Leonard Hamilton Team Quotations

Obviously he's a load. There's no question about that. He's way beyond his years in maturity. You watch him and you watch his body language and his facial expressions and you can tell the confidence that he plays with. But the thing that amazes me is his team has so much confidence in him.

Getting beat on the boards seemed to be a very significant part of this game. You have to give them a lot of credit for pounding the glass. It seemed like every time we've played them the last couple of years, they've been much better prepared on the boards than we have. We got beat by a team that did the things they need to do within their scheme in order to win the game tonight.

He did an outstanding job - as good a job as anybody in the league over the last five years. He was very difficult to prepare for - for any team in our league, not only Florida State.

Our team continues to play well enough to almost win games.

Our team has grown up a little bit. We had some great contests when they had some looks, we got some big rebounds and we hit some very important free throws down the stretch. That's a team that's maturing.

I think, overall, our team is making progress, but we have to get out of that mode where we're playing games against good caliber teams and coming up a little short.

I thought that really, really gave us a big boost. And we need that kind of energy from our team if we're going to utilize our depth.

You have the No. 1 team in the country coming in to play you and you want to realize some opportunities. So what better opportunity can you have?

We intend to have a good basketball team next year and I feel confident that we will. We've developed the unity and spirit it's going to take to move the program to the next level.

We got beat by a team that did the things they needed to do to win the game. Clemson overcame a challenge. They did the little things. We didn't.

We did not meet their style of ball with the type of enthusiasm that we should have. Maybe this is the type of game we needed to keep reality in front of us. We are not a team that can afford not to be at our very best mentally every time we step out.

We still believe we have a chance to be a team of significance in the ACC, but we're mindful of the fact we still have a tough row to hoe. We fully understand where we are and what we have to do to move ahead.

We are kind of venturing into uncharted waters for our team in this stage of the development of our program. It's very important for us to be successful down the stretch because this is the direction we're trying to move our program.

We're the same team that most of the media picked to finish 11th in the preseason. We didn't have any double-figure scorers returning, we were picked to finish near the bottom. How foolish would it have been for me to go out and build a killer schedule when no one thought we were any good?

The team kind of hung together. This is the kind of game that will test your character and your togetherness and your spirit.

You guys have heard me from the beginning of the year; I've been consistent about this. This is going to be a different year from what you guys have been exposed to. This league will be -- with the exception of one team and maybe two, it's going to be rock 'em sock 'em, and you're not going to be able to determine how this thing is going to shape up until the latter part of the season.

The thing that I like about this team is that we still are a team that has a lot of room for improvement. We are getting better in all areas. We're not quite there yet. But our best basketball, I think, is ahead of us.

We just have to rise to the occasion. This is college basketball as it is in the ACC. We still have two more games left. We still can realize some opportunities. And this team has had a history of bouncing back.

This is part of the journey. This is part of the process you go through, building programs. You have to give your team credit for making this kind of progress, but you also have to find a way to get over the hump, and that's mostly mental at this point.

There was a period where he kind of backed off his offensive aggressiveness to be a good team member. Now that we're kind of a little more in sync, the nature of the game is giving him certain opportunities.

For him to find the energy to go out and give it all when we really needed this game says a lot about his character, how much he's grown up and how much this team is making sacrifices for one another.

It's something you have to work on each and every day, preparing your team for what they have to face. There are going to be ups. There are going to be downs. Things aren't always going to go the way you want it. You just have to find a way to draw strength from the learning process. You have to find something to hang your hat on.

They got 13 offensive rebounds, and if you give a team that many second opportunities in a close game, that's something very difficult to overcome.

There were things we created just as a result of being aggressive. (We) played like a team that was very, very hungry.

This was a very important game for Maryland tonight and a very important game for us. We have a team that is maturing a little bit.

This team has shown ability to bounce back and I guess this is another opportunity for us to show our faith and courage.

This team is very capable if we're playing up to our abilities. In other years, maybe we had to play above ourselves. Right now we need to play up to our abilities.