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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 21, 2011

Paul Hewitt

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Georgia Tech Head Coach Paul Hewitt. A few comments about your team, then we'll open it up for questions.
COACH HEWITT: Obviously this is an important game for our team. Pleased with the effort of our big guys last night, which is something a thing we've been trying to get more production out of our bigs. Good job last night. Played a good first half. The second half just didn't play towards -- didn't play, stick to our game plan. And obviously Duke is a very good basketball team.
But, again, an important game for us Wednesday as we play Virginia.
THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. How big a player has Shumpert been for you this year?
COACH HEWITT: He leads us in every category. He's been extremely important. We rely very heavily on him. We've always known that he's a big-time defender. But he's rebounding the ball even better than I expected.

Q. The fact he's a gym rat, did you ever think he wouldn't improve as he went through his career?
COACH HEWITT: No, no, no, definitely knew he would always get better. Because again as you mentioned he's a guy that works at it.

Q. Paul, in what ways has Brian Oliver's absence hurt your team?
COACH HEWITT: He's a threat offensively. He's had some big 3-point shooting games for us. But also he's a physical presence around the basket.
And where we've missed him the most has been on the boards, actually. I didn't think I would say that. But since he's been out, we've been -- people have really been hitting us on the boards. And last night's game, in particular, gave up 16 second chance points. In addition to losing the threat that he presents offensively, just his physical presence in terms of boxing out and not mixing it up has been a thing that really stood out. And I wouldn't have told you that before he got hurt.

Q. Best case scenario, when does he come back?
COACH HEWITT: Best case, I would imagine would be Saturday. He's going to be reexamined tomorrow. They will make a decision whether they're going to take out the wires that they have in there, because the break apparently was in a very delicate spot.
If he's healed properly they could splint him and he could come back out. So best case could be Saturday.

Q. Want to ask about Iman again. Talking about him defensively, obviously had a couple of good games early on in the ACC schedule. Last couple seemed like he had a tougher time with Delaney and obviously Nolan last night. How much of that is just those guys being great players and maybe finding a way to adjust?
COACH HEWITT: I think both of those guys, as you mentioned, their first team All-American players. Nolan might be the Player of the Year. Delaney got off to a great start shooting the ball and rode it from there. I think the offense has been hurting us defensively. And people have been able to take advantage of the better players. Teams taking advantage of it.
Because we're not shooting the ball well. And when you don't shoot the ball well and you miss some of the 3s or some of the perimeter shots we've been missing, because we're pretty much a predominantly perimeter-oriented offensive team, that comes out long, rebounds, people get out in transition and it's tough to get set.
So no question that Iman, I think, is better than the numbers those guys posted. But I'm not sure it's all on him. I think it's more something has to do with our offense as well hurting our defensive transition.

Q. Someone else just asked Gary Williams a second ago about playing these Sunday night games and having especially when you're on the road and having a little bit of a lack of rest. How tough are those, especially when you are a road team. And what time did you guys get back last night?
COACH HEWITT: I want to say I got home about 1:15, 1:30. The kids probably got to the dorm about 12:45. It's tough. No question. I'm not a fan of it either. But it's the agreement we have and there's nothing really I can do about it.

Q. Last night Daniel Miller blocked five shots and seemed to be a force down low. Is that a breakthrough for him because he hadn't been blocking that many?
COACH HEWITT: You know, earlier in the year he had some games where he played with that type of force around the basket. Particularly the Carolina game is the one game that really pops into my mind. And last night he kind of reemerged if you will. It's something he's capable of doing. It's something that we absolutely need him to do game in, game out. He needs to be more consistent in terms of protecting the rim and boxing out and rebounding the ball.
I think when I look at the loss of Brian Oliver, the initial thing, you look at it, you say we're probably going to miss him from an offensive perspective. But I didn't realize we would miss him as much as we have on the boards. And a guy like Daniel, missing having another guy who has physical presence around the rim to keep people off the glass. So he doesn't have to work as hard and kind of conserve his legs and energy.
Now we got some good play out of Lance last night and good play out of Nate Hicks, and Daniel was pretty energized last night.

Q. Can you talk about the decision to redshirt him last year? Was that basically because you had so many talented guys up front?
COACH HEWITT: Yes. And it's something that he actually, he presented the idea. I mean, I was going to eventually bring it up to him as time went on. I wanted to see how preseason would go. But he redshirted from the beginning. He goes, coach, look, I'd be more than happy to redshirt. And he obviously, he did very well in the off season or last season in terms of practicing and improving his game. But also academically he got a year ahead. So graduation should be no problem for him at the end.

Q. Paul, the first time Virginia played, they ate a bunch of 3s. Obviously teams know that that's what they've got to do to win, and we saw again this weekend where they were 11 of 23 on 3s. It seems as if -- I guess your situation as well that if you're on -- you have a pretty good chance of winning, if you aren't, you don't. Defensively, how do you treat that?
COACH HEWITT: You've just got to make an emphasis to get out there, be there on the catch. The other part about it, if you get into a situation where you are just so worried about the 3 and you're closing out so hard, you're going to give up some drives which will create even better 3-point shots.
So we talked to our kids about making sure that you close out, you're there when the guy catches the ball and then you've got to guard. Because some of the 3s they got up at Charlottesville were the drive-and-kick variety. Quite frankly, they just made some tough shots. I watched the tape. They made some tough ones against us, especially in the first half. They shot -- I think they were 7 for 9, 7 or 8 -- you have them 7 for 9 after watching the tape. But not all of them, I think four of them were pretty well contested.

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