10/30/2009 - MEN'S BASKETBALL 11 Days of Atlantic Sun Men's Basketball: UNF

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Interview with Head Coach Matt Driscoll

SEASON PREVIEW - (Courtesy UNF Media Relations)

University of North Florida men’s basketball coach Matthew Driscoll Q&A

What are you looking for from your team?

We want to be great at a few things instead of good at everything, because if we’re good at everything, we can’t win. If you’re good at everything, you’re great at nothing and we’ve got to be great at transition defense, be great at contesting shots and we have got to be great at defensive rebounding. If we’re great at those three things then we’re going to be competitive and we’re going to be able to compete in everything. I promise you that.

What is your coaching philosophy?

You know what, guys have to compete. I don’t like people that don’t compete when you step in between the black lines. I have a hard time with people who don’t compete because today is such a great gift and it is a gift because when you step in between the lines you have to separate yourself. When I’m on the blue, I’m on the blue, and when my best friend is on the white, he’s the enemy. I’ve got to dominate the enemy, I’ve got to dominate and that’s how you make great players and that’s how your program grows and that’s how you become more than just a one-hit wonder, so to speak, because your guys have understood that. I talk all the time about having a black heart and about how back in the old Chinese Proverb days, back in the old 1600’s, and wrestling is what they do, they talk about having a black heart. A black heart is someone who is relentless, and when you’re ruthless and relentless and your heart is black, that means that you understand that that is the enemy and that is me, and I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do to make sure I’m victorious at the end of the day. Now, when we step outside the black lines, when we’re in the locker room and we play X-Box and we’re kickin’ it, that’s different. But when you step between the black lines, you’ve got to learn to play with a black heart, and to me, that’s the most important thing. And with that, that competitive nature, that’s what’s going to separate teams.

Off the court, what is your philosophy with your team and your staff?

Family and open. I think the more communication, the more you’re hanging with the guys, the more you’re hugging the guys, the more you’re asking the guys questions, the more you’re in tune with what’s going on with the guys. Forget about hoops. You know, ‘how’s your mom?’ We have some situations with some guys whose mom’s we’re praying for. How’s your family? How’s this, how is that? What’s going on here? Stephen (O’Reilly) and Zack (Riggins) are so far away from home, how are they dealing with that? Parker (Smith), a little bit away from home, not as far as those two, but how’s he dealing with sitting out this year. How’s he going to deal? You’ve got to educate these guys all the time on where they are, starting and not starting, which I could care less about. Starters are the guys who go in first who give you that zip, then the next guys go in and give you that zip. It’s not ‘hey I get my name called, I get the high-five and all that crap.’ I don’t like starters. I think all that stuff is overrated. When we were at Baylor, our leading scorer came off the bench. It’s what’s separated us when we went to the tournament. Those guys are so valuable. Though how do you handle being in that role, how do you accept your role, how do you accept being a walk-on. You know, Etienne is a walk-on, so his role is all the playing stuff plus being a walk-on. So you’ve always got to be touching those guys and understanding where they’re, calling them in the office, pulling them aside, check their pulse, so to speak. It’s the best way to say it, to me, that’s what our job is. Because the more we’re checking their pulse, the more we’re popping into study hall, the more we’re stopping in at the apartment, which I don’t like personally because our assistant’s are around doing that, the more we do that, the more we’re in touch with them, the more we can stop things from snow balling and becoming larger. We can also know more about the guy’s lives, personally, so we can help them.

When you took the job at North Florida, sight unseen, what were your impressions of the program then and what is your impression of the program now? And what is in place here that can help you succeed?

Before I took the job, I knew about the place a little bit because of a volleyball coach at Baylor came from here. That’s what kind of got me thinking about North Florida and where it was. That’s when I found out that it was actually in Jacksonville. I wasn’t sure exactly where North Florida was. I’ve known (former) Coach Matt Kilcullen for a long time from back when he was at Western Kentucky. I never really followed him, but I knew about him. But I didn’t have a real feel for North Florida and what they were trying to do. As they got into the A-Sun and as you’re moving around and you’re looking around at different things, you’re just in tune with the Division I schools. I didn’t know anything about the school.

When coach (Lee Moon) came to interview me, we were getting ready for either the NIT semifinals or quarterfinals. The day before he came, I had just got done doing some basketball scouting stuff. I went online and got some stats, memorized some things, got familiar with President Delaney and his wife, and what he’s done, just minuscule things. And I told that to Coach when he came to interview me because the most important thing to me at that time was our game. Coach Moon was great, but I knew that Coach Moon was here and because he was here, I knew Coach Shyatt (Florida assistant coach Larry), who was my mentor, who I love dearly. I knew he had an idea of what was going on at North Florida because obviously he was involved in the process as well too. (When Lee Moon was AD at Wyoming he hired Larry Shyatt as head basketball coach and Coach Driscoll was an assistant under Shyatt at Wyoming). So I had those two things covered. So I was getting the information I was getting and it was a no-brainer. The next time that I talked to him (Shyatt), when it became more serious for me, he said, ‘Driscoll, it’s a no-brainer, a no-brainer.” And Coach Shyatt knows me better than anybody. And here’s the thing that’s kind of cool. Coach Shyatt, who was 45, first Division I coaching job (Wyoming), Lee Moon. Coach Driscoll is 44, going to be 45, first Division I head coaching job (North Florida), Coach Moon. Pretty cool deal, you know.

That part of it is pretty great and where we’re going is phenomenal, because there are two kinds of leaders. There are guys that stare at the steps and say, ‘hey, that’s where we’re going. This is what we’re going to do, this is what we’re going to do’ but then they don’t step up the stairs. We’ve already made huge steps up the stairs. We’ve re-done the locker room, we’ve revamped the recruiting, we’ve revamped our travel, we’ve taken the guys to another level. It’s the little things like yoga mats. I know it sounds silly but it is the little things that as you move up the program, you start doing different things. You want to make sure you’re providing the guys with the best opportunity so they can be the best at whatever it is. We’re moving up those latter’s and Coach Moon is providing the resources for us and that’s exciting. Like we’re going to do something this year, and I’m not going to say it because I don’t want the guys to know, well, one guy knows because he had to help me. But we’re going to travel in a little bit of a different way this year. Not a chartered plane, but we’re going to travel in a little bit of a different way to a couple of different games because it’s in the best interest of our guys for that particular moment. You know as well as I do that if the guys aren’t good and the guys aren’t fresh and the guys aren’t mentally there, it’s a battle, it’s a fight. So you know, sometimes those little bus rides, sometimes you can make them better and now that our budget is better, we’re making those smaller changes. And what’s going on on campus, if you get this kid on campus, it’s hard not to get a kid because they see the facility, they see the locker room, they see the commitment, they see the campus, it’s a pretty good deal. We’ve just got to get the kids to the campus.

Can you win championships at North Florida?

Absolutely, and I say that with great confidence because, and I don’t know how you want to compare this, but you want to take this to whatever level you want to take this. But four years ago, they were probably asking JU the same thing. So how did you do it? How did you go from one win, to the championship in three years? I’d rather do it much, much quicker obviously, but to answer your question, how do you do it? You can do it. How did Winthrop become Winthrop, how did Davidson become Davidson, how did Gonzaga become Gonzaga? At some point, I think that if you look back in history before Lute Olsen got to Arizona, I don’t know this for a fact. But if you look back in Connecticut’s history before Coach Calhoun got there, and you look back in a number of these different program’s history, it might not be as painted as it is now. How did it separate? Because they obviously brought people in that they thought could do well there, the resources become better, they got better players. It’s about the Jimmy’s and Joe’s, not the X’s and O’s. You got to be able to coach, you’ve got to be able to manage, you’ve got to be able to put together those teams. But you better have good Jimmy’s and Joe’s because you’ve got to have players to win and I know that, and that’s where recruiting and that’s where our system did a great job in recruiting aspects. But why North Florida, why can we win championships? Because all of the pieces are in place, we have very high energy, we have very good game décor amongst ourselves and about how we feel, about what’s going forward, and when you have all of those things in place, because we did it at Baylor. I just got done doing it at a program that was at the depths of the depths, so I know it can be done. But it’s going to take a lot of work, which we’ve already started that process, so that’s why when you say, ‘why here?’ I say to you, ‘why not!’ That’s what I would say to you. Tell me why it can’t get done? Well because of this? We got this, well because of this? We got that. So the only thing you can say to me is, do you have the players? That would be your next question, and I’d say to you, ‘I’ll let you know in about nine months.’ We’ve got 14 dudes who have never played before for us, and you can’t come in and say, okay, I know what he’s going to be like when he’s under pressure, I know what’s he’s like, well you’ve got no idea. But if you went out and grabbed an orange and squeezed it, you know for sure you’re going to get orange juice. So because of that we’ve got to find out what our guys are going to be like when they’re squeezed, what our guys are going to be like when they’re tired. Martin Luther King said it best, ‘you can judge someone’s character by how they stand against challenge and how they stand against controversy.’ So we’re going to find how as we go through some more challenges and through more controversy, because you know as well as I do, when you’re not the starter, how are you going to respond? If you’re not coming off the bench early, how you’re going to respond? And you know every team, illness, injury, attrition, it happens to every team. We went to the NCAA tournament (at Baylor), nobody even knows this. The last nine games of the year, we had a walk-on start for us that didn’t start before that. We changed the line-up. Whether or not it was him, I don’t know, whether it was just the change that made a difference, I don’t know. But I do know this, somebody along the way is going to get an opportunity and if you’re going to seize that opportunity. We’ve got all young guys. Our guys can do something that’s so, so special that’s why they came here. Because we recruited them on that and we sold them the opportunity. Just like at Baylor, I mean, they had an opportunity to go down in the history of Baylor basketball forever. About the team that changed the culture at Baylor. They’re going to have their jersey put up in the rafters. Just like at Kentucky, the team that changed after the incident. Same thing here, these dudes got something very, very special in front of them and I have to do a great job, your staff has to do a great job, our fans, everybody, we have to do a great job making sure they continually understand that and that’s how you move forward with this.

What have you seen on film and what challenges are ahead in conference play?

There are very talented players in this league. You know, coming from a high major league. Obviously, I know JU because we played them last year, but there are a lot of very, very talented players in this league. There are a lot of guys that are medium sized guys, besides from Ben Smith, he’s very, very talented obviously. But 6-3, 6-4, 6-5,6-6 guys that can play multiple positions, that can stretch here, that can play inside and out, they can run the floor, shoot the three. Those guys at this level make it very, very difficult. That’s how you really beat a lot of high, major teams. Because a lot of times there are those forwards that have a hard time keeping up with those kind of guys because you’re usually used to two interior guys, or a guy that can maybe make up to a 15 footer, not necessarily three’s. There weren’t even a lot of guys in our league, in the Big 12, that can make three’s, that can be forwards that can do both sides of the defensive three-point line, so to speak. So that’s something in this league that’s different, playing four guards in this league is very similar, a lot of teams play four guards which is going to be interesting for us, how we’re going to deal with the different match-ups.