Nov. 18, 2016
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GEORGIA TECH HEAD COACH Josh Pastner
Opening Statement:
“Tough loss but for us there were some positives, some negatives. We went in talking the entire time about you got to take the three out, we did a good job the first half. The second half No. 13 [Kenny Kaminski] got loose a couple times and hit a couple big shots which changed the complexion of the game. That was the big difference right there, Kaminski’s threes.
“Offensively, I didn’t like our pace, if we’re not going to be a three-point shooting team, which we haven’t been, we have to be able to get to the free throw line a lot more. That’s one of our goals, our made have to be more than the opponent’s attempted. If Ohio shoots 16 free throws then our made minimum has to be 16 or 17. We were attacking the paint on some areas but we can’t hope that the referee is going to call a foul or hope that the ball is going to go in, that’s not the right strategy. We’ve got to go in there and be tough enough to finish around the hoop.
“I love the fact that we did a better job on the glass, we only had 11 turnovers. Our pace has just got to be better. Justin Moore had eight assists, no turnovers which I was really proud of. He did a good job defensively, there are some areas obviously with his shooting that we’ve just got to get better with him at. Ben Lammers had a double-double; it probably wasn’t an efficient double-double because you can’t have 19 shots and 22 points, 19 shots you need to be having about 30-plus. He gives you a lot on the glass there. [Lammers] and Josh Okogie had six turnovers between the two and zero assists so that hurts you. Other than that we’ve just got to get back, keep working, keep getting better, keep improving. This will be a work in progress, that’s part of it. We’ll continue to improve and get back on the practice floor and hopefully try to get a win on Tuesday.”
On Ben Lammers getting tired:
“He played 38 minutes, I was going to ride with Ben, that’s the type of guy I am. I’m going to go with guys and if I feel someone is going then I’m just going to go with them and if he’s earned my trust on that then I’m going to let him play through mistakes. He’s just got to be tougher and when he’s tired he’s got to be able to make plays even though he’s tired.”
On the offensive efficiency in the second half:
“I thought we got stagnant, I thought our cuts became slower. I thought we had indecisiveness. We were looking too much to me to make a call every time down and I don’t like doing that. We’ve practiced just playing with flow, just playing and attacking and getting the ball moved. I think we got a little down in that situation and we’ve practiced late game situations but this was the first time when we were in a situation where it was under three, four, five minutes in that stretch where it’s a one possession game or we are up one, down one and I think there was some indecisiveness. But I think that’s going to be part of us watching film and getting better and continuing to improve so that next time when we are in that situation, we come out with a victory.”
On any positives or lessons coming out of the game:
“Our margin of error is none, we don’t have any margin or error. We are a team that is game-by-game, possession-by-possession, we’re very young. We are a team that is just going to get better in time. We’re just going to improve as the season goes on because the more game experience that we have, the better for everybody. Our most game experienced guy before the season started was probably Josh Heath. All these guys getting the minutes right now is going to help them later on as the year progresses.”
OHIO HEAD COACH SAUL PHILLIPS
Opening statement:
“I’ll start out by just saying I love what you’ve done with the place. I was here a long time ago. It’s beautiful. What is the trendy word? Retrofit? Whatever … they did it right and I think between this facility, Josh (Pastner’s) ability to recruit, the attractiveness of this job, a lot of good things are going to happen. But we’ve got a really veteran team, a junior point guard that’s really good and a senior center that there’s a reason NBA teams are coming to watch him and I think you’ve got a bunch of guys on the other side that are just getting to know each other. If you play this game in another two months, it might have a different outcome. But I thought it really came down to we got stops down the stretch when we needed them and I thought we did a reasonably good job of closing out the game on the offensive end. Again, I don’t think there’s any mistake that going through it before helped us a lot there and I think Georgia Tech will do nothing but get better in that department.”
On Ohio’s offensive performance:
“Listen, they disrupted us. We’re much better offensively than we showed tonight but that had everything to do with them and their length … We had 15 threes in the last game [and] they did as good a job as anybody of getting appropriate help to [Antonio] Campbell on the screen-and-roll and yet still covering the shooters in the corners. We struggled for the longest time to get that going and I think, as the game wore along, they probably had a few missed assignments there with some younger guys and some things happen. But I thought it was a very good basketball game. I thought both teams played pretty well. We’ll beat some people this year now and I don’t want people to get confused about what this means for the rest of Georgia Tech’s season. They’re going to be fine.”
On Georgia Tech’s Josh Okogie:
“I really think his future is extremely bright. I’m Captain Obvious here but he really stands out on tape and I think he is the kind of guy that you start to build your foundation for getting going here. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what we were going to do to take him away and how did we do? We did good. Super. Honestly, his stat line, I didn’t even look at it. I didn’t mean to be a smart aleck. Wow. Nice job, Jordan Dartis.”
On what Ohio tried to do to contain Okogie:
“Shrink the court around him. I think going into the game, they had made seven threes. We really tried to make sure our help was a little exaggerated, our digs were a little bit exaggerated. But just as importantly with him, making sure we had multiple bodies out in front of him in transition because him and [Tadric] Jackson really could’ve posed us a problem if we’re playing them one-on-one in an open court. I don’t think we could stay in front of them in a one-on-one competition. We needed more bodies in there.”
On Ohio’s experience giving it an edge:
“No question. We’ve been through a lot of these before and our guys have a lot of confidence in themselves. There’s no question that one of the biggest narratives in this game is that we’ve got guys that have played a lot together and played a lot of college basketball games.”
