Jan. 7, 2012
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GEORGIA TECH HEAD COACH Brian Gregory
Opening Statement
“We saw a much better effort today. I talk to our guys every day and tell them that they are in complete control and no one should affect their attitude, effort and energy level. In those three areas our guys did a tremendous job today. It is a situation where, because of those three, a lot of other good things happened as well. You just hope that we understand and learn from that. I am pleased and proud of the effort our guys gave and the reseliancy that they showed in the first half. At the same time, it is another step in this process that we are going to go through together that we can build on. When you play with that energy and that team attitude, it doesn’t always guarantee success, but in the long run you are going to be highly successful. Our guys don’t always buy into that but that is where we are at right now. We played against a highly talented and very well coached team and we put ourselves into a position where we could win in the last three minutes.”
On being aggressive
“One of the things you have to do is attack the basket. They are going to pressure you and get into you but you have to rip through and attack the basket. Once you break that pressure, you have to make good decisions with the ball and I thought we did that throughout the game. Again, how we define our program and identity with the rebounding and defense and taking care of the ball, we held them to 27 percent from the three, we outrebounded, and we only had 13 turnovers. You just scratch your head and say how can this be so different against other teams. That is where we are at right now. We have to do it every day to find consistency as a program.”
On coming close in the loss to Duke
“I told our guys, this is Georgia Tech, the tradition is one of the best. There are no moral victories at Georgia Tech. We don’t feel good because we came close. We also understand that the steps that we need to take as a program where this is the way we should play night in and night out. In terms of importance in building confidence, it would have been a lot better if we won the game, but what our guys need to understand is that we have to play the same Monday in practice that we played tonight because that is what all the good programs do.”
On practicing and “special teams”
“We have been practicing better. We are a much different practice team then we were three months ago. Unfortunatley, because of where we are at it doesn’t always equate to wins. We are getting better, it is not where it needs to be though. And we have a little greater attention to detail. Especially in conference play, taking away a teams’ baseline out of bounds play where they don’t score any points today on that, that is big. It is the special teams of basketball, and we all know how important special teams are now. The guys are more dialed in. We just have to keep doing it.”
DUKE HEAD COACH MIKE KRZYZEWSKI
Opening Statement
“We won a terrific game. I thought both team played really well. Welcome to the ACC. Brian’s (Gregory) team was well prepared. Crowd was good. I thought we started out great. We had a chance to go 20,15 up. We had some open looks and when we didn’t knock those open looks down I think we showed a lack of experience. I think we came down on the defensive end still thinking about the open shot we missed and then there’s Glen Rice (Jr.) and he’s open and he’s hit a three. Once Rice got going, I thought Tech got going. He’s a high level player, a high level athlete. He made some shots where I thought we had good defense on. Once he got going he was really good. Udofia, I thought he played one of his best games this year. I watched about 6 of their games before this and I like him a lot. He’s a great kid and he got a rhythm also. I thought they played well. We had to play really well to win and there was a lot of game pressure on at the end to see our guys respond that way is terrific. This was our first ACC game and we started two freshmen. I know people think of Duke and we’ve got these chiseled guy who are All-Americans right away and that doesn’t happen. You have to gain your experience and I thought Quinn Cook played a great game on the road against a very athletic perimeter. The way he started was why we started so well I think. I thought he gave us a great verb. Our foul trouble and lack of defensive rebounding gave us trouble in the first half. Tech’s a really good rebounding team and they’ve outrebounded most of their opponents I think. They beat us by twelve today but they had ten offensive rebounds in the first half. Ryan (Kelly) was terrific to go 14 for 14 and at the end 10 for 10. Our best play was to say Mason if they score get it into Ryan. That was the best play I called all day. Good thing they saved a seat for me on the plane. I got one thing right today. We’re proud of our effort and we beat a really good team who I think had a great effort against us.”
After the Temple game what did you want to see out of your team
“Temple’s really like the end of 14 nonconference games. We’ve played a hellacious schedule. We wanted to make sure we don’t judge what we’ve done by one game and rather take a look at the collection of what we’ve done and we have to be better defensively on the perimeter. We’re small on the perimeter. When you have Quinn (Cook) and Seth (Curry) and really Austin (Rivers) who could be a point or combo playing at the other wing. Athletic perimeters have hurt us. That was one of the reason we lost against Temple besides playing against a very well coached team. We have to keep getting better at that. We’re not going to grow physically, we’ve got to grow in technique and physically.
Did you expect a challenge out of Tech today
“Yes. This is my 32nd year in the league and this is his first ACC game. I try to put myself in the first ACC game I ever coached and I was ready. It didn’t matter what I had done before and I wanted my team to represent me and the program I was trying to build in an appropriate way. I knew that we would get a great effort from our team and also his background is of championship build and his team is going to play that way. We expected them. There’s no overlooking or anything. We’re not that good. We’re good, but we’re not that good to overlook anybody. We’ll be in sad shape if we start overlooking anybody.”
