Nov. 13, 2015
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GEORGIA TECH HEAD COACH Brian Gregory
Opening statement
“I thought we got off to a good start. And give Cornell credit, they did a good job stretching the court and spreading the court and shot the ball very well in the first half. They came out and got a couple quick 3’s on us. I was pleased with the way our guys responded to that after they cut it to two (66-64). We just knew we had to play a little better defense and guard the ball better. We made an adjustment on the ball-screen coverage and our guys responded to that. Offensively we’re much improved and we’re going to keep getting better because our guys are just starting to feel their way on that. I’m really pleased with the first game – doing a lot of good things with 30 assists, six turnovers, 20 offensive rebounds on only 30 missed shots – that’s pretty good. We’ve got to get a lot better defensively, but today was a good step.”
On team’s depth
“We’re going to have to sacrifice a little bit, because we’re going to have to play different ways. We went smaller in the second half and guys have to be okay with that because we’ve got to figure out the best chance for us to be successful and that was to go with a little smaller line-up. It helped us on our ball-screen coverage and we wore them down a little. There will be games we have to play big, too. Our depth is important but our versatility in that depth is something we have to embrace.”
On team scoring 116 points
“I said on the radio that I guarantee there wasn’t one person that was at the game or listened on the radio that ever thought they’d hear “a Georgia Tech team coached by Brian Gregory just scored 116 points.” That’s a guarantee.”
On the play of the big men, especially Charles Mitchell
“He did a good job in the areas outside of scoring the 21 and getting the 11 rebounds. Obviously he’s a different athlete because of his conditioning. I thought Ben (Lammers) did a lot of good things for us and he can play even better. Nick (Jacobs) is a guy that can really help us. When they went with the stretch lineup, that’s an area he can really improve in. James (White) did a good job. He’s kind of feeling his way. He’s the one player on the ream that wasn’t with us this summer. So he’s a little behind in some of the stuff, which is fine because his effort level and energy level makes up for it.”
CORNELL HEAD COACH BILL COURTNEY
Opening statement
“They’re a lot better than us right now. It’s not to be totally unexpected. They’ve got seniors galore, and we don’t have a senior in our group that plays. They’re a much improved ball club over last year. I think you can see it in the way they shot the basketball. They look like they gel well together. And we’re not quite there yet. You know, hoping our young team can continue to grow and learn from this. It’s a process and we understand we’re going to have some bumps in the road. And this is part of our growing pains.”
On if he was surprised by the fast pace of play tonight
“We kind of saw it in the trip to the Bahamas. We’ve seen that they were trying to pick up the tempo a little bit and play a little bit faster. And that’s the way we have to play because we’re so small that we’re going to push the tempo. And whenever you come into to play an ACC opponent that has the kind of athletes they have, you know they’re going to try to take advantage of that athleticism. I kind of knew that they were going to try to push the basketball. I knew it would probably be a high-scoring, high-paced game. I think I predicted this morning it was going to be 195 points and I think it was more than that. So, it was a very high-paced game. I wasn’t very surprised by it.”
On what happened after Georgia Tech’s lead was cut to single digits
“We made a couple bad decisions on the offensive end. We tried to make what I call `hero plays’ a little bit. In our first half, we moved the basketball, made the extra pass, had a high assist total at the half, made our three-point shots, and got wide-open shots. I thought they made a great adjustment, especially on [Robert] Hatter, of kind of closing down the lane a little bit after his first two buckets in the second half. I thought Brian [Gregory] did a great job of getting those guys in the paint and slowing him down a little bit. And then we didn’t make the right decisions. So we turned the ball over a lot during that stretch, and they got hot and made some threes. And our turnovers led directly to baskets. And that’s what a good team is supposed to do; they’re supposed to put you away if you shoot yourself in the foot.
On Charles Mitchell’s ability to score in the paint
“That’s an Achilles heel for us. We know that. We have to not allow the ball to go in because we’re small. He’s a very skilled post player. Him and Nick Jacobs are both guys that if they’re one-on-one, they can make jump-hooks and short jump shots. And those are things that are tough to guard for anybody. I think any team in the country is going to have trouble with those guys. But our lack of size is something that we won’t see quite that exaggerated during our games this year, but it was clearly a big difference tonight–their size and their athleticism. At times, we boxed them out and they just literally jumped over us.
