Coral Gables Pre-Tournament Press Conference
University of Miami
Head coach Jim Morris
Video
Opening statement:
First of all, I’d like to welcome everyone here to Coral Gables and congratulate everyone on a great year. It’s good to hear that southern accent up here too. I don’t hear that much in Miami. That made me think of home a little bit, being from North Carolina. [laughs]
But we’re very excited about the tournament. Our people have a lot of history putting on the NCAA tournament. We’ve hosted 25 times. I think we’ve got a lot of history and will be able to put it together, so hopefully we’ll be able to meet the needs of everyone on and off the field to make it the best that we can. We’re excited about our club, we start three or four freshmen, and they came on the second half. We won 27 of our last 30 in the regular season, and didn’t play as well in the [ACC] tournament as we did at the end of the regular season. But I think we’ve got a good, solid club. We play pretty good defense, we pitch, and I think part of that’s the bats today too. There are a lot of low-scoring games nationwide with the bats and the balls the way they are today. We feel that our team is playing well, we’re excited about the tournament and we’re looking forward to the challenge.
You opted to go with [Andrew] Suarez the first game. He’s obviously been outstanding all year, what opportunities does this provide him?
[Andrew] Suarez is probably our top prospect on our club, he’s a junior. And he’s got a good arm, he’s left-handed, good movement. Curveball is pretty good, and his change-up as well. He throws the best pitch in baseball: a strike. If you’re left-handed and you throw strikes, you’ve got a chance. I like the fact that he does that – he challenges people. Our rotation has pretty much been the same for two years, which is amazing to say…that just doesn’t seem to happen at any level today, for your pitchers to maintain the health and pitch. Our same four guys have thrown the last two years just about every single start.
Because you guys have such a history of not only making the regionals but hosting them here, how much of a mental advantage is that for your kids going into this weekend?
Well I think it’s good for everybody. I mean to host, there’s definitely an advantage of staying home and getting a little homecooking, and just your normal being comfortable in your settings, sleeping in your bed, all those types of things. But with that said, our actually, our own road percentage, winning percentage, is better than at home.
In 2001, we won the national championship when we had twelve losses and eleven of them were at home. So it’s not like it’s a given, and I like that about this club, the fact that they can play at home or on the road, and I think that’s a good thing for them. So I don’t think the ballpark is a huge advantage at home. It’s a fair ballpark. I hope we have a great crowd. Last night I was pulling really, really hard for the Heat last night. And now they’re matching up against us, the same game time tomorrow…that does make a difference in this city. It’s a big city, and it makes a difference to these people. They finally figured out what basketball’s all about…so hopefully we’ll have a great crowd. You know for everybody, because that will be a fun atmosphere to be in.
Coach, this time last year obviously you were in the hospital, and you mentioned on Monday that you weren’t even sure what was going on. You said you didn’t know the games had happened until after the fact. Can you walk us through your recovery of that? And then a great year following; it’s got to be nice to look back on, a kind of redemption.
Well, it’s kind of hard to walk through it, because I don’t remember it. I don’t remember the ACC tournament, nor the NCAA tournament. So, it’s one of those deals, I didn’t realize I was as sick as I was. I go in the hospital, they took me off the bus, dressed in uniform, and next thing I know our players are at home and the tournaments are over with – the ACC and NCAA tournaments over with – so the next time I see them, it was kind of a crazy ordeal. It took me until August to really get to where I could really fly and travel and everything. But I feel great now and I’m ready to play.
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Bethune-Cookman
Head coach Jason Beverlin
Video
Opening Statement
This is why we worked so hard all year-round – to have earned this opportunity to come to a regional and play against the best in the country. Any team that makes the regional has done an outstanding job to get there, and we look forward to the challenge.
Coach, you are going with your ace Montana [Durapau] tomorrow against Miami. What makes him so successful?
His ability to command four pitches, throw any pitch in any count…that really allows him to get deep into games, and he doesn’t have to stick to one to get hitters out. He can find a number of different ways to get guys out a second, third and fourth time against him and in one game. In addition to that, he is very competitive; he embraces these moments, he wants to pitch the big games. He has done an unbelievable job all year for us.
Has Montana beating Miami specifically, help alleviate some of the pressures or weird mental games that go along with being foreseen as the underdog?
I think 18- or 20-year old kids are going to be nervous in this environment. By nervous I mean excited…there will be some anxiety. But having him had already pitched well against Miami in the past obviously is going to help his confidence and our confidence. They definitely know that it comes down to what they do tomorrow and how we perform in the next game.
Considering you have played Miami twice this year, on this field, how do you describe your confidence? Not only against Miami but against the whole tournament field as well.
They are definitely going to be pitching a different guy than the one we have seen in the past. We are not familiar with who they are going to be pitching, so that introduces a different dynamic. But it boils down to us just executing and playing our best baseball, focusing on what we do well and not making mistakes, executing and playing our best. We have done that in the conference tournament, I like where we are at right now mentally and we really look forward to it.
How is the health of your team right now? Is there anybody that won’t be playing that we would expect would normally be playing?
No, we have been very fortunate with that. Everybody should be ready to go tomorrow.
Besides having your ace on the mound, what’s the key to victory for tomorrow’s game and more so in the tournament? What do you think you are going to be looking to get done and have a good shot?
Any time for us, it’s just doing the fundamentals correctly, being in the right spot at the right time, being able to get bunts down, and being able to catch and throw the ball. If we can do those things, keep it simple but execute at a high level, I think we will be in the game.
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Texas Tech
Head coach Tim Tadlock
Video
Opening Statement
“Well, I guess first of all I would like to congratulate the University of Miami for being selected as a host site, and Coach Morris and his staff. I mean that’s something we all aspire to do sometime. And congratulations to Bethune-Cookman and Columbia for being here and we’re looking forward to the competition.”
On being a team known as swinging the bats well and playing good defense:
“Well that’s a simple baseball question. If you can pitch and play defense, you got a chance to stay in games. We’ve been pretty consistent for the most part and at the same time I think we have some room for improvement and hopefully we’ll keep trying to get better.”
On playing on a different venue than usual:
“I think we’ve shown we can play wherever we go play and I mean the mound is still sixty feet six inches, and the bases are still the same. We’re going to treat it like a baseball game, and I think we’re the home team tomorrow, and probably won’t be the home team the next day; so we’ll adjust there and make sure we know when we get to hit, and when we have to play defense.”
On not having experience in this kind of atmosphere:
“I think our league prepares us as far as atmosphere goes. I mean I think the Big 12 this year had really good teams, and I think the tournament last week prepared us. I think everything we have done to this point, going to Minute Maid earlier in the year. That’s a pretty good environment playing there, and played some good teams, seen some good teams, and have had some big challenges along the way and have met some of them and not met some of them. Really from this point forward, your taking about what we all say: you try to play one pitch at a time and try to compete each pitch.”
How good Gutierrez is:
“I’m not big on bragging on him, I mean he could be good tomorrow, he could be bad tomorrow. I can tell you this: he really likes playing baseball. He’s one of those kids who’d line up and play right now in the rain if you’d let him. He’d play in the snow. He’d play whenever you let him. How good is he? I mean you’re as good as your next game. He’s not a kid that’s going to go start reading a bunch of stuff about how good he is. I would like to think he’d show up tomorrow though with some type of edge and be ready to play.”
On starting Sadberry:
“He’s a strike thrower. We need to go out and play good defense behind him and give him some support. Ideally you go out and give him some runs. It all kind of ties in, you put some runs on the board, it makes it a little easier for the pitching and vice versa. We’ll try to do that any way we can and at the same time it doesn’t always work out that way. But he’s definitely been our most consistent guy so that’s why we’re rolling him out there.”
On playing in Miami last year (at FIU) and if familiarity matters:
“I don’t think so. I think what happened last year, was last year. And really this year, our regular season prepared us for this moment, and this opportunity, and the challenge that lies ahead. Our guys keep it pretty simple, we try to keep it simple, it’s a baseball game and we going to try to go out and play the game the right way. We know it’s not always going to go perfect, just try to play the game the best we can.
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Columbia
Head coach Brett Boretti
Video
Opening Statement:
We’re very excited to be here there’s no question, where our team is at right now I think the guys are pretty fired up about the opportunity that’s ahead of them and it is going to be a huge challenge but were just trying to take it one game at a time and make the most of the opportunity”.
Have you picked your rotation yet or your Friday guy?
George Thanopoulos will start tomorrow.
Getting now into higher level competition or at least ACC and Big 12 competition, what do you see as your team’s strengths and abilities to go against that well?
We’ve had success this year because we have done a good job on the hill, we preach trying to win the free base battle as much as we can. With pitching and defense, if we can maintain throwing strikes and picking up the guys behind us, we’ll find a way to scratch out some runs. For us, our offense is not one or two guys, it’s very much been a team effort the whole year which, I think is nice with different guys stepping up and we very much have to make the most of our opportunities when we get guys in scoring positions and do the best job we can with two out hits and cashing in those situations”.
Coach is it true that you will be without David Speer this weekend?
It is… He had an appendectomy on Monday.
How does that effect you guys not only because he (Speer) probably would have been the starter tomorrow but, going through the whole tournament as far as depth how does that affect you guys?
It’s definitely going to affect us. When you lose your number one guy, it’s an unfortunate situation. I feel awful for him first and foremost but, it’s an opportunity at the same time for somebody else to step in. In our conference we play four game weekend sets so we have the luxury of having four weekend starters and a fifth mid weekend starter. Basically just pushes everybody up a notch into a situation. We look at match-ups and what not, it’s creating an opportunity for some other guys to step in.
How about George Thanopoulos specifically — what it is about him that makes him the best match up against Tech?
Well, George has done a good job all year long. He was a guy that was going to be our back end guy at the beginning of the year. On our spring trip he got to start at Texas A&M and he did a very nice job versus them. He forced our hand to move him up and put him in the rotation. He’s got some life on his fastball, he’s got a good slider and he’s done a good job attacking the zone. He’s a pretty polished pitcher, I think he’s ready to go and looking forward to it.
You think those four game sets you guys play in the Ivy League makes this team better suited to play in a tournament such as this?
Well, we’re used to the long days, sure. I think that’s something that we get used to playing the 16 innings every Saturday and Sunday but, I think mentally just staying with it as far as the length of the day their use to that.
