Jan. 28, 2018
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GEORGIA TECH HEAD COACH Josh Pastner
Opening statement:
“You have to give Clemson credit. Great win for them. I thought it was a well-played game by both teams. That’s life in the ACC. It’s not the first time this has happened to us in the two years here in the ACC where I thought we played well and lost the game. We played well for the most part. I thought what hurt us was two things: We had that lead in the first half and that’s kind of been one of our things this year, we just haven’t been able to bury a team and part of that is youth and understanding of that; and the second thing is that start of the second half. [Elijah] Thomas got a couple of buckets on Ben [Lammers], and then we got a little cold there and that was the difference in the game. The reason we had a chance to win the game, or tie the game, was because we took care of the ball for the most part and only had nine turnovers – three in the first half and six in the second…. Bottom line is it was a well-played game by both teams and obviously Clemson came out on top.”
On having a four-point play at the end of another first half:
“Curtis Haywood II is a freshman but he’s got to know better. But what I will say is in the last game against Florida State, even though they called a four-point play, the league (ACC) did send us a note that it should’ve been an offensive foul on Florida State and they used that clip for a training video for the rest of the officials…. That being said, that’s our third four-point play in the last four games and they’ve all been in key situations at the end of halves.”
On Josh Okogie‘s performance tonight (26 points, six rebounds, four assists):
“The one thing with him is like that one last play where he got fouled and he got to the free-throw line to tie it up, he just willed us to get to the free-throw line. We threw a great pass to Brandon [Alston] who had a great look and then Josh keeping up with the offensive glass there, his effort and his motor, it was just an internal will to find a way. I’m proud of him for that.”
On the two back-to-back turnovers that led to a four-point swing and Jose Alvarado‘s performance:
“Those pick-sixes have bitten us in the butt. And as well as we took care of the ball, those are two big turnovers because it’s back-to-back and they’re both pick-sixes. But Jose made that pass and again, those are just the things that he’s going to have to continue to improve on. Now, he did a much better job tonight of not picking the ball up early, he kept his dribble alive. And the other thing is when he had a bad shot, he went in there and tried to go against the trees instead of making the right play. But he’s tough. And as tough as he is, you’re going to live with some mistakes along the way.”
CLEMSON HEAD COACH BRAD BROWNELL
Opening statement:
“We didn’t play very well early and I certainly thought Georgia Tech had a lot to do with that. I thought that they were really sharp offensively in the first 12 minutes. We couldn’t stop them. Disappointed in our team because we practiced and I thought we were ready and we just didn’t play the game the right way. But to our guys credit, we battled back. Gabe DeVoe was great in the first half. He obviously made a bunch of deep three’s against the zone and that kept us in the game until we kind of settled in a little bit and scored a little bit in different ways. Obviously, Marcquise Reed was good in the second half and I thought he played great down the stretch. Just a really hard-fought, tough win by our guys. Really proud of them.”
On the matchups the last two times down the court on offense:
“Not really. Josh [Pastner] knows his team better than I do and obviously [Abdoulaye] Gueye did a good job on the first one and Marcquise made a heck of a play on the second one. It’s just hard. Good players are hard to guard. Josh Okogie for them. It is hard for us to guard anybody with one man. You just try to put somebody on there, obviously they tried to use a guy with some size and back it up with [Ben] Lammers at the rim. Which seems like a good plan to me. Marcquise just happen to make a great play.”
On how big the win was for his team after the last week:
“This was good. We’ve obviously had to deal with a lot of things here with Donte [Grantham] who is really our leader and probably our best player in terms of everything he does. But our guys have continued to battle and we have to change some things in how we play, not drastically, but you know there are some subtleties that Donte brings to our team. That is why he is unique, he’s 6-8 and does a lot of different types of things that just most people don’t have guys that can do that … I was really proud with the way our guys competed tonight. We just hung in there. It didn’t go well for a long time and then all of a sudden you look up and we’re only down two at the half. Probably felt fortunate to be only down two. We felt like we were in good position to win the game if we could play a better second half and I thought we did.”
On Gabe DeVoe’s performance:
“Well he was terrific in the first half. Obviously, he’s a good player. He’s a senior and he’s been in our program a long time. He’s battled tested. He shot it great from range tonight, especially when we were struggling against the zone. I thought that the longer the game went on, he started to make some other plays that were really good. Our backcourt guys here played really well.”
