Nov. 21, 2005
– GEORGIA TECH HEAD COACH Paul Hewitt
“I don’t think we played a great ballgame but certainly give Elon credit. We talked about the fact that they were going to run their offense very well and going to screen very well. We worked a lot the last couple of days on how to play when you are screened. In the first half, we did a good job, but the second half we did a very poor job.
“It’s possession to possession. You want to them to learn to try to win every single possession. You might not win each possession every game, but we talk about putting yourself in position to win every possession, every game. I think there were times tonight we didn’t play to win every possession tonight.
“Anthony Morrow is a high-energy guy. So is Jeremis Smith, so is Mario West, and we need to get everybody to that same energy level. Anthony didn’t particularly shoot the ball tonight as well as he is capable but he went to the offensive boards to get himself started. That’s what high energy guys do. They don’t sulk when things aren’t going right for them, they go find another way. Thank goodness he went and got three rebounds and three stickbacks to get us a little cushion. If he doesn’t do that, who knows what might have happened. I think the energy level of this team is very important. You don’t win basketball games on talent alone. Talent is important, but it comes down to execution and playing with energy on every single possession.
“We said at the beginning that each game would get progressively more difficult. Certainly Elon played a better game than we saw on Friday, and Illinois-Chicago should be the best team we’ve played so far. But that’s not take anything away from Ernie Nestor’s team. Elon did a very good job tonight.”
ELON HEAD COACH ERNIE NESTOR
Did you make any adjustments at halftime?
“No, not at all. We didn’t change anything but just sorta called our guys to task and encouraged them to do the things that we practice and to play with more intensity and to put bodies up to penetration and to block out better. I thought that we still had some breakdowns but we did some good things in the second half.”
“Our kids are playing hard and they are giving good effort and we just didn’t make enough shots. I thought we got some good looks but we just didn’t knock the shots down. The first thing to have a good offense is you have to get good shots. I thought we got those shots but know you got to make them and right now we are at a stage where we aren’t making enough of them to be beat a team of this quality and athleticism.”
“We got some of those looks in the first half, but they were hurried. You are going to get those looks if you take the first shot available but you have to work the defense and make them work a little bit because if you don’t you make the game a tempo game and it’s get in a tempo where we can’t play. There’s no question if you look at the two teams, the more athletic team is who we played. So what we have to do is control the tempo and I didn’t feel like we did a very good job of that in the first half particularly.”
What did you do to control Morrow and Clinch in the second half?
“Well, they just got away from us some in the first half and we had some bad pickups. But I thought we got into our doubles and had some good rotation in the second half which allowed us to keep them from scoring.”
