This afternoon, I followed up with Danny Manning on the comments he made about post season tournaments on the ACC Teleconference.
Here's a transcript of that exchange:
Me: "One of the things you mentioned yesterday was working to play in the tournament you want to play in. I've hesitated to ask this, because I know what your goal is - it's to win every game, but is there a part of you that's worked to get this team as close to .500 as possible as to qualify for more of those postseason tournaments?"
Manning: "Obviously, like you said, you want to win every game and you want to continue to get better as you go out and play. That's the goal for us - to get better each game and go from there. We'll see what happens from there. We have two more regular season games and then the ACC Tournament, then we'll see what happens."
Me: "Can you talk about what tournaments you would or would not entertain when the season is over?"
Manning: "We'd entertain any tournament. It's post season play. You get a chance to have more practices and continue to develop."
Me: "With your team, returning nearly everyone and adding even more talent, continuing to play is a great thing, right?"
Manning: "Absolutely. The opportunity to play more games, practice more and have the opportunity to play under different circumstances when you know you're playing in a post season tournament."
My thoughts: Manning isn't going to outright say he'd welcome playing in the CIT, CBI or any other specific tournament right now because there's still games to play (nor did I want to put him on the spot to ask that specific of a question). I think it's pretty clear, however, if the Deacs are invited to any of those post season tournaments this year, they're going to be suiting up and playing.
Here's a transcript of that exchange:
Me: "One of the things you mentioned yesterday was working to play in the tournament you want to play in. I've hesitated to ask this, because I know what your goal is - it's to win every game, but is there a part of you that's worked to get this team as close to .500 as possible as to qualify for more of those postseason tournaments?"
Manning: "Obviously, like you said, you want to win every game and you want to continue to get better as you go out and play. That's the goal for us - to get better each game and go from there. We'll see what happens from there. We have two more regular season games and then the ACC Tournament, then we'll see what happens."
Me: "Can you talk about what tournaments you would or would not entertain when the season is over?"
Manning: "We'd entertain any tournament. It's post season play. You get a chance to have more practices and continue to develop."
Me: "With your team, returning nearly everyone and adding even more talent, continuing to play is a great thing, right?"
Manning: "Absolutely. The opportunity to play more games, practice more and have the opportunity to play under different circumstances when you know you're playing in a post season tournament."
My thoughts: Manning isn't going to outright say he'd welcome playing in the CIT, CBI or any other specific tournament right now because there's still games to play (nor did I want to put him on the spot to ask that specific of a question). I think it's pretty clear, however, if the Deacs are invited to any of those post season tournaments this year, they're going to be suiting up and playing.
