Feb. 22, 2004
– Wake Forest head coach Skip Prosser
“I tell you what, I feel like Tommy Hanks on the island…somehow we survived. I was out there ready to start talking to volleyballs. I’m very proud of our players, this is a very difficult venue, obviously an excellent team and Georgia Tech is extremely well coached and again, I thought we survived. The difference down the stretch after they made that incredible run and I called timeout and we said ‘fellows, we aren’t going to shoot our way out of trouble – we’ve tried that in the past and it almost never works – you have to execute your way out of trouble’. I thought the last three or four possessions the kids did that as well as we’ve done it all year. It’s been a rough week with how we’ve played and how we fared but again I can’t be more proud of our kids.”
“I think that Georgia Tech is a great basketball team. They just kept playing and playing and playing and for us to come in here and get a win is exceedingly gratifying.”
“Obviously, disappointed in the 23 turnovers and you’ve got to give Georgia Tech a lot of credit for their defense. Having said that, they weren’t guarding us as we’re shooting free throws and we’ve had a really good run of free throw shooting this past week and tonight we were horrific, but again we did a fair job on the board and we survived. The league is difficult.”
On the play of Chris Paul and Georgia Tech’s ability to keep him from scoring — “Well, the kid doesn’t dress in a phone booth. Georgia Tech, give them credit, did a masterful job on him the first time we played them and tonight was more of the same. They run a lot of very athletic kids at him and I thought having said all that, that drive at the end of the game, we couldn’t have drawn that up any better. While Georgia Tech certainly played very well against Chris, it was a big time play by a big time player.”
On the play of Taron Downey — “Well, he’s steady and that’s what he does. He’s a guy who carried us to 25 wins last year, so it’s not like a shocking development when he plays well. Obviously we don’t have the kind of year we had last year without his hand on the throttle and I think with Chris in foul trouble, he did well.”
Georgia Tech head coach Paul Hewitt
“We got off to a bad start, obviously because of Justin Gray. He hit three deep threes and gave them a lot of momentum and a lot of confidence at the start of the game. We battled back, with the help of some very good play B.J. Elder. At the end, we made a critical mistake by not fouling, and that falls on me. Give Wake Forest credit; they finished the game strong.
On not fouling on Wake’s last possession “We didn’t have the right personnel matchups. We wanted to foul a particular player and he wasn’t in the game, and that’s my error. I tried to get Marvin’s attention and tell him to foul right away, but he didn’t hear me. They had four very good foul shooters in the game. Again, that’s my mistake, and I tried to tell Marvin to get a foul right away, but he didn’t hear. I think he had Chris Paul, who’s a very good foul shooter. Downey was the other guy who had the ball, and I tried to get Jarrett to foul, but they didn’t hear me. You need to extend the game at that point. I can’t put that on the kids.
“Fatigue really shouldn’t play a big part because of our depth. A big key to me was when they got in the double bonus. Our pressure was good tonight. We forced 14 turnovers in the first half, but you look up with 14 minutes to go in the game, and they’re already at six. That’s hard. That makes you have to play a little bit more passively. On a night when, offensively, it was obvious we didn’t have it. You’re not going to have it offensively every night so you’ve got to guard every night, but we have to be allowed to guard. We missed a lot of chippy stuff, shots we normally make, but you don’t worry about that. But you’ve got to make sure you guard every night.
NOTING GEORGIA TECH: B.J. Elder has averaged 21.8 points over his last five games . . . Jarrett Jack posted his second straight 20-point effort with 21 . . . Wake Forest is just the second team to shoot 50 percent or better against Tech this season. Wake’s 57.4 percent was the best by a Tech opponent since the Deacons shot 58.9 percent in the 2002 ACC Tournament.
Georgia Tech Player Quotes
Junior Guard B.J. Elder
(on the play of Justin Gray) — “He was unbelievable. He came out shooting the ball really well. If someone’s shooting like that, all you can really try to do is pressure them.”
(on the 17-point comeback) — “We knew that if we were going to get back into the game, we’d have to turn up the pressure defensively. We did that to some extent, however, they were still able to hit some tough shots. It takes a lot out of you. That’s why we talked about how we can’t get into a hole like that. Whether you’re at home or not, especially in this league, it’s tough to fight back, and when you do get back, to have the energy to take the lead and go ahead is really tough.”
(on moving forward) — “Every game is important. We have to put this behind us, and come out on Wednesday night.”
Sophomore Guard Jarrett Jack
(on Justin Gray’s hot start) — “He came out early and hit some big shots. We knew coming in that he was a very good shooter with a lot of range. We lost him a couple of times in transition, and he really got going.”
(on the 17-point comeback) — “It’s one of the things that’s hindered us throughout the season, getting down early and having to claw back in it throughout the whole game. Once you get there, you just fall a bit short, and that makes it that much worse.”
(on the importance of this game and moving forward) — “I think everybody knew what’s at stake in the conference and with both of us coming in tied for third place, we knew how big this would be if we could get this one, and we’d have NC State coming into our building on Wednesday night with a lot of momentum.”
