Feb. 11, 2010
Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery
– Georgia Tech Head Coach Paul Hewitt
“Congratulations to Miami. They had a very good game and James Dews stepped up and made a big shot at the end of the game.”
On mental state of team… – “We’re 5-5. We just have to get ready to play Wake Forest. I`m sure they’ll be ready for us and we’ll be ready for them. These are young kids. They’ll shake it off.”
On last play of the game… – “We thought they would run sort of handoff to a ball screen, something attacking to the basket… He had the presence of mind to shot fake our guys and stepped through and got a clean look.”
On second-half comeback… – “I was really proud of our young guys. They did a great job when we changed defenses – kind of took Miami out of their rhythm. Brian [Oliver] stepped up, made some big plays. I thought in the first half, early in the game we executed well and got some great shots and kind of lost our way there for a little while. Miami shot very well in the first half.”
On play of Gani Lawal… – “He plays hard every time he steps on the floor. That’s why I think he’s one of the better players in our league.”
On first-half deficit… – “We had some breakdowns defensively, especially when Adrian Thomas was setting ball screens. He missed the first one he took, but then made the next three.”
On road games in ACC: “It’s the toughest league to win road games. I’ve been in the Pac-10, been in the Big East, but with my experience it’s the toughest league to win a road game. The talent level, the coaching, the ACC crowds are just more involved in the games, game in and game out.”
Guard/Forward Brian Oliver
On halftime in the locker room: “It was pretty calm…. Mo Miller said we have to play harder than this – we can’t play this laid back, like we’re too cool. Coach said it too – we’re playing too cool instead of when we had a chip on our shoulder”
On last shot of the game: “That was just a clutch shot. There’s nothing really you can say about it. I personally think we could have contested it more instead of jumping for the pump fake but it’s just a tough shot. He knocked it down and that’s how it goes sometimes.”
Miami Head Coach Frank Haith
“Obviously it was a great win for us. We just found a way. You got to give Georgia Tech credit – they made some big plays and we missed some free throws. But I’m so proud of how our kids handled themselves down the stretch and made plays to give ourselves a chance to win. We drew up that last play up for [James] Dews, and you look at his numbers and he wasn’t having a great night. We told him at timeout, `hey, you’re gonna win the game for us’. Obviously he made a hell of a shot.
“But it was a great win for us. I thought defensively – that carried us. We put it on our defense. I thought we did a great job trying to control the paint, those guys are very good in the post – Gani Lawal, [Zachery] Peacock and Derrick Favors there alone. But I thought our big guys – Julian Gamble, Reggie [Johnson], Dwayne Collins and Cyrus [McGowan ]- did a really nice job of battling those guys in the paint and really for the most part, we hung with them rebounding the ball too.”
On giving the last shot to James Dews… – “James is a senior. Obviously he missed the front end of a one-on-one, but I just felt really good about him. Late game like that, I felt he’d have poise and make the shot. I felt like he probably wanted to redeem himself and make a play.”
On what this win means to the team… – “This is a tough league, and we’ve played the first six out of nine on the road and we’ve talked about that. You worry about your team’s psyche because you’ve lost games on the road and played so much on the road. Two things can happen when you come back home – either you’re out of it and your guys have lost confidence and your fans give up on you a little bit too. But we were hopeful and just needed to worry about what we can control, and that is just to play hard. Hopefully as a young team – we have nine freshmen and sophomores – you build on it. We go to Clemson – have to go back on the road again, but we got to find a way to get the same type of effort on the road. It’s hard to win on the road, you got to be together.”
On Dwayne Collins’ play… – “He made a big play for us – obviously the game was getting tighter and we needed a play. Dwayne was outstanding tonight – he played terrific. He was up for the challenge to go against this front line and we need that out of Dwayne every night. He’s a very capable guy to have that kind of performance night in and night out. He was really ready to play.”
