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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 28, 2011

Seth Greenberg

THE MODERATOR: We have with us Virginia Tech head basketball coach Seth Greenburg. Coach, if you could, a few comments about your team, then we'll open it up for questions.
COACH GREENBERG: Obviously we're excited about what we were able to accomplish this weekend. Right now we have to have our feet firmly planted in the present. That's the most important thing for our team. We need to validate our play this past weekend by playing well against a very good Boston College team, a team that has a guard in Reggie Jackson, probably as good a guard as we have in our league, a front-court player in Trapani, who is extremely hard to match up with, he can post it up, play hard. They execute, play with great spacing.
We're going to have to be a lot more disciplined defensively this time around and committed defensively this time around. We really did not do a good job - you have to give them credit - of containing them, staying in front last time we played.
It's a fairly quick turnaround. We had a good film session yesterday. It's all about staying in the present. I think that's the main thing for us, is to come out and validate the success that we had this past weekend.
THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions.

Q. Seth, you were pretty emotional Saturday night after the game. You kind of talked about it from the standpoint of the seniors. Can you elaborate a little bit on what it meant to you for those guys to be able to pull off that victory.
COACH GREENBERG: Those guys are invested in our program. They've won a lot of games. They've won a lot of ACC games. They have a chance to be the winningest seniors in the history of Virginia Tech if we can continue to play well.
But they had yet to have that signature win. Even though we beat Wake when they were No. 1 on the road, it's not the same as beating Duke College Game Day, national television, everything else.
In that six-minute timeout, eight-minute timeout, six minutes left on the clock, looking in their eyes, you could see that light bulb went on. I didn't know if we were going to win, but they weren't going to back down and continue to try to make a play and not let Duke impose their will on the game.
Again, I was happy for them. It was a great day for Virginia Tech, not just Virginia Tech basketball. For us to host College Game Day, the scene that that creates, I think anytime we can present our university, after the tragedy of 4/16, present our university as whole and together and let people know this is a very special place, and what makes it special is the people, I think it all goes together.
That was kind of where I was coming from.

Q. I know you don't want to put the cart before the horse. How much do you allow yourself to wonder if that was a tipping thing to kind of get you off the bubble if you finish strong?
COACH GREENBERG: Again, right now our approach, I spoke to the kids before the game, before they went out for the original warmups, that game, it's the next game. That's been our mantra all season long. It's a home game. You got to win your home games. We're not going to get past that.
There's a lot of basketball to be played. We've got to put our arms around the season. We have senior night tomorrow night. We've had three seniors that have made a great commitment to Virginia Tech, have had wonderful careers. To me senior night is special. It's even more special if you can find a way to get a win.

Q. Seth, Terrell is obviously the least heralded of the three seniors. But from a guy who played about seven minutes a game as a freshmen, to a guy who played 31 minutes on Saturday, no turnovers, hit a huge three, can you talk a little bit about his evolution, what he now means to your squad.
COACH GREENBERG: He's a huge part of what we do when we're good. When we're good, Terrell Bell is good. He's selfless. You don't have to run a play for him. I always tell him, I need you flying around. When he's flying around, we're a better basketball team.
I thought the one thing going into that game, Terrell has the ability to guard a number of different positions. He looked forward to the challenge of trying to contain. You're not going to stop Kyle Singler, he's so talented and big and can beat you so many different ways.
But he was excited about that challenge. I thought he did a great job of staying down on all those shot fakes. The three in the corner, then the offensive rebound, one huge offensive rebound also.
Terrell Bell is a guy that bought in. He could have very easily transferred. Most kids at the end of their sophomore year, if they're not a big part of what you're doing, ego says they want to be enabled. But he bought in. He knew he had a role and an opportunity with Deron graduating. He gave up his whole summer, stayed on campus, worked hard. He's been rewarded with two terrific seasons.

Q. Was he this capable a shooter as a high school player and early on? Has the reliability from the perimeter kind of grown in the last two years?
COACH GREENBERG: I think he's really worked at it. He was a high school center basically. But he had a really good baseline game.
But he's really worked at it. We changed one thing. His left hand used to be really high on the ball. We tried to get his guide hand lower so he could shoot through it. He's put in a lot of time.
The great thing about having a practice facility. If he's free between classes, he's going to be in here on the gun getting some shots up. He really is a great kid. He's a terrific ambassador for our school. Always has a smile on his face, treats people well. I'm really proud of him. His mom is a terrific lady, too, so he's been raised really well.

Q. Where does the improvement have to come from for Boston College?
COACH GREENBERG: We have to guard the ball better. We didn't do a very good job of keeping the ball in front of us. Again, our defense, that's where it starts. We gave them too many straight-line drives. Our closeouts were not on balance. We were not as alert as we needed to be.
But I think our closeouts and then our on-ball defense. Offensively we did not play with any type of speed. We didn't do anything with the pace that we needed to do and win if we're going to have a chance to score the ball in the halfcourt.

Q. Seth, what did you do after the game on Saturday?
COACH GREENBERG: What did I do after the game? I went home, Jackie cut me some cheese and crackers, had a glass of red wine, sat with my daughters and wife. That's what I did.
I was proud of my team, shared it with me family. I had Paige come in. If she would have missed that, she probably would have lost her mind. I was wired, but nothing out of ordinary, quite honestly. It was a long day. I was exhausted. It was a long day. It started in the morning with the game day. It's just a long day. When you play those 9:00 games, it's forever.

Q. Seth, you have been a part of a lot of senior nights in your coaching career. Tell me kind of how you handle them and where emotion plays into it, how much you have to temper things, your general feelings about handling that situation.
COACH GREENBERG: It's really hard. I think every coach in the country worries about senior night. We've had great senior nights. And I think of Deron Washington's senior night. It was a magical night against Wake Forest. We just played at a very high level. He was terrific. He was a little emotional, but relaxed. I think of Zabian Dowdell's senior night where literally for the first five minutes he couldn't breathe. Four turnovers the first five times. He kept the emotion in during the ceremony. When I took him out just to kind of settle him down, he turned to me and said, Coach, I can't breathe. I said, No kidding.
No, I think senior night is hard. It's like parenting. When you're a parent, you send your kids off to college, senior night to me is now you're sending your kids off to the real world.
For the last four years, they pretty much knew when they were going to wake up, eat, go to class, when study hall was. Just a great deal of structure. You hope when you're sending this group off, they're ready for what the world has to offer.
It's a tough night. I'm a pretty emotional guy. No matter who they are, whether it's Malcolm Delaney any or Zabian Dowdell, a role player on your team, it's an important night for me.

Q. A remark or two about what Jeff Allen has given you lately.
COACH GREENBERG: He's a first-team all-ACC player what he's given us lately. He's been a leader. If you have a chance to really listen and see him in our timeouts, he's been unbelievable. He hasn't taken a play off. His work ethic in practice is terrific. He's playing at a level that I've not seen - forget about Jeff Allen - but for many players at this stage in their senior year.

Q. When you talked to the team yesterday, what about what they said or their body language tells you they've sort of moved on from Saturday and are ready to move on to the next game, like you said?
COACH GREENBERG: It's real simple. I asked them what their goal was at the beginning of the year. They said it was to make the NCAA tournament. So our goal wasn't to beat Duke, it was to make the NCAA tournament. To do that, we've got to continue to play well. That's our main focus, to continue to play well, play hard.
We have two very good teams that we're going to play against in the last week of the season. No game is more important than any other. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. That's why they call today the present. We've got to stay in the present.
They understand that. Whether they understand it and they want to stay in the present, as soon as they walk out this door when I'm done with them, they have to walk across campus, there's 27,000 people, all of a sudden they're guys. That's the dangerous thing. That's why I told our guys after the game, the most important people they need to spend time with postgame is with their parents and family, people that have unconditional love.
I think they understand. I think it's a mature group. We're going to have a good practice today. It's a 9:00 game tomorrow. We have a chance to breathe a little bit.
But human nature is human nature. I understand that. But I think this group understands what's at stake. We're playing a very good BC team that beat us. I mean, they're a good team. They can shoot the ball. Tough matchup problems. They have an all-ACC guard. They have a fifth-year senior in Trapani. Raji is a tough matchup. We're going to have to play tough to win.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks, coach.
COACH GREENBERG: Thanks, guys.

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