Jan. 19, 2011
– GEORGIA TECH HEAD COACH Paul Hewitt
Opening statement
“I am very happy that we had another good performance defensively tonight. Right from the start I thought we were pretty sharp in what we were trying to do, take away their three-point shooting. I think offensively we threw the ball around a little bit, and they recognized it, we weren’t as sharp as we were the other night in terms of getting guys open and running the offense the way that we wanted to. I am happy that we got the win and now we are in a good position to play an important game up in Virginia.”
Hewitt on Iman Shumpert
“He had to do a little bit on his own today, I didn’t think he had as much help in terms of getting open. He created shots for himself and broke down the defense on his own a few times and created some shots for himself and Glen [Rice, Jr.] as well.”
Hewitt on the younger players
“I think they are learning their roles. They know them now, but I didn’t think we executed well in the first half. I thought we were throwing the ball around a little bit, so I was very pleased that we were up 18 at the half. They recognized it too when we walked into the locker room at halftime. They knew that they didn’t do nearly the job that they did against North Carolina.”
Hewitt on Daniel Miller “He is filling up the stat sheet and we talked about that after the Carolina game that his stat sheet is deceiving. We are going to keep running plays to him because I think offensively he is a good player and he is going to have to start finishing those plays around the basket. That will come with time. I have seen him do it in practice. We are going to try and go to him early and he has been catching the ball out a little further than I would like. I think he is recognizing it now. I know that even if he isn’t scoring he will get his hands on the ball getting steals, blocked shots, tipped passes, rebound well, block out well he is doing a lot of good things.”
FRESHMAN CENTER Daniel Miller
“We started off the game trying to get the ball to me, but I just couldn’t get anything to fall today so I tried to make up for it on defense. I am getting more comfortable and they will start falling. My role on the team right now is The Defensive Man. I just am trying to help the team; I need to make sure that my man doesn’t get a rebound. If I do that then I have had a good night. I know that I have to make up for a slow start on the defensive end with block shots and I got a few steals tonight out on the perimeter.”
JUNIOR GUARD Iman Shumpert
On the big men and how they affect the guards
“Lately, Daniel, Kammeon Holsey and Nate Hicks have all been setting really good screens. Early on the season, I don’t think we were doing that and the guards weren’t waiting to get set, guys were trying to dodge fouls. Now, we are just more in sync with each other. We are setting screens tighter and coming off of them better and guys are getting open and raising their shooting percentage.”
On the positive team energy
“Feeding off of each other’s energy is the best feeling in the world. One day we were down, after Clemson, but we just stayed together in that locker room and kept it close. We came back home, had a great crowd and everyone was just feeding off the energy. We kept the huddles tighter, talking more, no one’s energy died, the next practice was great. Everything is positive now.”
WAKE FOREST HEAD COACH JEFF BZDELIK
On the team’s shooting struggles
“The more we can see that ball go through that rim, the bigger that rim gets. When we struggled to make shots, even from the free throw line, that rim seems really small. You struggle with your confidence especially when you are a young team. We have good shooters. We had some open looks. We just didn’t make shots. I mean, in the first half, our two point guards, were 0-for-5 from the free throw line, which was indicative of the night we had shooting the basketball.”
On fighting through tough times
“Well, some of them are freshmen and have never gone through this; this is a new experience for them. I told them it takes courage and perseverance to not let people challenge your confidence right now during this time. I know Wake won last year, but this is a totally different team, there is nobody back from last year’s team that made last year’s team what it was. It is totally different, we are starting from scratch.”
On what he told his team
“I relayed this story that Jay Bilas told me several months ago, the story about when they were freshmen [at Duke] and they got beat by probably this kind of a margin. On the trip back to Durham, there were a lot of doubts, a lot of tears, but they stuck together, they persevered, and a couple of years later they had their moment. That is what I told our team.”
On his freshmen
“We have so many of them out there. There were several times, a majority of the time, that there were three, four freshmen out there at one time. Tony [Chennault], bless his heart, he is out there with not even a week of practice under his belt. It is an unforgiving league, no one is going to feel sorry for us, and we don’t expect that. We’ve got a huge game on Saturday.”
