Quotes from Mark Turgeon
2/15/2012 7:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 15, 2012
COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Quotes from head coach Mark Turgeon in advance of Maryland's Thursday-night game with Boston College.
On what he learned from playing without Pe'Shon Howard early in the season and if he'll handle it the same way this time:
"I thought it was going to be different but it's probably going to be about the same. I think Nick [Faust] is going to play some point, Terrell [Stoglin] is going to play some point. I tried Arnold [Richmond], it probably wasn't fair to Arnold at Duke. Depending on foul trouble... I think Nick wants to try it. Again, it's tough. It's tough. We're just going to try to figure it out and do the best we can. Hopefully we can defend and rebound better and execute at a high level. We'll just try to piece it together and I'm sure each game will be a little bit different."
On how bad the timing of Howard's injury was:
"Yeah I mean we were starting to play. We had Carolina down nine here, and Clemson down like 15 or 16 at their place. We were really starting to play... I think the game before Miami we won. So we were really starting to get it. I feel for Pe'Shon, I also feel for the team because no one expected us to be any good. I thought we were starting to be a lot better than everybody thought we were going to be and I thought we had a chance to win a lot of games down the stretch. We still get to play the games, still have a chance, but it's just tough. It's hard. Pe'Shon wasn't really a true point but he was doing a heck of a job for us there. It's hard when you don't have true point guards to figure out how to get things done."
On where Mychal Parker can help and what he's seen from him that's been encouraging:
"Well Mike can help us on the break, Mike can help us on the boards and Mike can help us defensively. I thought he did those three things Saturday. He made his free throws, he was efficient. Defended pretty well; he needs to become a better defender, a more disciplined defender for us, especially Thursday. But he's going to get playing time, so he's going to get his chance. It's up to him to make the most of it."
On Boston College:
"They're well coached. They're obviously a young team but they're playing well right now. They beat Florida State, they had Virginia Tech beat at Virginia Tech. You have to be disciplined to beat them; they're going to come in here and grind it for 30 seconds if they don't have early opportunities. You have to be able to guard the shot clock for 30, 35 seconds, you have to be able defend the whole time. Then you can't rush things at the other end. If you're going to guard for 30 or 35 [seconds] you can't go down and shoot it in five, or it's going to be a long night. They've done a nice job, they've come a long way. You see teams really improve during the league, and I thought we were one of those teams. I think you really see it with them, they're really improving at a high rate, playing a ton of freshmen and they're playing with great confidence right now."
On team manager Zach Lederer and what makes him special:
"He is special. I really didn't know Zach that well until I heard he had cancer. He'd been working for us, and this year's been busy and crazy. I started to recognize him a little bit more and how positive he was every day. I just remember walking up to him when I heard he had [cancer] and he's like `Coach I'm fine I've got the best doctors in the world, you ever heard of Dr. Carson?' I said no I haven't heard of him and he said `He's the best Coach, don't worry about me I'm going to be fine.'
"I just remember being nervous for Zach, it was the night of the Duke game and we had the surgery, and obviously he made that look like the easy part. He came out and started the "Zaching" stuff and it's kind of caught fire, which is great. He's just a strong kid, he's been through it before. He's been real positive, he's positive every day in practice. He brings it every day in practice for us and he's been a great inspiration for us this year, the things this team has had to go through. It doesn't seem like very much compared to what Zach's gone through and is getting ready to go through.
"I'm proud of him; I know his parents are proud of him, his family and friends. He's just so positive and when you go through something like this you need to be positive and the people around you need to be positive, so we've tried to be that way. I don't think we've tried to treat Zach any more special, he still has to wipe up the floor, clean up the uniforms and all that stuff. But he is good luck; we took him to Clemson and we won so we'll have to do that again. But he's a special kid."
On if Zach is sending a strong message to the campus:
"Not only the campus, I think it's across the country he's sending a great message. Zach's not doing it for himself, he's doing it for other cancer patients. Zach's not thinking about himself when he's doing this; first he was doing it to show you how strong he was and that he's going to get through this thing, and don't worry about me mom and dad, I'm going to be fine. But then he met some other cancer patients that might be a little worse off than he is, a little bit younger than he is. I think that's kind of where his psyche has gone. He wants to be an inspiration for everybody to keep fighting. We all have problems - we all have different problems - and hopefully he's an inspiration for a lot of kids on campus. Whether they're homesick, lonely, struggling with school, just different things, parents going through something, but hopefully he's an inspiration to all the people going through things on campus."
