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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 7, 2011

Seth Greenberg

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Coach Seth Greenburg from Virginia Tech.
We'll open it up with a brief opening statement.
COACH GREENBERG: Yeah, I would say I'm not as smart as I was a week ago. We have a small margin of error but we found a way to win nine league games and 19 games which I'm really proud of but now we start a new season. We need to approach it that way. We need to be as fresh as we can mentally, as fresh as we can physically and I look forward to the challenge.
Expected to play really well yesterday. I thought they guarded really well. They are extremely athletic and they have a great guard in Shumpert, we all know that, and they are extremely athletic. It seems like the match-up zone has become their defense of choice and they have played it really well.
So we have just got to bounce back. But you know, everyone starts with a clean slate, and we are looking forward to the start of the postseason.

Q. Looking back at that 1991 UNLV team which I believe you played three times --
COACH GREENBERG: Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

Q. Would you mind sharing some memories and any examples of how dominant and intimidating that group was?
COACH GREENBERG: That team was really without weakness. If you think about their roster, they had a past first point guard who could really guard the ball in Greg Anthony.
They had a guy that could make shots in Hunt, that lockdown the defender, Augmon; Ackles protected the front of the rim, and then they had the best player in college basketball.
They had depth, role players, they had a secondary defense in their amoeba that was really hard to play against. It seemed like literally they had about seven guys out there. And they had a sense of purpose. So that team was really talented, had great chemistry and a cause, and they were really well-coached.

Q. You mentioned Vegas's depth; that's one asset you don't have going for you right now. How careful are you with the team this week in terms of managing practice time things like that.
COACH GREENBERG: It's been our greatest challenge for two months, three months actually. It's a very, very fine balance. We have not been able to do things that we have done forever, each and every day because of, you know, wanting to really make sure that we have it when the ball goes up in the air.
So this week, we are going to lift and shoot and go over special situations today and that's it. And then kind of talk to our guys about what we are trying to get done this week. Tomorrow we will ramp it up for about an hour and 20 minutes, go to Greensboro and just practicing as the Coliseum. Most times, we would have had a second practice somewhere else, but when you have the numbers that we have, you can't afford that. We have to have our best legs, especially against a team as deep as Georgia Tech; they are going to play ten guys at us.
It is what it is. We have not made an excuse about it all season. We are not going to start to now. We are going to put our guys in a position to be successful and hopefully we can do a better job in defensive transition and do a better job of taking care of the ball.

Q. Are you are concerned about minds as you are legs at this point?
COACH GREENBERG: I'm not sure it's minds, because this team has had a lot of success. There are a lot of teams would like to win nine games in the ACC. There are a lot of teams that would like to have had the success that this group has had as a group over the last four years, when I take about the seniors.
I'm not worried about our minds. We just need to play better. Boston College, they played very well. We didn't play well. The other night, we did certain things well, but we are limited in terms of what we can do defensively early in games because we have to stay out of foul trouble. We cannot afford for anybody to get into foul trouble. So it really limits what we can do. But I think our guys are in as decent a place, as decent a place as you can when you know you have to win games. And we have a lot of company.

Q. Is Jarell going to play on Thursday?
COACH GREENBERG: Like I said, every single game is different. I'll decide who plays when the game approaches. And that's not my concern right now. My concern right now our team this week and what we are going to do this week to get better. I have not decided who is going to play Thursday. Malcolm might not play Thursday for all I know.

Q. Obviously Malcolm and Jeff could get all ACC honors today. Could you talk about how you have seen both of them improve this season from last year?
COACH GREENBERG: Jeff has had a really great season. He's done so many good things. He's affected the game in so many different ways. His consistency has been phenomenal in terms of rebounding the ball. The number of minutes he's played, I think that's probably the greatest -- fortunately for us, due to our numbers, he's been able to stay on the court and contribute and help us win games.
And then I think Malcolm sees plays sooner, he's made better decisions off ball screens, and again, he's been a key ingredient and winning a lot of ACC games; if I'm not mistaken, it's 35 ACC games in four years to this point in regular season play. You probably know better than I do. I think that's right, which is significant I think. When you can leave this conference and have a winning record as a player, then you've done a nice job within your conference play.

Q. The past week, you guys have gotten off to some slow starts. Are you at all concerned about it? It wasn't an issue the first 26 games of the year, you guys were actually a very good team starting out. Have you figured out why the past week you guys have sort of gotten off to some slow starts?
COACH GREENBERG: We turned it over early; in a way we were trying to make things happen to too quick. I use the Clemson game as probably an example. We tried to make plays out of a second pass in our offense, I think three of the first four times we touched the basketball. And that's how we have been playing. We have been getting to the second side of our offense and we have been getting the ball reversed.
We tried to make things happen a little bit too quickly. And then you have to make some shots, too. And then you have to get some stops. We have not been as good defensively at the start of games and we have not taken as good of care of the basketball as we have in the past.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks for being with us this week.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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