March 3, 2012
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Georgia Tech Head Coach Brian Gregory
Opening statement
“Great day for Georgia Tech all the way around. I was watching before our game and I heard it announced during the game, about MaChelle (Joseph) and the women’s team advancing to the (ACC Tournament) finals. That was great to see. I was able to watch their game a little bit yesterday. They’ve built a great program and have a chance to win the ACC championship, which is why everyone is in this. Congrats to them.
“Really proud of our guys’ effort that they gave – their competitiveness, their intensity that they played with was good. We forced 10 turnovers, won the battle on the glass, got 11 offensive rebounds. We just did a lot of good things, and even when things weren’t going great – there was a stretch there in the second half, a stretch there in the first half – we battled back. I think our team is starting to develop a little of that resiliency and camaraderie that’s so important in terms of building this thing to where we want it to be.
“I would be remiss not to mention Derek (Craig) and Nick (Foreman). Both played extremely well for us. You know the stats won’t show it, but their energy, their ability to kind of calm the storm in a couple of crucial situations was really important.”
On rebounding better vs. Wake
“(Kammeon Holsey) had seven rebounds for us, four big ones in the second half. We kind of gang-rebounded and did a pretty good job limiting them to only four offensive rebounds on 23 misses is pretty good. I thought Kam was good on the glass, as were a couple other guys.”
On Jason Morris
“The one thing with Jason is that he is still probably not 100 percent. He’s had a hard time going full in practice. But, he was aggressive with the ball. Sixteen shots might be a career high in terms of shots. But I don’t think he missed one shot when the ball went inside and was kicked out, or when if we ran an `action’ for him – he was really dialed in on that.
“I told him… sometimes he looks at me like I’m nuts, but I’ve told him he could be one of the best offensive rebounders in the ACC from that small forward position.”
On keeping McKie off the boards
“He only had one offensive rebound against us and I think that was on his own miss. He’s a good player. We had a hard time matching up with him at the three.”
Wake Forest Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik
Opening statement
“The difference in this game was simply the second half. I believe they had eight offensive rebounds and 20 points in the paint. When we did get them to miss, we simply gave them some second chance points. That was the difference.”
On Georgia Tech’s three-point shots in the first half
“To be quite honest with you, with the recent suspension of Ty Walker, and just the way our team has evolved, we don’t have much depth. As you saw, our two bigs, Carson (Desrosiers) and Nikita (Mescheriakov) fouled out in the second half, even with playing a great majority of the game in the zone. So we felt that if we were in a man-to-man situation, our lack of depth would have put us behind the eight ball. We knew they were capable of shooting three’s, but we also knew they had struggled at times. In the first half, we were able to do well, stay out of foul trouble and keep them off the free throw line. But in the second half, when they missed some three’s, they were able to get 8 offensive rebounds and got second chance points. Then they threw in a couple of timely three’s as well.”
