A Chat with Tom Pecora

MONTREAL- Just hours away from his team's final game of the 2014 Canadian Tour, Head Coach Tom Pecora chatted with FordhamSports.com about the tour, his team and what it takes to win in the Atlantic 10.

Coach, you've been in Montreal for almost a week now, what are your thoughts on the Canadian Tour so far?
I think it's been a wonderful experience for us in so many ways.  Obviously on the basketball court it's been a positive, bringing the team together, but also the time you spend off the court.  It's just essential and that's what these trips are all about: some team bonding, some wonderful cultural and religious experiences-- stopping at St. Joseph's Oratory and seeing Notre Dame yesterday-- just incredible.  And then going up into the mountains to the ski resort on Wednesday and just spending quality time together, I think that's been great for us.  And then on the basketball court, putting ourselves in different situations in the month of August that usually we wouldn't see until we get into scrimmages in the fall practice season.
 
You mentioned that team bonding aspect of the tour.  Can you put a price on that? How important is that going into the season, especially with so many young guys?
I think it is priceless, especially in our case, seven new players on the floor, four or five new players joining the program, so they really get to know each other.  They get to feel each other out and you speed up that learning curve, you know, things that would take place during the course of the school year.  And just to be together.  There are no other distractions.  So, I think it's been a wonderful experience and something that's definitely worth doing once every four years.
 
You talked about those new guys, who has really stood out to you so far?
Well, they've each had their moments.  I think Christian Sengfelder has been great.  Obviously Nemanja Zarkovic has had some big games for us and big moments.  Eric Paschall, last night Antwoine Anderson was just dynamic coming off of ball screens and making plays.  Jon Severe has continued to grow as a player, so you know we're getting a lot of good things out of a lot of people.
 
You already mentioned Jon, any other returning players that you've been impressed with so far on the tour?
Yeah well even just the little contributions, Bryan Smith made a big play late in the game last night, an offensive rebound and tip-in to get us some separation to win a close game at the end.  Ryan Rhoomes continues to be a work horse for us.  Mandell Thomas tweaked his ankle last night , but he'd been playing fairly well up to that point and we'll see how he's feeling tonight, whether he gets on the floor or not, but it really has been a total team effort and we've been able to spread the minutes around pretty well.
 
You have one more game tonight against Brookwood, what would it mean for team morale to be able to go 4-0 on this tour?
Well what I talked to the team about yesterday was, having the ability to compete in the Atlantic 10, one of the things is so much of it is from the neck up, but one of the big things is being able to put everything  behind you and just concentrate on living in the moment and worry about one game.  It's all about one game winning streaks.  You know you want to just win this game and then start thinking about the next one, so we'll get locked in for Brookwood tonight.  They're a good team.  They've got a couple of very good young players and once again, all of the team's up here, it's their World Series.   It's their game seven.  They want to come and be able to say we beat an American college team, so we're the hunted ones in that sense and we've got to make sure we go in with the right mind set and we don't fall behind like we did last night where we had to dig ourselves out of a ten-point hole at the end of the first quarter.