowing other people to get(points). I don't want a guy averaging six to get 12 in lieu of the guythat gets 20 to get 18, because that doesn't make any sense. But you dohave to minimize key people, try to keep them from killing you. Terry,obviously, got off on us and made key baskets all the way through thegame. And he started right from the get-go. He came down, shook, boom,hits a 24-footer, and did a great job. So you need to always do that.So you look at Cal and you say, geez, they've got a number of people whocan score, but you do have Carlisle, who's put big numbers up, Kilgore,whose put some numbers up, Lampley, who's starting to come. Evenagainst Arizona State, (Eddie) House ended up with a great game, but ittook him 26 shots to do it. So you can live with that, if that's kindof what happens. So you look at Connecticut with (Richard) Hamilton,(Khalid) El-Amin. I mean these guys are guys that are tremendousplayers capable of scoring huge numbers, who you've got to try tominimize as best you can. I thought one of the things we were doing alittle bit is we were kind of emphasizing certain people and the otherguys are kind of thinking, well, I don't have to get after my guy.Against Arizona State with a guy like (Kenny) Crandell, you know, wedon't give him anything, and we still tried to focus on the otherpeople. I think that's key. I think we as a group have to be moreaggressive all the way across the board. But everybody's got keypeople. Everybody's got people that, when it gets down late in theclock, are going to have the ball in their hands, guys that are used tomaking big plays at big times. You really have got to make sure youdon't let those people get away from you.
Q: You said after UCLA that you need to be more aggressive as a group,that you weren't helping on defense?
A little bit, and we've always done that. If you look at it, sometimesguys drove and beat us at point of attack because they came off a screena little bit and you've got three other guys just absolutelyface-guarding their guy; here comes a guy driving right down the middle,where had we played a little better team defense (we could have stoppedhim). And I think we've had a tendency to do that over the years, beena little bit reluctant to help off because then our guy ends up scoring.But it's still a team thing. It's about the ball. It's about vision:man and ball. It's about moving over and helping and people slidingdown on the weak side. We've always had to go back and re-emphasizethat. Guys get tentative, to be a little bit concerned about theirability to get off and then recover back to their guy, or if they help,are they going to get help, and we then tend to get glued to our man,and that hurts us. So we usually have to go back and emphasize helppositions: who can help, and where they can help from.
Q: Is that tougher to do against a team like Connecticut?
It's tougher to do against teams that run good offense, and it's tougherto do against teams that have more players that are capable of hurtingyou. If you don't get back to your block-off, for example, and you'vegot a guy like (Kevin) Freeman going to the boards who is definitelystrong, jumps, then you tend to not want to leave him as much. Italways is more critical against better teams.