Feb. 3, 2013
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Georgia Tech Head Coach
Brian Gregory
Opening Statement
“I have an unbelievable amount of respect for Tony (Bennett) and that program, and that’s what it is. He has a great program. The teams are always going to be good, and he’s developed a great program at Virginia. So for me, this win really has an impact. They’ve been playing extremely well — probably the best the out of anybody in this league outside of Miami. For us to tough-out that win was a good sign. You have to learn how to do that. We’re not there yet. The game at Clemson was disappointing, but it didn’t mean we weren’t making progress. That’s the most important thing. This win today doesn’t mean we’re there. We have a long way to go. You keep looking at the steps you’re taking, and that individual players are taking and you’ve got to be pleased with the progress. Sometimes it ends up with a win like it did today, and sometimes it doesn’t and that’s hard for the young guys and the team in total. I like our guys’ demeanor, I like their resiliency and I like the spirit they attack every day, and we’ve got to get better at that. Sometimes it all comes to together and that happened today.”
On bouncing back after close loses….
“I’d like to say it’s going to get our momentum going. Where we’re at now in the process, you can’t be for sure unfortunately. You have to learn how to compete hard every single day. We’re getting better at that. The next step is you have to be competitive on a nightly basis in this league. I think we’re getting close to that. Then you have to be able to win on a nightly basis in this league, and then you have to be challenging for a championship and that’s down the road. We’re taking the right steps.”
“We did not finish out the half well again. I talked to the guys at halftime, we made a couple adjustments and give the guys credit; we went out there and on the fly made those adjustments. I told them, we’re going to get this game into the last two minutes. We’re going to do it different then the last two minutes of this first half. We’re going to execute well, defend well and we’re going to end up winning this game in the last two minutes. I reminded them of that during a timeout with two minutes to go, and those guys went out and did it. Give the guys get the credit. They showed that togetherness that you need; the toughness that you need. They made the plays that needed to be made and hopefully we can grow from it.”
Chris Bolden’s play down the stretch…
“We need our guards on the glass e very single play, and he did do a good job. I thought his aggressiveness on offense was good. He knows, and Marcus (Georges-Hunt) knows that we need them to be aggressive and make good decisions with the ball. I thought they did for the most part and I thought their defensive was exceptional as well. (Paul) Jesperson goes 1-for-3; I thought Marcus did a good job on (Joe) Harris especially in the second half. They’re going to be good players in this league.”
On Robert Carter’s block late in the game…
“Monster. It’s just activity – being active. What happens when you play Virginia is that the second you relax, they get ya. The minute you get out of your stance, they get ya. Boy it’s hard. Robert did a good job, because he was in good position and he came up with that block.”
Virginia Head Coach
Tony Bennett
On Georgia Tech beating Virginia to the 50-50 balls…
“Sometimes it’s just strength, strong hands, go grab it. They really every time they got a loose ball they seemed to really capitalized, whether it was a quick put back or a three, some of them I don’t know if our guys thought they had them and quit on the play, but that hurt. I’ll look on the tap and see if it was an effort thing. I certainly hope not because there were some good stretches where you play that hard for defense and then the last bit the most important part to finish the play wasn’t there. I thought Georgia Tech played a good second half. I thought they did a good job and guys made some plays. When you’re on the road and we had some good rhythm going, I thought we needed to come up with those.”
On scoring on one of the last 14 possessions…
“They started locking a little more on Joe Harris. I thought we got some pretty good looks and maybe that’s just a cop out for not good offense, but I thought some rhythm threes, some finishes by Akil Mitchell that were point blank, where either they made a nice athletic play or we just couldn’t finish. I thought the quality of the shots were there. I don’t know how many we turned over at the end, but there were some looks there that were point blank. Obviously six turnovers for Joe Harris is way too many. In the first half we had that rhythm, but Harris had that offensive foul and we can’t afford that again. Joe Harris and Jontel Evans accounted for 10 of the 14 turnovers that’s too many.
On the team still learning…
“I knew that Georgia Tech was going to make a run. I thought the way we started the second half bothered me because we played some good basketball in that first half with nice rhythm and good plays particularly. It’s those little areas that are so costly to a team that isn’t explosive offensively. We can’t afford to have lapses whether it’s not picking up loose balls, missing free throws or a careless turnover to overcome that. On the road you have to be sound. We talk about sustaining your effort through the whole possession throughout the game. I thought that our lapses we could not overcome. We still had a chance, but whether it’s inexperience, a couple of those were from experienced guys where we had breakdowns.”
On taking the lead in the second half…
“I thought if we could just get good shots and make them earn and finish the play. I think that cost us more than anything with some of those points that you just can’t get back, where some of those possessions I thought we controlled it, but obviously we didn’t the last bit, that’s where they capitalized either going through our hands or them being quicker to a 50-50 ball.
