Everything Bill Courtney Said After Second ACC Victory Over Syracuse

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — The Miami Hurricanes have won their two previous home games and the last two games that interim coach Bill Courtney has coached.

Had he been there against Louisville the Hurricanes could be on a three-game win streak, but now the Hurricanes look to head on the road after defeating the Syracuse Orange. The coach has gotten the team to believe in themselves and now they are starting to reap the rewards.

Opening Statement...

They fight like crazy. With all the struggles the guys have stuck together and really done a great job of fighting. Very happy to see our hard work rewarded because it is not always easy to see the light at the end of the tunnel and these guys, again to their credit, worked at it every single day.

On the team confidence in the win...

Well, we did it in practice. I think that you know, when we're out in California, we were struggling. We were struggling as a group, we were struggling with our play. Again, we got some things out in the open and talked a lot and made sure, regardless of what happened this year, we're gonna remain a team. We were gonna play for the team and play for each other. And since then we have done pretty good we'.  We took a loss when we came back home to Virginia, but Virginia played well, so we had to get them credit. But again, since that game, if you look at what we've done during the game, this is much better than before. if we see it in practice every day, they just continue to work.

On Matthew Cleveland's Career High...

Matt is playing at the highest level of his career and it starts with his mentality. he has had an incredible mentality over the last month. Starting with the team first, he's a team-first guy. He's very intelligent, so he understands things.  And was really in a good position to take advantage of his strengths. tonight we tried to give a situation where we could straight-line drive because he either had a size or speed mismatch. You know, it was hard when the guys come at you full speed, like tackling Derk Henry.. You know, these hard guys keep in front of it.

On what has changed with Cleveland...

I think it's a lot of mature like, you know, we challenged him right the coach retirement, you know, we challenged him in they told him, you know, you have to be a leader. I know you've only been here a little over a year, but you're are most veteran guy.  So some of the days where you don't feel like being as mature as you should, you would have to suck it up and you're gonna have to accept the warning coach you and again, tell you right away when you're being in that way. And he's accepted to coach you, but he's accepted the leadership role and they won accord if we challenge them on the first. I said, like, you gotta try to be ACC defensive player of the year because where do you if you do that, the offense will take care of itself. You won't have to force anything, you better get on transition.  And I think it's really clicked. I wanna jinx it. and when things have gone bad, you know, you to see them stick his head down. Now the guy lifts us all. He continues to play, no matter what the score.  And that's the big sign move for him.

On Jalil Bethea and his growth...

It was funny in practice. I told you had two minutes of practice. He probably shot like 10 percent from the field. He shot about 10, but he had so much energy. He played with so much passion. He was talking right around, and I said, you know what he's gonna have a good game today. He's gonna throw the ball all over the place at times. You gotta live with some of that, especially since he's doing way more good things than bad things.  He's gotten so much better defensively, so you can leave him up there on the floor a little bit more now because he's not making those key defense mistakes. He can tell the kid, wonderful, wonderful kid. So we just you know, keep sticking with him and he delivered on him tonight.

On how he feels after missing last game with an illness...

I'm really, really tired.

On Paul Djobet's performance...

Well, Paul takes a good shot. He's a good shooter. You know, he took too crazy runners, and I was ready to strangle him. but he took great shots, Matt hit him on wide-open threes, on a penetrating pitch.  Some were on every day. I told Paul energy was as terrific as ball pressure. Really impacted the game, especially during the stretch of the second half where we got stops. as I thought Paul was tremendousing.

On the key area defensively Jalil Bethea has improved...

Being locked in. You're a freshman, no matter who are it is a huge adjustment on that end of the floor. First, when you're someone like Jalil, you didn't have to play defense in high school.  He's a score you know. He shoots most of the basketballs, but he had to learn. It's unfortunate a lot of times with him because there's so much expectation on him, and if he was just able to learn grow and at a natural pace, you know, people would understand it better. It's just so much pressure on the kid, but he's made strides, we're very happy with and hope he builds when this, you know, has the key for him to build on this. But I know he be in a shooting tomorrow and we'll be back to practice, you'll be working hard every day.  

On the ACC Tournament...

We don't talk about it. I don't about it with the players.  I'm sure they talk about it. They see everything. I don't talk about our staff if our staff mentions it then I tell them to shut up. We don't talk about how we've totally adapted the mantra of day by day. Every practice, every game, you know, our part of the days are like one day at a time, control what you can.  That's all we are doing right now. And we continue to do that, we'll be okay, but again, it's the day-to-day work and getting better, that's most important to this group.,

On Lynn Kidd's defense...

He did a great job and all the way he had a lot of defensive rebounds, that was key, especially during our stretch of the second and a half he fought Eddie like crazy. Oh, because that's a lot to go against that big strong sucker all game long.  Eddie is a tremendous player, he played great. but I thought Lynn did a tremendous job of continuing to fight a lot of time. He was already a big guy out there, and he was kind of battled on the glass himself and he was swiping at the ball. he came straight to every rebound.

On continuing the momentum on the road...

I ain't worried about the next two games. We'll be ready for Pittsburgh. That's the thing I told our guys after the game, let's take our show on the road.  We've getting better, you know, you know we've been getting better on last game this Louisville, we fought gets a very good team. Cal in overtime. So we've been showing the results again.  So if we can do that and we concentrate on us getting better, we'll be okay.