Oct. 1, 2013

Head men’s basketball coach Frank Martin, along with senior guard Brenton Williams and sophomore forward Michael Carrera met with members of the media on Tuesday, Oct. 1, in the media room at Colonial Life Arena.

Head Coach Frank Martin
On how he feels after the first day of practice
I went home and I was extremely excited about our possibilities, the emotion, and the enthusiasm. There were times during our first season you thought you were in a morgue listening to us practice. That’s not taking a shot at the guys, it’s just the truth. They were trying to figure out what I wanted. Now the guys won’t shut up and that’s the way it should be. I told those guys today, `the best practices I’ve ever been a part of are where the players do a lot of talking and the coaches do very little.’ We’re not there but we’re further ahead when it comes to that. Then we sat down and watched film and there were a lot of mistakes. Mental mistakes, effort mistakes, understanding mistakes, but they’re all fixable. I’ll tell you what I see from the freshman, I see a courage to make a play that you have to have to be good. They all have that in them right now and they’re willing to take a chance and go make a play. You can’t make a play if you don’t try to make it.

On how important it is that the fans come out and support the team
You can’t sustain success without fans. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, you hear people say I’ll wait to see if they’re good, and I respect that but I’m really not interested in listening to that fan. If a fan comes in here and sweats with us, bleeds with us, and cries with us whether we cry because of frustration or joy, then that fan deserves to be a part of what we do. We need more fans like that, we’ve got some fans like that but we need more that are willing to come root for their team not just the game.

On the team getting the chance to play with each other over the summer
You have to learn how to play within structure that coaches put together. But within that structure players have to understand players. They have to understand where this guy likes to play and where he likes to score from. As coaches you then have to create structure that puts those guys in those areas. Players don’t know that unless they’ve spent time in the gym together. Having the opportunity to do that over the summer whether it be amongst ourselves or in the Pro Am, gave our guys an opportunity to get to know each other. If you look at the teams that make these great NCAA runs every year, outside of a handful of cases, they’re usually predominantly upperclassmen. There’s an understanding and a sense of urgency of one another that you have to have to have those special moments. Obviously, we don’t have that experience or that knowledge of one another but the more time we spend the quicker we gain that experience.

On Perry Clark
As a head coach he’s won close to 400 games and that’s powerful. That means this guy has been in a lot of situations in a college basketball game and that only helps. When he was the assistant at Georgia Tech, they had the freshman of the year six consecutive years in the ACC, that’s unheard of. That’s the kind of recruiting that he’s been exposed to for so long. He understands the world of recruiting like not a lot of people and that’s a benefit to the guys on our staff. The first time I called him about the job he said `if you think I add value to your organization, then I’m interested.’ That was all I needed to hear because I knew he added value to our organization. He’s bring a demeanor, a mindset that’s only going to help every person in our organization from our fans to our administration to our players to our coaches. You have to have quality people if you expect to have quality results.

On the returners
Mindaugas [Kacinas] is a lot stronger than he was at any time last year. He couldn’t sustain the strength part of it when we got into the beef of the schedule. He’s prepared himself to have a better season then he did a year ago. Michael [Carrera] is healthy. You don’t have to worry about his motor, that thing runs when he’s sleeping. He’s healthy and now he can get in shape. When that body gives in, you lose your mind and now he’s in a place where he can sustain. Tyrone [Johnson] has been real good with those young guards. In the first two practices, when he’s on defense he physically tries to dominate those young kids but doesn’t try to embarrass them or show them up. Laimonas [Chatkevicius] is better than he was last year. He doesn’t run up and down twice and kind of fall over, now he’s in better shape. Brenton Williams is a better player. They’re all better. They understand things better, they’re excited and the thing they’re doing best is helping those young kids and that has to continue.

Senior Guard Brenton Williams
On the new guys
They’ve adjusted pretty well, better than we thought they would. They’ve adjusted pretty fast as far as the workouts and the running. They’re still learning and they’ll get better as time goes along.

On being a senior and finishing his career here
I’m excited about finishing my career out here. I just want to have a better year than last year and win as many games as we can.

On the first practice this year as opposed to last year
There definitely was a big difference from the first practice with Frank coming in to this year. Coming into the first practice yesterday, I already knew, and the few returners we do have we already new what to expect.

On getting to play with the freshmen over the summer
That was really big this summer, playing with the freshmen that were able to play in the Pro Am. It made it much easier for us to feel them out playing on the same teams with them this summer. We got to see what they’re good at and when it comes to the real practices we’ll be able to tell them what we saw that they need to work on.

On being a part of this program
I see the program definitely heading in a positive direction with the group of freshman they brought in here. All of them are really talented and they all bring different things to the table, which is really good. They’re going to gel pretty well.

Sophomore forward Michael Carrera
On the new guys
It’s a young team and I think we’re doing pretty good. They’re working really hard and we all want to win.

On his passion
I just do what I can do to help everybody. I’m doing my job and they [the younger guys] see what I’m doing and they do the same thing. All this is about winning and that’s what we want to do.

On becoming a leader after being a freshman himself last year
It is hard, I’ve never been in this situation before but I think I’m doing a pretty good job helping the freshmen.