Georgia Tech Head Coach Josh Pastner
Opening statement:
“Couple of things: Number one, kind of what James said, they’re really proud of James [Banks III] on the five assist and only one turnover. He’s had a little bit of an issue with turning the ball over, so him having five assists and only one turnover is a great thing. He made some great reads from the low block and from the high post. I want to give two shout-outs to the new [Georgia Tech head] football coach in coach [Geoff] Collins. I’m really excited for him to join the team. Lot of excitement and I know he’s going to do a great job and continue to build on what coach [Paul] Johnson and on all the success he has had here. I’m really excited for coach Collins to be part of the team. I want to give a great shout-out to Atlanta United – great championship win last night, that’s awesome. And then also to [Georgia Tech women’s basketball] coach [Michelle] Joseph, this is hard to do, she got her 300th win about a week ago or so. I want to give a great recognition to her because that’s a lot of wins and good for her to be able to do that.”
“Regarding us, I really believe Khalid Moore is going to be a really good player. It’s interesting. He wasn’t even ranked in the top 200 kids. If you looked at the recruiting publications he was ranked as a mid-major player. He’s gotten better and I’m just telling you he’s going to be really, really good. I think he’s got a chance to be a really good player, and you can see him continue to get better. He’s got a chance to be a high-level guy. Overall, we did some good things executing wise, but we had seven three-stops in a row this afternoon. I thought we should have more but, we have put some much emphasis on that. This team (Florida A&M) came in shooting almost 40 percent from three, and we held them to 18 percent. They run good stuff, but we really guarded well.”
On the importance of defense for the team this year:
“Right now, we are sitting first in the ACC in three-point defense and field goal percentage defense. We’ve got to hang our hat on the defensive side of the ball – that’s who we are, it’s what we are. My first year here, we were an elite defensive team. Last year, we were probably a solid to good defensive team and we didn’t win as much as we needed to. And this year, for us to have success, we’re going to have to be again near a defensive team. That’s who we’ve got to be. With that, hopefully offensively, we can continue to get better and execute play at a high level. As we did shoot 50 percent from the field and 40 percent from three [tonight].”
On freshman Khalid Moore’s career performance:
“He’s a high-level guy. He’s just a high-level player. He’s a very good student. Both his mom and dad don’t mess around academically and he takes care of his business. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. His mom is very high up there in the treasury department so the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. He’s a highly intelligent young man and he’s going to be a really good basketball player. He’s got a very, very bright future.”
On team’s length:
“We’re not big-girthy wise, but we are long and we have very good length. And so we got to utilize our length. Multiple coaches that we’ve played have come up to me after the game and have said, ‘it’s hard to recognize it on tape but watching you guys your length makes a difference, playing it in a live situation.’ So, we’ve got to utilize our length and that’s part of the reason we have been OK defensively. We do have a small guard in Jose [Alvarado] and I want to make sure we have good length because in this league, in the ACC, I do think length matters – especially at the guard and wing spots. We’ve tried to navigate through that.”
Florida A&M Head Coach Robert McCullum
Opening statement:
“We just got outplayed and outworked across the board. Their size and length… it just dominated. The first three possessions just set the tone. We missed two layups and a little jump hook shot in the paint. Once we missed those opportunities we just lost confidence and it went the other way. From that point on it wasn’t in doubt.”
On Georgia Tech’s length:
“It did. And inside… those layups we should have competed. Those layups were from our power forward and our center and that set the tone.”
On seven-game road trip:
“Two of those will be conference games. We’ve got this one, three more before Christmas and then one after. But then the next two are conference games on the road. We’ve dealt with that before. It’s kind of part of what our league has to do is play those guarantee games. It’s kind of part of it.”
“We look at it from an academic standpoint that four of those games are when classes are over. So we won’t miss any class time and that’s the biggest issue.”
On takeaways from the game:
“You try to find some positives. We had some guys come off the bench and fight. That was about it.”
