Jan. 12, 2013
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Georgia Tech Head Coach
Brian Gregory
“Give Virginia Tech a lot of credit I thought they played extremely well in the second half especially those last probably 12 minutes when we took the lead back. Although they were struggling to score some, they have a pretty good ace in the hole in Erick Green. For about a seven minute stretch there he had it going pretty well.”
“I’m disappointed in how we rebounded the ball. We’re going to have stretches where we struggle offensively so with that you’ve got to turn it around on the other end and do a great job defensively. I feel like we did that in the first half. I thought we were very good defensively in the first half, but in the second half we just didn’t do as good a job. I think the key was the putbacks we allowed in that time which were just backbreakers.”
“I thought we had some pretty good looks in the last 10 minutes. We had the ball around the basket a couple times there, but didn’t get a score there and you’ve got to complete those. I thought they did a pretty good job defensively, they were able to extend the zone and we just didn’t make some of those shots. When we took the lead toward the end, there was a bout a four possession stretch where we just didn’t play with the basketball IQ you need to play at in this league. Where we’re at as a program and where we’re trying to get to, every possession needs to be just about perfect for us to be good. When it’s not, we’re in trouble.”
“To be honest I think it was our defensive rebounding that wasn’t very good. On the offensive side, sometimes against a zone you’ve got to bread down the defense and we’re just not taking advantage sometimes when we get it. For us to be good and to be successful you just can’t have those empty possessions. Where we’re at right now that’s the key. You have to have that mindset that every possession you got to take it with extreme urgency.”
“One of the things we struggle at is attacking some of those gaps in the zone and the dribble penetration. We had 13 assists and only nine turnovers but we don’t have anybody that is getting six, seven, eight assists in a game and creating shots for other people. That’s one thing we’re lacking a little bit right now.”
Virginia Tech Head Coach
James Johnson
Opening Statement
“Winning is hard. Winning in the ACC is hard. Winning on the road is hard. This is a great win for this team. We had a lot of guys step up and make plays for us that we needed and talked about along the way.”
On what Virginia Tech did well on defense…
“Our initial defense was good and then I think we limited them to second shots. We limited them to nine offensive rebounds so I think our initial defense was pretty good, which I thought had been good at times this year. Tonight we limited them to one shot basically. I thought that was the key to our defense. We mixed it up a little bit and played two or three zones, and we did a good job rebounding out of the zone too.”
On Erick Green taking over the game a little more…
“I don’t tell him to take over or be aggressive. He knows what this team needs. He kind of took it over. He does that in games. He knows that I’m fine with that; that the team is fine with that. He did a great job stepping up when we were down. He turned it on and we got stops. He got some other guys to contribute too.”
On how big the win is for the team…
“It’s big and winning is hard. You have two teams here today fighting and trying not to go 0-3 in this tough league. For my team, we’ve had some struggles in the past and our previous games. I’ve said all along this group has never quit working. They got a little down in thinking about what happened, but they never quit working. In practice we’ve always worked hard. For us to come on the road and get this win to reward ourselves for this hard work is tremendous for this young group and our confidence.”
On CJ Barksdale…
“He got his first career double-double. He kind of got the message on the bench. His effort in practice and in the last game against Boston College was good. Tonight he was able to come in and do a great job with 10 rebounds and his first career double-double. He had a big rebound late in the game. He was big for us.”
