Nov. 8, 2013
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GEORGIA TECH HEAD COACH Brian Gregory
Opening Comments
First on Presbyterian – that’s a young team and you could see that in the first 18 minutes or so. Those young kids are going to be good and Greg does a good job with them. They rebounded well against us. The zone gave us some troubles. They’re very good because they’re able to spread the court and drive you.
I thought our guys handled their zone well throughout the game. I was a little concerned anytime you face a zone in your first game. We don’t play a lot of zone, so we don’t have a great comfort level at times, especially early in the year. But I thought our guys did a good of moving the ball, sharing the ball and really playing at a pace that was good for us. I thought the last couple minutes of the first half were big. Stacey Poole gave us a big lift energy-wise and we made a couple shots. And we started the second half and got a little better defensively.
A lot of positive things for us (tonight). I thought we shared the ball and took care of the ball, which was a point of emphasis over the last week and did a much better job the last 22 minutes in terms of going to the offensive glass. We’ll watch the film and figure out where we need to improve defensively, both individually and collectively.
We’ve got a very unselfish team. We share the ball, we move the ball, plus our big guys are good. Teams have to worry about the paint. When you do that, it opens up some driving lines, and some kick outs. We did a good job of moving the ball and getting some shots.
On the play of Travis Jorgenson
He didn’t have any assists in the first half, but he knocked down a couple threes – he was shot-ready. We moved the ball well, and he took advantage of it. To be a good shooter, you’ve got to be prepared to shoot. I thought Travis did a good job in terms of giving us a big spark off the bench. When he comes in, the game needs to play at a different speed, and I thought he did a good job of that.
On attacking Presbyterian’s Zone
We worked on that, knowing that they (Presbyterian) were going to play zone, and that a lot of teams will play zone. The No. 1 thing against a zone is to attack it before it’s set. Before you can that, if you get a stop and a rebound, it’s much easier. But even on made baskets, we did a good job of pushing it. We got into our early offense and flowed right into an action – it was a seamless transition from one phase of our offense to the next.
On the amount of foul calls
We weren’t ready to guard the ball though. We have to guard the ball better at the point of attack and we need to be in better help position off the ball. Our defensive system is based on one guy on the ball and four guys cover the ball. The guy on the ball has to guard it as if there’s no one behind him and the four guys off the ball have to be ready to help as if the guy can’t guard anybody. We have to get better at that.
PRESBYTERIAN HEAD COACH GREGG NIBERT
On the difference between this year’s game and last year’s…
“In the second half the really used their strength and pushed it out on us. We’ve got a real young team. We panicked. The first four minutes of that second half was real crucial. They came out and hit three shots and all of sudden it went from 10 to 16. Then we went down there wanting to be patient, and our offense we just went to fast, and it was an avalanche. The second half got away from us because we were just trying to go to fast. We missed some shots, but we just went too fast.”
On noticing a difference in the tempo of Georgia Tech from last year…
“Oh yeah. We were real patient last year. We ran that shot clock down every possession. I gave our guys a little bit more freedom, I felt like we’ve got a few more guys this year. We went way too fast, and give them the credit. They got us going too. We took some quick and really ill-advised shots against a very good basketball team.”
On what to tell your team after this game…
“I told them that give the first half we got down because we got impatient. We had the wrong guys driving it, we had a couple turnovers and pretty soon we were down 10 at halftime. What happens with a young basketball team is that we went out there and tried to get back on offense. We’re already down 16 points. We didn’t get any defensive stops or being more patient or doing any of the things right that we needed to do. They played a good offense and we didn’t play a good defense like we needed to against a good team. “
On Jordan Downing’s play tonight…
“Jordan is just one of the best shooters and he can get his shot off any time. He was 6-19 and that’s not good enough. He’s capable of going 10-19 and hopefully I think he just missed some easy shots. He got it going, started taking it to the rim and got fouled. He’s one of the best shooters I’ve coached in 25 years, but I think he can do more and become more of a complete player.”
Impressions of Travis Jorgenson…
“We saw him in that exhibition game and he was the difference maker for them in that exhibition game. He really hit some tough threes, and we didn’t expect that. We thought he was more of a driver, but they got a complete player in terms of him. If he can make the three, he can pass the ball to other player, he’s complete. That really hurt us in the first half when he made those two threes. He can pass, he can see the open man and now he can hit the three. He’s really, really good. Brian’s got a heck of They’ve got size in the post and there are going to have a heck of a team this year.
