March 6, 2004
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– Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton
“I knew going into the game tonight that as a team we were entering uncharted waters with the importance of this game. There’s a certain mindset that you have to get into to win on the road and come away with a victory. Somewhere along the line, you start to mature. I was hoping tonight, with our backs against the wall, we’d be able to find it. Sometimes you have to take a hard knock and feel the pain to understand how bad you want it and tonight I hope that we can grow from the pain.”
“I give Georgia Tech a lot of credit, but at the same time, our ineptness on defense was obvious by the fact that they shot 60 percent as a team. It’s very tough for me to find positive things about this game, and hopefully after I watch the film, I’ll be able to find some positives. Right now, it feels like shot after shot just went in for them.”
“Georgia Tech deserved to win and my hat goes off to them for the year that they’ve had.”
“We have lived by the three all year, and we’ve been the best in the league at that shot. We had some good open looks, and haven’t really had much of an inside game all year. It would be nice if we had those type of players on our team, but we don’t. A.J. has some, but not enough for us to establish a consistent inside game. Normally, Tim misses 3 or 4, but then hits 6 or 7 in a row, but today he was in foul trouble in the first half. I can tell you that Florida State is going to have a tough time winning when Tim Pickett only plays 20 minutes. Maybe we have been depending on him too much because not having him today, we came up short.”
“On the defensive end, we’ve got to get sharper – Georgia Tech got people the shots that they wanted and you have to give them credit because they’ve been through a number of battles, and I’m sure Paul would tell you that they’ve lost a lot of similar ballgames in the last few years and hopefully in a few years we’ll be the same type team that can learn to win those games.”
Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt
“It’s nice to get to 9-7. In baseball, they say if you hit a little dribbler for a base hit, it looks like a line drive in the boxscore. That probably applies in this case. It’s a nice accomplishment for our players. Obviously I’m thrilled for Marvin Lewis to go out on Senior Day the way he did. It wasn’t, artistically, one of our best efforts, but Florida State had a lot to do with that. Their defense was very good, as they have been all year. But just to get to 9-7, I’m very pleased.
“He (Jack) was a big factor, but the guy that gave us some breathing room was Marvin Lewis. He really hit some big shots. We wanted to get some more looks for him in the last 6-7 minutes, but they did a good job of taking him away. Jarrett did a nice job. Eighteen points, 12 rebounds, a 6-to-1 assist-turnover ratio, I’m not sure he could play much better. But I wish he had made that last free throw. It seemed like that ball (last shot) was in the air forever.
“We can’t turn the ball over as much. I realize at this time of the year you’re playing against teams that know what you’re running and they’re overplaying, but I was disappointed at halftime.
[On Pickett] “He’s a great player. He’s got as much potential as anybody in this league. He reminds of Bobby Jackson, the kid that plays for Sacramento. He’s going to be a great pro.
“We’ve got to keep building momentum. Obviously we didn’t show it today, but I think we’ve been playing as well as anybody. Florida State really bogged us down. We’ve got to keep the momentum going, and we can’t turn the ball over as much.
[Should FSU be in NCAA?] “No question. You take anybody you want and bring them in this conference, and let’s see how they get out of here. I hope that we’re all proven right by the NCAA Tournament committee. I was talking to Gary Williams, and he said the league is as tough as it’s been in 15 years.
Georgia Tech Player Quotes
“Their defensive intensity was affecting us in the first half. Pickett was getting into the passing lane and we were making silly mistakes out there. We came back at halftime and regrouped and talked about if they go into the passing lanes, we needed to go backdoor.
On Tech’s seniors — “We’ve worked so hard this year and the seniors have done such a great job of being vocal leaders that we just wanted to send them off on a good note.
On Bynum not playing — “It was news to me this morning that he wasn’t playing. I really thought Will was playing until shootaround. Coach came and grabbed me and told me ‘you’ve got to make the long haul tonight’. I persevered; 37 minutes is not my usual, but I played through some fatigue and we got the “W”.
“The second half the coaches talked about maintaining our aggressiveness. In the first half, we played well defensively, it was offensively we played shaky. In the second half, we tried to keep pushing the ball and kept trying to get open shots.
On emotion of senior night: “It was emotional but at the same time it’s a confidence builder. We won at Duke, beat Clemson and now it’s our third win in a row going into the ACC Tournament. That builds a lot of confidence and now we have to feed off that.”
On FSU: “They had a week off and came out hard. They were excited and energetic to play, we just happened to pull it out.”
On the ACC Tournament: “Next week is one of those times where you try to play as hard as you can for 40 minutes. You don’t think about the Saturday game or Sunday game, you just think about one game at a time and go from there. It’s a little bit reassuring to know that we will have another season after the ACC Tournament and we’re just going to go there with a lot of confidence.”
On Marvin Lewis: “He stepped up and I guess he realized that he wasn’t going to get too many more shots on this court so we kept telling him to put it up. He was feeling good, and when Marvin Lewis is feeling good, you’ve got to get him the ball.”
On finishing 9-7 in the league: “It’s big. We haven’t gotten nine wins in the league in a couple of years and that gives us some momentum going into the ACC Tournament. It gets our spirits up a little bit and we’ll be ready when we go to Greensboro.”
On Jarrett Jack: “He was great. He stepped up when we really needed it. He hit the shots and he’s really become a really good point guard and we’re going to need that from him going down the stretch.
On following up the win at Duke with a win today: “It was very important because it showed that we started to develop a little consistency. There were times this year when we would win a big game and then come back and lose a game where if we’d played just a little bit harder, we could have won those. It feels good to get three in a row going into the ACC Tournament and gives us a little momentum.”
Georgia Tech Notes:
With Georgia Tech’s win and Wake Forest’s loss today, Georgia Tech assures itself of a third place tie in the ACC standings; the Jackets could be seeded anywhere from third to fifth, depending on tonight’s UNC-Duke game and a draw with Wake Forest . . . Tech’s nine ACC wins are its most since 1996, when the Jackets won the ACC regular season title at 13-3 . . . Jarrett Jack had a career-high 12 rebounds, the most rebounds by a Tech guard since Kenny Anderson’s triple-double (32 points, 12 rebounds, 18 assists) vs. Pittsburgh on Dec. 28, 1989. The last time a Tech guard had more was Brian Oliver with 13 vs. North Carolina A&T, Jan. 19, 1988 . . . Jack has averaged 16.0 points over the last six games.
