We played one of those typical strong ACC weeks. We played a great game against Wake in an unbelievable atmosphere, and then our kids came back yesterday in another unbelievable atmosphere and we were able to beat Maryland. I thought that we played much better defense against Maryland, and our kids need to get rejuvenated a little bit. Mentally, they're fine. Just physically, I think they're a little bit worn out from the season. We'll give a couple of our guys who have had some injuries some time--a few days to recover. So we're going to practice today, but we'll practice light and give them the day off tomorrow and then get a day's preparation for Valpo before we go to Florida State on Sunday.
The decision to play Valparaiso--a lot of coaches late in the conference season don't want to play an out-of-conference team, especially a small school. Can you talk about that?
What we've tried to do over the years is get ourselves ready for the NCAA Tournament. And you can do that in a variety of ways, and one way to do that is to be in a tough conference like we are. But then to try to play somebody who might play you differently, have a different system, somebody who has an NCAA pedigree--which Valparaiso has won seven or eight or eight out of nine of their last conference championships and are vying for one again. They have a good chance of being an NCAA team, and I just think that that helps us during this time. And also to see if our guys can get out of the mindset of playing ACC basketball and now playing national basketball, which we're going to have to get into in a few weeks. Finally, you try to play against outstanding coaches, and Homer Drew is one of the shrewdest and most successful coaches in the country. So he might do something against us that no one else has done, but I'd rather find out about it now then wait until we get into the tournament.
Over the years it has obviously become very common for high school players to go straight to the NBA. What would you say to someone thinking of making that jump?
Well, you can't give a general statement for that. First of all, I would only talk to somebody who was a part of our program who's considering that. And then what you have to do is you have to make sure you're dealing with proper information and make sure that that's the right race for that kid to run. It's not about going to the NBA, it's about being a really good player and staying in the NBA. And if somebody's ready to do that right away, then so be it. But you have to be really careful about going too early and not staying late--not staying long or staying the way you wanted to stay. I don't think you should go in if you're not going to play. You've got to be physically and mentally ready to play, and that would be some advice. But it would be a very personalized conversation with the individual kid.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.