Behind Enemy Lines: Delaware's Phil Martelli, Jr.

It's time to introduce another new feature to the Buzz: Behind Enemy Lines, in which we talk to opposing coaches and players as well as the writers who cover them.

On Monday, I was able to talk with Delaware assistant coach Phil Martelli, Jr. about the Blue Hens' perspective going into their Friday night tilt with Penn at the Bob Carpenter Center. Martelli has been scouting the Quakers all year. And after playing for St. Joseph's from 2000-03 under his father, head coach Phil Martelli, and current Delaware head coach Monté Ross (a Hawks assistant at the time), Martelli, Jr. knows Penn a lot better than most Red and Blue opponents. He talks bragging rights, Penn's poor rebounding and more after the jump:

Obviously you beat Penn pretty solidly a month ago (84-69). What was the key to winning that game for you guys?

Martelli: I thought in that game our defensive pressure set us apart a little bit. We were able to turn them over a little bit and that’s how we built our lead.

Did you learn anything about Penn in that game?

Martelli: Well not anything necessarily new, but obviously Dougherty and Cartwright scored 41 of their 69 points, which is pretty much doing what they’d been doing. They’ve been getting about half the points and all that. They hurt us so we have to limit them and do a decent enough job on these other guys so they don’t turn a four point a game guy into a guy who scores 20.

How has already having played the Quakers once influenced your scouting and the team’s preparation?

Martelli: I’ve watched basically every game that Penn has played this year because of playing them early and watching all the games in between. When you watch them play against somebody else you go, ‘Oh, I like what that team did against them,’ or, ‘All right, here’s what Penn’s trying to do against so-and-so.’ Well, everybody’s different. We have different personnel, different ways to play. So something that Villanova did that worked against Penn might not work for us but something that Binghamton did that didn’t work for them might work for us. When you’ve played the team once already, similar to league play, it gives you a frame of reference of, this is what we do and this is what works and what didn’t work. Hopefully we’ve done improved enough to do those things Friday night.

Is there anything that didn’t work for you against Penn last time?

Martelli: We got a little sloppy late, 18 turnovers was too many. They defended, really physical. We have to take care of the ball better. That number has to be like 10, 11, because we were able to shoot decent numbers against them when we got shots. So it’s going to be key to get enough shots. Our defense the first half of the game was not very good, we gave up 50 percent from the field, 4-for-7 from three. We did a much better job in the second half, I attribute that to some of our defensive pressure. So we have to be sharp right away and make that a two-half thing, not just a one-half thing.

The NIT Season Tip-Off Tourney in Charlottesville over a month ago seemed to turn out well for you guys. What did you learn from that tourney about your squad?

Martelli: Any time you can go on the road, whether it be neutral court like the Penn game where there’s nobody around, there’s no atmosphere, it’s late at night—to have enough discipline to win that game, and then the next night play less than 24 hours later and be on the floor of an ACC team, I think it just gives you the confidence that you can beat anybody, anywhere, anytime as long as you play the right way. In that game we did. Some of these other games we haven’t done enough of the right things.

Last month you rebounded the Quakers, 47-24. Is rebounding an advantage for you guys going into this game as well?

Martelli: Yeah, without a doubt. They’re giving up, I think it’s like 12 and a half offensive rebounds per game, they’re being outrebounded by eight a game. We have good bigs and we have to take advantage of that. We just saw yesterday with Villanova, they pounded us on the glass and it’s why we lost the game. Had we kept them on the offensive glass, they wouldn’t have been able to score enough points to win. We’re not shooting great percentages but we’re shooting better than our percentages would lead people to believe right now.

But when you’re not shooting the ball well you gotta try and get yourselves free bees, and if we can get on the glass, I always think that getting an offensive rebound gets you two points or puts you on the foul line. And with Penn we’ve seen that, they’ve been giving up some offensive rebounds, it’s why their foul numbers are so high.

Coming from your alma mater, is this still a rivalry game for you?

Martelli: Yeah, without a doubt. Any time you play the Philadelphia teams, being a Philadelphia guy coming from St. Joe’s, any time you play those teams, it gives you a little extra spark. The familiarity—knowing Jerome Allen so well, knowing Ira Bowman, knowing Jason Polykoff, knowing all those guys as well as I do, there’s a little bit of a bragging rights-type thing. But it is special because I know how good Penn is, I know what a great place it is. It’s a place I have the utmost respect and admiration for, so when you play them, you want to win. Obviously when you play anyone, you want to win, but when you play those teams, the Temple or La Salle or Villanova, Drexel—we haven’t played St. Joe’s, thank God for that—it’s extra special.