THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Oregon head coach Dana Altman. If you want to give us an update on practice yesterday and the health of the team.
COACH ALTMAN: First of all, this is the kind of press conference I like. But the guys worked out good yesterday. And it was a very nice setup for the facility. I think it's going to work out pretty good. Hopefully we'll shoot it well. Didn't seem to bother them too much yesterday. So, I like the facility. Everyone here in Phoenix has been great to us. So it's been pretty smooth.
Q. The understatement of the year the other day when you said 1939 was a long time ago. How have you done and how has the team -- you sort of just talked about it a little just now -- but getting them from that moment of everything that they have done this year surprised a lot of people. And now here you are on this big stage for the first time in 78 years. How do you bring that to be in the moment, their consciousness, if you will?
COACH ALTMAN: I think the guys have done a pretty good job. It is difficult with all the media attention and the hype that surrounds the Final Four. It's hard to keep them focused and keep them thinking about the ballgame. But they've done a great job in our film sessions. Yesterday in practice, they were pretty focused after they got loosened up.
So I think the team is really looking forward to this. As all players, they've dreamed about this for a long time. And now it's here and our job as coaches is try to keep them focused and try to get them ready to play their best. I think we're in that mode.
Like you said, I like the way we attack the film sessions. I like the way we attacked practice yesterday. I hope we go out and have a sharp shooting workout here that we're going to do for 50 minutes. Our open practice is basically going to be our game-day shootaround. So hopefully the guys will be sharp during that and get ready to play tomorrow.
Q. I know you were asked about this yesterday but the situation three years ago with Austin, Artis and Dotson, I'm just wondering if you learned anything about that as a coach and looking back if you -- not looking back, but if you were presented with a similar situation now, how you would handle it?
COACH ALTMAN: Well, if something like that were to arise again, everything that I did in that situation was with the advice of the university. I didn't make any decisions. The university was involved in everything. So I think if we were ever in the situation again, I look to my athletic director and the people above me to make any decisions.
Q. I talked with Larry Riley earlier this week. Do you remember the day you went into his office in 1980 and said you wanted to be a basketball coach and he told you you were nuts?
COACH ALTMAN: Yeah, I do. Coach was great to me for the two years I played for him. And I had thoughts of going to law school and doing some different things. But I decided I wanted to go get a master's degree and get a GA's job. And he sent me to work for his twin brother in Colorado.
So Larry and Mike Riley have been great to me for a long time. And I got an opportunity to spend some time with them last night, been great mentors for a long, long time.
Q. Had you actually progressed enough to do the LSAT?
COACH ALTMAN: Yeah, I took the test. I took the test. Didn't do great, didn't do bad. I could have got into a few places.
Q. No regrets that you didn't become a lawyer?
COACH ALTMAN: No, it's worked out all right. I think anytime your hobby is your job, you're pretty fortunate. And I always enjoyed playing and following basketball. So when your hobby's your job, you're pretty lucky.
Q. As you guys headed into the postseason, you used the mantra swing away. And I've seen you use that a lot in your team huddles. Tell me what that means to you and has that been a recipe -- I guess that means playing loose -- but has that been a recipe to your success so far in the postseason?
COACH ALTMAN: We've talked about swinging away, being aggressive throughout the season. It's not just in the postseason. It's something that players for 28 years have heard. We want our guys to loosen up, and so many of them take it offensively -- they want me to swing away, take shots. But defensively, on the boards, we just want them to play hard, play aggressive, try to free them up a little bit and go play the wy they've practiced. So it's something that we've talked about always.
Q. Do you feel that they've played loose here in these last four games and the last six of the season? Would you attribute that to why you guys are here?
COACH ALTMAN: I thought we have, the last couple of games, there's been times we've been a little tight. Expectations have been pretty high for this ball club. So there have been times we've played a little tight. But for the most part I think our guys have been aggressive and loose and been in attack mode. So for the most part been pretty pleased. But there have been a few games this year where the pressure of the rankings and the expectations, I think it slowed us down at times.
Q. What do you think the loss to Arizona in that Pac-12 championship game, what do you think it spurred the team on in the postseason? Some of the guys said it raised their IQ, what they had to do without Chris around. How do you think that game impacted the rest of the way?
COACH ALTMAN: I think in that regard it probably did help us a little bit in relationship to Chris, just because Arizona got to the basket on us. They got a lot of points in the paint that night and got some easy shots that we typically don't give up. But I think that losing a ballgame maybe refocuses you sometimes. But in this particular case, I think it just let us know that we were going to have to play a little differently without Chris, and we were able to make a few adjustments.
But the big adjustment is Jordan Bell has played so well that he's stepped it up. And Kavell has been really solid for us, given some of those minutes that Chris left open.
Q. North Carolina's shot 59 free throws over the last two games. What do you plan to do to limit them to getting to the free-throw line?
COACH ALTMAN: Well, they do a great job on the glass, which gets them second opportunities. They throw the ball inside a lot, which anytime you get the ball going to the basket either by drives or posting it, your percentage of foul attempts usually goes up, free throw attempts goes up. So our job is going to be, first of all, to try to keep them off the boards and not foul on any of those second opportunities.
Second of all, we've got to limit their touches in the paint as much as we can, which is a very difficult task since they run so many things to get the ball inside to Meeks and Hicks and Bradley. So we're going to have to do a tremendous job defensively to try to keep the ball out of there a little bit.
Q. Do you remember the Eastern New Mexico fight song?
COACH ALTMAN: No chance. (Laughter).
Q. What was your time like there in Portales?
COACH ALTMAN: I enjoyed my two years there. It was a different part of the country for me. I was from Nebraska, had basically spent all of my previous 20 years in Nebraska. So it was a different experience for me. And met a lot of good friends that I still stay in touch with today. So it was a good two years.
Q. Payton has had kind of a rough postseason statistically at least. Can you evaluate his play and also what went into the decision to start him over Casey?
COACH ALTMAN: It's not an exact science. He and Casey have played a lot of minutes together. And Casey's minutes are down a couple from a year ago, but about the same. But it wasn't like, well, this is the direction we're going to go. It's just something I felt was better for the team at that time.
And I like Casey coming off the bench. He's been able to give us offensively a shot here or there that's helped us off the bench and stabilize some things if they're not going smoothly. So it's worked out okay. As far as Payton, he puts a lot of pressure on himself to score. I want to free him up there a little bit and just take open shots. But I think defensively he's done a good job. He's done a good job on the boards. Everybody seems to equate struggling with offense. And he's done a good job in the other areas.
COACH ALTMAN: First of all, this is the kind of press conference I like. But the guys worked out good yesterday. And it was a very nice setup for the facility. I think it's going to work out pretty good. Hopefully we'll shoot it well. Didn't seem to bother them too much yesterday. So, I like the facility. Everyone here in Phoenix has been great to us. So it's been pretty smooth.
Q. The understatement of the year the other day when you said 1939 was a long time ago. How have you done and how has the team -- you sort of just talked about it a little just now -- but getting them from that moment of everything that they have done this year surprised a lot of people. And now here you are on this big stage for the first time in 78 years. How do you bring that to be in the moment, their consciousness, if you will?
COACH ALTMAN: I think the guys have done a pretty good job. It is difficult with all the media attention and the hype that surrounds the Final Four. It's hard to keep them focused and keep them thinking about the ballgame. But they've done a great job in our film sessions. Yesterday in practice, they were pretty focused after they got loosened up.
So I think the team is really looking forward to this. As all players, they've dreamed about this for a long time. And now it's here and our job as coaches is try to keep them focused and try to get them ready to play their best. I think we're in that mode.
Like you said, I like the way we attack the film sessions. I like the way we attacked practice yesterday. I hope we go out and have a sharp shooting workout here that we're going to do for 50 minutes. Our open practice is basically going to be our game-day shootaround. So hopefully the guys will be sharp during that and get ready to play tomorrow.
Q. I know you were asked about this yesterday but the situation three years ago with Austin, Artis and Dotson, I'm just wondering if you learned anything about that as a coach and looking back if you -- not looking back, but if you were presented with a similar situation now, how you would handle it?
COACH ALTMAN: Well, if something like that were to arise again, everything that I did in that situation was with the advice of the university. I didn't make any decisions. The university was involved in everything. So I think if we were ever in the situation again, I look to my athletic director and the people above me to make any decisions.
Q. I talked with Larry Riley earlier this week. Do you remember the day you went into his office in 1980 and said you wanted to be a basketball coach and he told you you were nuts?
COACH ALTMAN: Yeah, I do. Coach was great to me for the two years I played for him. And I had thoughts of going to law school and doing some different things. But I decided I wanted to go get a master's degree and get a GA's job. And he sent me to work for his twin brother in Colorado.
So Larry and Mike Riley have been great to me for a long time. And I got an opportunity to spend some time with them last night, been great mentors for a long, long time.
Q. Had you actually progressed enough to do the LSAT?
COACH ALTMAN: Yeah, I took the test. I took the test. Didn't do great, didn't do bad. I could have got into a few places.
Q. No regrets that you didn't become a lawyer?
COACH ALTMAN: No, it's worked out all right. I think anytime your hobby is your job, you're pretty fortunate. And I always enjoyed playing and following basketball. So when your hobby's your job, you're pretty lucky.
Q. As you guys headed into the postseason, you used the mantra swing away. And I've seen you use that a lot in your team huddles. Tell me what that means to you and has that been a recipe -- I guess that means playing loose -- but has that been a recipe to your success so far in the postseason?
COACH ALTMAN: We've talked about swinging away, being aggressive throughout the season. It's not just in the postseason. It's something that players for 28 years have heard. We want our guys to loosen up, and so many of them take it offensively -- they want me to swing away, take shots. But defensively, on the boards, we just want them to play hard, play aggressive, try to free them up a little bit and go play the wy they've practiced. So it's something that we've talked about always.
Q. Do you feel that they've played loose here in these last four games and the last six of the season? Would you attribute that to why you guys are here?
COACH ALTMAN: I thought we have, the last couple of games, there's been times we've been a little tight. Expectations have been pretty high for this ball club. So there have been times we've played a little tight. But for the most part I think our guys have been aggressive and loose and been in attack mode. So for the most part been pretty pleased. But there have been a few games this year where the pressure of the rankings and the expectations, I think it slowed us down at times.
Q. What do you think the loss to Arizona in that Pac-12 championship game, what do you think it spurred the team on in the postseason? Some of the guys said it raised their IQ, what they had to do without Chris around. How do you think that game impacted the rest of the way?
COACH ALTMAN: I think in that regard it probably did help us a little bit in relationship to Chris, just because Arizona got to the basket on us. They got a lot of points in the paint that night and got some easy shots that we typically don't give up. But I think that losing a ballgame maybe refocuses you sometimes. But in this particular case, I think it just let us know that we were going to have to play a little differently without Chris, and we were able to make a few adjustments.
But the big adjustment is Jordan Bell has played so well that he's stepped it up. And Kavell has been really solid for us, given some of those minutes that Chris left open.
Q. North Carolina's shot 59 free throws over the last two games. What do you plan to do to limit them to getting to the free-throw line?
COACH ALTMAN: Well, they do a great job on the glass, which gets them second opportunities. They throw the ball inside a lot, which anytime you get the ball going to the basket either by drives or posting it, your percentage of foul attempts usually goes up, free throw attempts goes up. So our job is going to be, first of all, to try to keep them off the boards and not foul on any of those second opportunities.
Second of all, we've got to limit their touches in the paint as much as we can, which is a very difficult task since they run so many things to get the ball inside to Meeks and Hicks and Bradley. So we're going to have to do a tremendous job defensively to try to keep the ball out of there a little bit.
Q. Do you remember the Eastern New Mexico fight song?
COACH ALTMAN: No chance. (Laughter).
Q. What was your time like there in Portales?
COACH ALTMAN: I enjoyed my two years there. It was a different part of the country for me. I was from Nebraska, had basically spent all of my previous 20 years in Nebraska. So it was a different experience for me. And met a lot of good friends that I still stay in touch with today. So it was a good two years.
Q. Payton has had kind of a rough postseason statistically at least. Can you evaluate his play and also what went into the decision to start him over Casey?
COACH ALTMAN: It's not an exact science. He and Casey have played a lot of minutes together. And Casey's minutes are down a couple from a year ago, but about the same. But it wasn't like, well, this is the direction we're going to go. It's just something I felt was better for the team at that time.
And I like Casey coming off the bench. He's been able to give us offensively a shot here or there that's helped us off the bench and stabilize some things if they're not going smoothly. So it's worked out okay. As far as Payton, he puts a lot of pressure on himself to score. I want to free him up there a little bit and just take open shots. But I think defensively he's done a good job. He's done a good job on the boards. Everybody seems to equate struggling with offense. And he's done a good job in the other areas.
