Latest / Mac & Bone Podcast / Mac & Bone - Michael Malone Interview

Transcript

Mac & Bone - Michael Malone Interview · Mac & Bone Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: He is the first year coach of UNC basketball. A
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: man that Jaron Stevenson said the word to describe him
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is intense. He is Michael Malone. Coach, how you doing?
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: What's going on?
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I'm intense, man. I'm intense.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I respect that. I do, and I think he did too.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: The way he talked about you, I think he respects
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: the intensity. Coach, what has it been like coaching these
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: young bucks? I know I was a young knucklehead in college.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: You would have yelled at me. I know that. What's
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: it like from going grown men in the NBA to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: these young guys? How's it been?
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: I think it's an adjustment. You go from coaching 25-,
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: 30-year-olds guys with families, wives, and kids, and now you're
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: coming into a situation where you are coaching every day
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: and pouring into 17, 18, 19-year-old kids, and that's not
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: lost on me. My job responsibility has changed. I have
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: to make sure I show up every day and not
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: just from a coach's perspective in terms of helping them offensively, defensively,
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: be the best players that they can be, but also
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: pouring into them and helping them continue to develop as
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: young men who can every single day represent this great
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: program in a positive light.
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: Coach, we're in a time and space in the college
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: sports world where we're seeing a lot of coaches that
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: don't want to be a part of it. We know
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: the names of the college basketball coaches, college football coaches.
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: They go other places because of the way the sport
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: is going. You've won a championship in the NBA. You're
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: a lifespan in the NBA. What drew you at this
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: point to the college game when a lot of other
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: people are going away from the college game?
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: You know, I know that the first interaction I had
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: with UNC and when they approached me we had multiple
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: conversations and my first thought was I was really you
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: know honored of their interest but you know I viewed
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: myself I'm an NBA coach I'm gonna stay in this
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: space I want to try to win another championship and
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: see what opens up but the more I thought about
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: it and thought about the tradition at Carolina and the
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: coaches that have sat in that seat I did not
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: want to in 10, 15, 20 years down the road
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: look back and have any regrets. And I wanted to
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: come to this space. I wouldn't have left the NBA
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: just to go to any school. And people think, well,
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: he went to Carolina because his daughter was there playing volleyball.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: That's just a coincidence.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: I came to Carolina because I truly feel that we
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: have everything in front of us to make this program
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: a team that can compete every single year for a
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: national championship.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: That requires a lot of hard work. That requires a
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: lot of commitment.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: But it's something that I know myself and our entire
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: coaching staff are committed to trying to make it happen,
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: and I think we're off to a pretty good start.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Michael Malone with us. He's live a couple of miles away.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: ACC tip off here in Charlotte. Chat with us. New
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: heels coach. So, coach, man, you had to hit the
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: ground running.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, you come back. It's been a long time
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: since you coached in college. And dang, you get this
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: job and it's like, I got to go put this
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: roster together right away. And honestly, it feels like you
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: did a heck of a job considering kind of the
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: time crunch. What was that process like and how how
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: confident are you that, hey, we kind of pulled it off,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: you know, for what we had to work with?
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: Well, it was a wild ride, as you mentioned. I mean, literally,
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: the day I was hired, I left the press conference.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: I went to a little get-together to shake some hands
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: and kiss some babies. I've never felt more like a
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: politician than I have the last four or five months.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: But then after that, I get into a room to
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: discuss the transfer portal, something that was my first venture
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: and experience going through. And when you mentioned, I think,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: looking back now, Getting a guy like Neo Abdalas from
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Virginia Tech, Terrence Brown, Matt Abel, as well as all
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: the other players that we signed, I think we did
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: a pretty good job considering the circumstances. And now we're
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: moving forward trying to recruit the kids that are in
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: the class of 2027. So it is a whirlwind. There's
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: no off days. You're always building your program. You're always
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: selling your program. And we want to make sure that
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: we're not just bringing in talented players because that's a given.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: We want to bring in the guys that we know
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: that can represent this program in the best possible way.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: Coach, what's the status of fifth-year guy Cameron Fins for
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: the exhibition games?
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, as of right now, Cameron Fins is ineligible. He
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: will not be playing on Friday night. Obviously, we have
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: a lot of trust in what's going to play out.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: We think Cameron Fins is an outstanding young man and
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: even a tremendous basketball player on top of that. But
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: at this moment, he is not eligible. and we're going
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: to let that process play out. But he's been a
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: joy to be around, and if and when he is
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: ruled eligible, I have no doubt that he's going to
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: be able to go out there and help this program.
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: Coach, in this weird world of college sports right now,
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: you're playing NC State in a non-conference game in Greensboro
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: in the middle of December. How did that come about,
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: and how cool do you think that is for Greensboro
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: and both fan bases to have a game, albeit unconventional,
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: like that in Greensboro?
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: I think it's great.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Myself and Justin did a press conference a month and
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: a half ago in Greensboro to talk about that game.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: I'm learning so much about the tradition, the history of
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: not only Carolina, but also the conference.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: That game matters to our fans.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: The last year was the first time in over 100 years,
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: I believe, that UNC and State did not play two
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: times in a season.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: The fans wanted it. They're getting it.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: I think The fans are the ones that kind of
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: carry these programs, and they want to see it, looking
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: forward to.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: It, another opportunity for us.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: To challenge ourselves against some of the best teams around us.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Last thing, Coach, you mentioned your big man there, Cameron Fensch.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: You mentioned we're confident he's going to be eligible. This
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: whole fifth-year eligibility thing is crazy. The whole college landscape
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: is crazy, the uncertainty. Did you, like, is this major
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: headaches coming from the NBA? Like, this feels like it
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: would stress me out to coach college athletics.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: You know, it's definitely different. It's a completely different league.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: And what you had in the NBA is you had
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: defined rules. You had a level playing field. You had transparency.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: And there was things. They weren't moving the goalposts every
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: single day. For me, first year in college athletics in
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: a long time, it feels that you don't have the
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: level playing field. You don't have transparency at all times.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: And you don't know what's going to happen from a
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: day-to-day basis. Court cases getting overturned. So... As I mentioned earlier,
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: we're going to let things play out. They're out of
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: our control at this moment, and we'll be ready to
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: move no matter what the final results are because that
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: is our job, to make sure no matter who's available
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: that we go out there and put them in a position.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: To have success. Don't worry, Coach.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Eventually, it'll be games and your biggest pain in the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: butt will be rival ACC fans being annoying. What are
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: you looking at me for? What are you looking at
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: me for? Sorry, Coach, my friend here.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: That's all good.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: We appreciate you, man. Best of luck.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it, guys. Thank you.