Dec. 7, 2010
– GEORGIA TECH HEAD COACH Paul Hewitt
On Tech’s defense
“I thought tonight that early on we did a good job but they caught fire against the zone. We switched to man-to-man and they just caught us back in the point in that last possession. We figured they would set up something for a man-to-man play, it is a miss or make game and Ware stepped up and made a three.”
On the game winning basket
“They ran that ball screen, I thought we did a decent job getting under it. But, [Gerald] Robinson is really quick getting to the rim and you have to respect his ability to get to the rim and you don’t want to give up a lay up in that situation. We talked about protecting the basket all night, they shot 44 percent but obviously the big number is 54 percent from three point range. The other thing that we did really well is that they only had nine offensive rebounds for that team. I am not going to second guess them you have to respect their penetration.”
On the final play of the game
“You have to get your defense set. I didn’t want them to inbound the ball quickly. I knew that we had to foul right away and I didn’t want them to be able to pitch it inbounds and run out the clock. I wanted them to know where the defense needed to be. We could have done a better job on that, switching, it was one of those situations. The other thing is that if they missed that free throw and we grabbed that rebound cleanly, we would have been in a scramble situation where we could have pushed the ball in transition. On the last throw in it was just a read. I don’t know if I talked about it before. It was just a back screen by Iman [Shumpert], a screen in by Glen [Rice]and just see which way they go. They all went to Daniel [Miller] and unfortunately we picked the wrong guy. When you have 2.8 to go, you maybe have two dribbles, one dribble and a pass or maybe two passes before a shot has to go up. The next time that he is in that situation, I know he will make a good decision. Who knows, maybe he could have lucked out. I understood his mindset that he thought that maybe Daniel could have gotten the jam, but it didn’t happen for us.”
Sophomore Brian Oliver on the final play of the game
“It was actually supposed to be a set up for someone to get the ball at half court because with two and a half seconds left you can get two dribbles. My thoughts were, and it wasn’t a good decision on my part, was to throw it to Daniel [Miller] because he is a big guy and maybe they would hit him too hard and a foul would be called. But in all reality, they probably wouldn’t have called it. It was a bad decision on my part.”
Oliver on Georgia’s game-winning basket
“I don’t know what happened. That was the plan we talked about it in the huddle before we came out. Coach said `make sure you know exactly where [Dustin Ware] is because they are probably going to look for him.’ I don’t know what happened, maybe miscommunication, but he got open and got the shot.”
Sophomore Glen Rice, Jr. on his 11 rebounds
“I thought our big men did really well boxing out so that just cleared a lot of space for me to go up there and grab the rebounds. Really credit goes to Brian [Oliver], Daniel Miller, Nate [Hicks], people who got the big men out of the paint so I can go up and grab the boards.”
GEORGIA HEAD COACH MARK FOX
Opening Statement
“That was a certainly a hard-fought basketball game. We beat a real solid Georgia Tech team, and I thought their kids played really hard. I thought our kids played extremely hard. We feel like we are leaving here with a good win.”
On Dustin Ware’s 3-pointer with 18 seconds left
“Dustin Ware can shoot the ball well. He shot well in practice last night, and I really felt like he was going to shoot it well. I credit Gerald Robinson, he made a great pass and found the open man and Dustin was ready to stick it in the basket and it was certainly a big basket for our program.”
On if Georgia was outhustled in the first half
“I don’t know if we got outhustled, I think both teams played hard, I don’t think we played well. We didn’t rebound the ball well in the first half, we didn’t defend well in the first half, we didn’t shoot free throws well most of the night, but we played hard. You have to credit them, they made a lot of plays too.”
On 23 assists compared to only 7 turnovers
“We were an unselfish team. I think we have a real unselfish team. I think we have a team full of guys who believe in each other and we are starting to understand how to make the guy next to us better. We needed every bit of that tonight.”
On Trey Thompkins’ slow start
“He didn’t start the game real well. He’s not in a rhythm, and you can just see it. He just isn’t in a rhythm yet, and we need to get him some significant practice time. We need to get him a couple more days of rest and get him healthy. He didn’t start the game in a great rhythm, he turned it over a couple of times early, but then he get into the flow of the game and once he did that, his offensive rhythm came back and he made a lot of big plays for us.”
On Travis Leslie sitting with 2 fouls in the first half
“I made my mind up on that a long time ago. If you get two fouls in the first half, you are usually going to sit for me. Very seldom will I play someone in the first half with two fouls, especialy when we have Marcus Thornton and Connor Nolte who I have great confidence in. I’m glad we did that because we were able to keep him on the floor at the end.”
