Jan. 20, 2009
– GEORGIA TECH COACH Paul Hewitt
Was this disappointing after making the great come-back in regulation?
“Give the kids credit. They battled back. Alade [Aminu] did a great job at the top of the press being disruptive. We got some turnovers and got back in the game, but unfortunately let another one slip away.”
Does it become frustrating using so much energy to come back in overtime and then let the game slip away in overtime?
“I thought we were about one play away from putting the game away in regulation. We had a couple opportunities as well in overtime when we had the lead to put some distance between ourselves and Boston College. Give BC credit. Tyrese Rice played like a big-time senior tonight and made all of his free throws and some tough shots down the stretch.”
What positives can you take out of tonight?
“Iman [Shumpert] had a good second half, but the turnovers are still bothering us. 20 turnovers is something we just can’t have. We need to be stronger with the ball and made better decisions. I applaud the effort. It was great and courageous, but we have to figure out a way to pull some of these games out.”
Where is this team mentally?
“There’s no question, they’re down. The locker room is very quiet. We have a day off tomorrow and then we have to get back at it. We’ll practice Thursday, Friday and Saturday and get ready to go play Clemson.”
BOSTON COLLEGE COACH AL SKINNER and GUARD TYRESE RICE
On the difference between the end of regulation and overtime, breaking the press:
SKINNER: “In regulation, we really weren’t disciplined when they were pressing. We did not run our press offense at all and were very inconsistent, so it made it very difficult. We weren’t going to try to dribble through the press, we were going to try to pass through it, and obviously that did not occur. In overtime we settled down and executed the way that we wanted to and that created some opportunities for us. That was really the difference for us – the lack of discipline that we had on the offensive end.”
RICE: “When we executed it, we got good things out of it, when we didn’t, you see what happened – we got a lot of turnovers. Believe me, I’m not happy with the ones that I had either, because it makes for a lot of running in practice on Thursday. But when we executed the offense like coach said and we settled down it was fine, but when we started to get fancy and a little rattled, it made for a lot of turnovers. They have a lot of very tall, athletic guys with long wingspans and they got their hands on a lot of basketballs”
On the shot that put them up by five with 30 seconds remaining.
RICE: “They switched out, and basically I just tried to attack them, just tried to make a play – whether that was going to be me scoring or hitting the open man.”
On having Lawal on him late in the game.
RICE: “We run through it and try to find the mismatch, and today they switched on every screen, so there really was no choice but to go 1-on-1, and it was successful, so we kept doing it..”
On being more aggressive in overtime.
SKINNER: “The difference was that our spacing was extremely poor in regulation and, for whatever reason, we didn’t really understand what we needed to do. In overtime, when the pressure came we had our correct spacing and we were able to attack. Georgia Tech wasn’t coming at us right away, they were picking up right before the 10-second line, so I guess our guys assumed that there was no pressure. So we were running down to setup to run our plays. What was disappointing to me was that if it happens the first or second time we should recognize that’s what’s occurring. We didn’t have that recognition. In the overtime, we were able to settle down. The other thing I did was I brought back my other point guard. That improved our ball handling and decision making and allowed us to really attack. A simple substitution, along with the adjustment that we made was the difference in the overtime and then regulation.”
On seeing things coming together.
SKINNER: “We wanted to do a good job of rebounding the basketball. At times we did a very good job. And then executing on the offensive end – I thought we did that. We showed some patience, which I was very pleased about. And then we recognized the plays. So I was really pleased with the way that we were playing, and of course we made some shots to get the lead. We were in a good place, and then give credit to Georgia Tech because they changed the tempo of the game and we did not react the way we should have. But then in overtime we made the adjustment and were able to get it done.”
