Quotes from Mark Turgeon
1/10/2012 7:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 10, 2012
COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Quotes from Maryland head coach Mark Turgeon in advance of Maryland's ACC home opener against Wake Forest Wednesday at 7 p.m.
On Terrell Stoglin trusting his teammates and getting assists in addition to scoring points:
"I don't think there is any question he's got much more of a trust factor, but he can't have the ball in his hands that much, play 31 minutes [at NC State] and have zero assists. And Pe'Shon [Howard] has eight. You look at the games Terrell had two or three assists, I guarantee you we probably won those games. So he's got to do more besides score. It's something we've talked about going into the game Wednesday. Whether he'll do it, we'll see. But we'll have a better chance if he does it, especially if you have three of four guys coming at you. I thought he took maybe two bad shots in the game the other night from going back through. He took 16 shots, had 25 points, that's pretty good. I'd like to add a few assists to that."
On Wake Forest:
"They're pretty confident, they have a good record. They beat a really good Virginia Tech team. [They have] a lot of good players but three guys that carry the bulk for them. [C.J.] Harris and [Travis] McKie do most of it, really good players, well coached, spread you, do a really good job spreading you and driving. And we're not world beaters. It's more about us to be quite honest with you... it's really about how much better we're going to get between now and tomorrow night... They're not going to run anything that we haven't seen or don't know how to guard or haven't practiced; it's just getting out there and doing it, and getting better and playing with toughness and a winning attitude."
On whether he's had a harder time getting through to his players at Maryland as opposed to other coaching stops:
"No, we're going through first-year coach, new system, new players playing, we'll all go through it. No matter how good it is you guys will hear me complain for the next however many years I'm lucky enough to be here. We're just going through growing pains. Where I'm coaching Nick Faust, where I'm coaching Alex [Len] and Ashton Pankey, Terrell [Stoglin], Pe'Shon [Howard], our young guys - I'm not only thinking about today, I'm not only thinking about tomorrow night's game, I'm thinking about next year and the year after that. And I'm coaching them as well as I can so I don't have to coach them two years from now, and they're helping me coach the next guy.
"And then we're still trying to figure out how to play; I know that sounds crazy. I think we're getting closer to that. We know we're going to play man-to-man, we know we're not going to zone. How we're going to guard ball screens - we're going to keep working on that and adjusting. Should we run every possession or should we walk it up - I mean we're trying to figure that out. Who do you run plays for? It's just all part of new guys. I understand Pe'Shon's personality a lot better today than I did a month ago, so I can coach him a lot better. So we just approach every day to improve as much as we can. I know it sounds crazy, but we do.
"We were all [ticked], down, upset when we lost the other night. And you can say we were picked 11th or 10th or whatever we were picked [in the ACC] but we don't hear any of that. We just want to be the best possible team we can be and that's all I ask of my guys. There are two things I say: just be mentally in to what I'm trying to teach you and compete as hard as you can. Just give me those two things."
