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 Head Coach Mike Montgomery |
Bob McCleary (Orinda, CA)
Arizona's front-court players effectively prevented us from working theball inside, and thus took away the "inside-out" aspect of our attack,preventing Mendez, Jacobsen, and Moseley from having too many openlooks. Would you consider going with both Collins twins and Madsen in thenext Arizona matchup, in an effort to gain a stronger inside presence? Whatwould be the advantages, and what would be the disadvantages, from yourperspective?
Coach Montgomery: The disadvantages would be that we wouldn't be able to shoot the ball evenas well as we ddn't in that circumstance. Your passing ability woulddiminish, your ability at point of attack would diminish and the threat toshoot from outside would diminish. So you really don't gain anything inthat situation. Plus defensively at point of attack you would not be asstrong. There's really not much advantage in that particular instance fordoing that. We just have to make shots and we have to work harder and bemore patient to get better shots.
Ken Flattley (Placerville, CA)
The last two seasons you scheduled UCONN during your open Saturday of theleague season. This season you left that date open. Is there a reason youdid not schedule a non-conference game on that date this season?
Coach Montgomery: We would prefer to play all our non-conference games prior to theconference season. The conference season is hard enough. It was a killergoing coast to coast. I would never do that again, during conferenceseason, to try to get in an airplane and go East to try to play a game. Itreally takes a lot out of you I think. Plus the aspect of missed class time-- I think you try to minimize that as much as possible. But we are lookingfor quality non-conference home-and-homes, and we want to explore thataspect, but I think the coast-to-coast thing, particularly in theconference season, is out.
Trask Leonard (Redwood City, CA)
Which opposing arena in the Pac-10 do you fear the most year after year?
Coach Montgomery: Well you don't fear an arena; you fear the team that's playing in thearena. Typically Arizona's been the most difficult place to win, justbecause of the quality of the opponent in conjunction with a great crowdand great tradition. Around the league the Oregons are tough. There's a lotof places that are tough to play. But I think in terms of the place thatmost people have had the toughest time winning, it would have to be Arizona.
Micah Markman (Unknown)
How well has Ryan Mendez come back from his season-ending injury last year?
Coach Montgomery: Good. He still is maybe not shooting the ball percentage-wise from threelike he did initially, that ability to just get in a streak and hit sevenor eight in a row. But I think he's a better basketball player now than hewas. He's better at point of attack. He seems to understand the passingpart of what you're trying to do. A little bit better at getting to theglass, and he has some moves where he can finish. We'd love for him to getback that point-blank ability from three-point range.
Arly Ohm (Aberdeen, SD)
I am a Graduate Ass't for Don Meyer here at Northern St. University. Ireally enjoy watching your half-court offense and the execution. I waswondering how much practice time do you devote to your half-court offense?How many different set options will you go out of it? I'm not a greatmotion offense coach, and I'm really impressed with your offensivesystem. Do you have anything on paper or video I could get? Thanks so muchand best of luck from your #1 fan in South Dakota!
Coach Montgomery: We're not very good offensive coaches in motion either. We've worked hardover a long period of time to get our set offense to where we like whatwe're able to get out of it. Sometimes we're better than other times withit -- it really does depend on execution. The right personnel in the rightplaces make it very difficult and if you execute you can be very effective.But so much has become motion these days that I think kids come to you withthe ability to play motion and not necessarily the fundamentals to playset, so we struggle with that. As far as having it written down, we don't.We don't typically do that -- you're just going to have to scout off thet.v.
We devote a lot of practice time to our offense as far as execution. A lotof five-on-0, a lot of half-court trying to get the kids to understand.Sometimes I think too much and sometimes I think not enough, because thegame is a 94-foot game. You have to incorporate it in with your break andfull-court stuff, but we do commit a fair amount of time to it.
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