Feb. 9, 2013
– Georgia Tech Head Coach Brian Gregory
I was really pleased with the focus we came out with. We are young and getting better and the veterans have been taking on new roles. The one thing about our team is that we don’t let anything bother us, we just keep plugging along. We had a tough loss on Tuesday night against a good team, but we didn’t play as well as we would have liked. We had a couple practices and came out today and played well on both sides of the ball.
Our defense is usually pretty good. When we miss a couple of the open ones that we seemed to be so open. We changed up some different things and our guys were dialed in and again to be honest, they just played at 9 p.m. on Thursday so we took advantage of that.
We are a much better team then when we played them, but I think they are too. They have lost a lot of close games at the end and it is hard in this league. Those are hard to bounce back from. Thursday night was a game that they could have won and it is tough to bounce back from those. I am proud of our guys because we played competitively.
Green… You have to stop him in transition; he blasted us in transition last game. We changed up some ball screen coverage. But you can’t stop him. He is that good. You just have to make him earn that and I think we did a good job at that.
As I said, I know sometimes that your record determines things but he is the Player of the Year in this league. I think we get to vote now so he is getting my vote. He has been tremendous all year long. He’s just not a scorer, he creates shots for other people, he is unselfish and he plays hard every play. I just really respect the kid. Especially if you look at the progression, which is what college basketball is all about.
We have three freshmen that are play a good amount of minutes and those guys need to learn from him. What he did, and give him credit, he got better every year. In this day and age you don’t see that very often.
Virginia Tech Head Coach James Johnson
We just got to do a better job finishing games. I thought that we had some guys that fought and we just didn’t have it in our legs. The message was that we have to have some guys playing better and to just keep on fighting.
9 p.m. turn around… It impacted us a little bit. But it did affect us but we cant make excuses. Everybody has to go through it in the league and we just can’t let that affect us but we have a short bench.
Eddie… I am trying to build a program and I have certain expectations on and off the floor. He let his play frustrate him and he is all right. That is something that we have to look at going on to the next play. He just let his frustration get in his way.
Will Johnston was playing well too. And I thought Will was being a little more productive. He made a mistake and it is over and we are going to move forward. I talked to him about it and with the team so we are going to move forward.
Erick… He was exhausted and was out of gas. He just had nothing in the tank. His calf has been bothering him and I could just see that he was really worn down.
He has put himself in the position that he is in unbelievable shape. About three or four games ago I saw him wear down. I didn’t think it would get to this point but he has been having to do so much for this team, but I thought he did a great job.
9 Min stretch… We did a good job with defense once we made a couple adjustments from the first half. We tightened a few things up and got some stops, I think it was an 11-point game at that point. I think at that point was a little bit of Green wearing down. Robert made an effort to get in there and make some plays but it just didn’t go down for him.
Disappointment of supporting cast… I wouldn’t say disappointed. Those guys are really trying. Its just a little frustrating when you are out there and trying to get certain things going and it’s just not working for them.
You have a guy like Green that you want a lot of stuff to go through him. But sometimes you can’t go through him. The defense is running certain things where its not there and it is a little frustrating there, but those guys are trying.
It is special to have a guy out there like Green on the floor, but you have to have other guys especially in the league that have to step up.
