Sheldon Jeter, Mike Young ACC media day interview transcripts

If the ridiculousness and pageantry of ACC [edit: any] media day isn’t a sign that a season is about to commence, few, if any, things are.

I got the chance to speak with the two players in Pitt’s contingent down in Charlotte — Mike Young and Sheldon Jeter — about the upcoming season, the adjustment to Kevin Stallings and how the players have tried to get Stallings acclimated to the ACC after spending the past 17 years in the SEC.

I also spoke with Stallings, but that conversation was nearly an hour long and between other responsibilities yesterday and travel today, I haven’t gotten the chance to transcribe all of it. Look for that to run here on the blog tomorrow. As for today, here are my interviews with Young and Jeter.

MIKE YOUNG

How comfortable are you all right now with coach Stallings and everything he has tried to implement?

“Everybody is pretty much settled in. We got a grasp of what he wants, of what his goals are and his plans are for the team, our playing style, his defensive scheme. We’ve pretty much got all of that down. It’s just about honing them and executing them how he wants us to execute them. It’s been six, seven or eight months. We’re doing really well, better than I thought at this point. We’ve still got a long way to go, but at this point, I think we’re doing pretty good.”

I wasn’t there to see it, but what went wrong in the scrimmage?

“The scrimmage wasn’t what anybody expected or what he expected. A lot of us were sluggish and slow paced, and he preaches a fast pace in practice. We go extremely fast. It works well for us.”

How much faster?

“A whole lot faster. Coach wants us to play as fast as we can under control and making good decisions. It’s nothing against coach Dixon. It’s just two different coaches, two different playing styles and two different ideas about basketball. As far as coach Stallings, he wants us to play as fast as possible while staying under control, making good decisions and taking good shots.”

How difficult was it at first with that faster tempo?

“It was rough. When he came in, he gave us some freedom. He wanted to see what we knew, what we didn’t know and how we played without any real coaching. The first couple of workouts, he said to just go out there and don’t turn the ball over, take good shots and play as fast as possible. It was different for us, just pushing the ball that fast. He allowed me to push the ball as much as possible. A guy like Sheldon will maybe take a dribble or two up the court. Jamel, he’s running point. It’s a lot of different things being thrown at us all at once, but I feel like we’ve handled it well so far.”

How has your role changed with a new coach and system?

“It’s a little different for me since I’ve been in college. Coach Dixon had an idea of how he wanted me to play, which has been very successful for me up to this point. Coach Stallings kind of wants me to play how I’ve been playing and add on to that. I’ve been working on my game since I got to college. I’ve never stopped doing that, whether coach wants me to rebound, pass the ball or score points. Regardless, I’m going to work on my game. I’ve been working on the 3 ball. Coach sees me putting in a lot of work. In practice, I’m shooting a good percentage. Up to this point, he’s letting me play out there and make decisions out there. My handle is good. Here and there, I bring the ball up, pushing it in transition. He’s just utilizing all my skills.”

How much have you all educated Stallings on the ACC?

“He asked for our insight. That was one of the things I noticed when he first got here. He asked us a lot of questions. He meets with the seniors about once a week. We go in there and have a 30-minute meeting where we talk and go back and forth on things. We’ve been doing that since he got here. He asks us a lot of questions about the ACC and what we want and how we want to play. There are various topics, but we definitely talked about ACC play and how we want to play in the ACC and what we think will get us wins and get us to the top.”

What are some of those questions?

“He asked what it’s like. He watches basketball, so he’s seen games. But he asks us what it’s like, how the refs let us play, what they might let go, how we think we should play. Questions like that.”

What have you told him?

“We told him it’s a fast-paced league. Pretty much every team likes to score the ball, play a fast pace, get up and down, and utilize their athletes. That’s pretty much what we told him about how we wanted to play. We don’t really have any big 7-footers or any big guys or anything like that. We’ve got a bunch of 6-6 to 6-9 skill guys. We told him we just want to utilize that, play fast, use our athleticism and use our skill. Once we told him that, he came up with a lot of different schemes and a great playing style.”

SHELDON JETER

What has the education process about league been like with coach Stallings and the ACC?

“No game is guaranteed. I think, what, Boston College was the last-place team last season. At home, they could probably upset anybody. There’s really no guaranteed wins in this conference. Every night, you have to go out and play. But by the same token, if you do lose a game in this conference, you can’t hold on to it too long. You’ve got to move on because your next game is going to be just as tough. It was more us just telling him, which he already knew, that there are no guaranteed wins in this conference.”

What have the questions been?

“The question he asked me is what team has the best arena. From style and standpoint and how it looks, I thought Georgia Tech had the best-looking arena. It resembles like a smaller pro arena with the way it darkens the crowd. We all had different opinions on it. But that’s the one question I remember.”

As someone who has played in both, what are the differences you’ve noticed between two leagues?

“One thing I remember about the SEC was it was always had a big, bruising four and five. The four and five, they could go be walk-on football players if they wanted to. In the ACC, it’s a lot more athletic. The five men, they can still be big and bruising, but they can jump over you and finish. It combines a lot more strength and athleticism, where in the SEC, I remember it being a lot about brute strength and there always being one prolific. In the ACC, you can have three or four prolific scorers on a team.”

What was your first thought when you saw that ACC schedule for this season?

“Sink or swim. We get to show people they’re either right about us by ranking us so low or we can prove them wrong and say ‘Hey, we deserve to be in the top 25.’ We have plenty of chances against quality opponents, against some of the best teams in the country. We have a chance to show where we deserve to be. I loved it. There’s no point in playing a cookie-cutter schedule when you get to conference play. Now, the competition goes from here to up here. Now, we’re in over our heads. I like we’re jumping right in to it.”

What do you feel like you all are capable of accomplishing this season?

“I think we can finish in the top three in the conference. I feel like we have the talent and we have the experience and we have a lot of guys who are hungry to prove themselves. I feel like that’s a great combination. We have to consistently stay hungry. Even during the highs, we have to remember we’re working toward an end goal and not just one game.”

How close are you all right now to what you had at Vandy? How far in the process are you all to fully implementing the system?

“I’d say we’re there. We still have little kinks to work out, but everyone loves the way he runs practice. It’s more like a trial by fire, as far as doing a lot of live stuff, getting up and down, working on the fast-break offense. We’re pretty good. We’re never really all the way there. We’re always striving. He came in and he’s working with our strengths. He’s adjusting his offense to our strengths, and defense, too. We’re there.”

What were the most difficult aspects of the transition?

“Picking up the fast-paced offense. Normally, we have one person moving the ball up and then that would lead into, I don’t want to say a free-for-all, but pretty much like a free-for-all. Now, we have fast-break plays we run. It’s different picking up the faster offense. That was the part that was maybe a little more difficult for us.”

There’s been a lot of talk about his improvement, so I figured I’d ask — what have you noticed from Chris Jones this preseason?

“It seems like he’s completely enjoying himself out there now. He seems like he’s having fun. I’m expecting big things from him. He seems like a completely different Chris Jones. It was a Chris Jones we knew he could be, but it seems like he’s completely bought in.”

Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG