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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 20, 2012Seth GreenbergCOACH GREENBERG: We're pleased and excited about finding a way to win a game at the end of the game. What a magnificent shot that Dorenzo made. That obviously makes this game have greater significance because it's easier to come into practice and the energy will be that much higher even with a rivalry game coming up. Our kids are excited about the opportunity to play a very, very good Virginia team. Hopefully we have some things to build on. We won three consecutive home games excluding one or two hiccups, we've had an opportunity to win or lose almost every game we've played this season. Again, I think we remain competitive. I think we're making some progress. But Virginia obviously poses a great many challenges. Mike Scott is having a Player of the Year type of year. He really is good. Jontel Evans has played really well as of late, and putting more pressure on the defense by getting in the lane. They've got some maturity and some toughness. Obviously they've defended well all season win or lose. So it's hopefully going to be another typical rivalry game whether it's Virginia, Virginia Tech or any other rivalry. The games usually have a sense of urgency that's a little bit higher. Q. In the first match up you guys were pretty effective. Coach Bennett was talking about denying the ball to Mike Scott. What did you do well against him in that first match‑up? COACH GREENBERG: Again, I think I'm not sure we denied it, but you try to make it hard for Mike to catch the ball where he wants to catch the basketball. They do such a good job in that triangle stuff of inverting the triangle and getting him off good back swings and screening the ball and posting them. Now it makes it a little more difficult because they're moving Mike off the perimeter, running him off staggers and bringing him to the post. They're moving him around a lot more than they did maybe when we played them the first time. So we have to be alert guarding on post. Mike's shooting the ball so confidently right now. He pivots and gets that thing behind him and shoots it so quick. But you've got to defend them early, set your defense in transition, and you've got to get a lot of help. Q. A little bit of a role reversal last year. You guys had sort of a clear go‑to guy and they didn't. This year it has changed. How does it affect you guys not having that one go‑to type guy or do you think you have a couple of them? COACH GREENBERG: I think we have a number of guys that can make a play. But having a low post dominant scorer obviously is an advantage. Having a guy that can draw double team. Having a guy that can also step you away from the basket. Having a guy that can get to the offensive glass. He's a very complete player. Obviously, when you have a player like that, he makes everyone else on the court better. Q. Do you have an injury update for us on Davila or any of the other guys? COACH GREENBERG: Yeah, Victor Davila's situation hasn't changed. He's getting an MRI tomorrow. All of the other guys right now, as of yesterday after their treatments are sore, but we expect that they should be in uniform. Q. So Victor's out? COACH GREENBERG: Well, he's having an MRI tomorrow, and I think he would be out. Q. I was just counting up your games. I count you as 5 and 5 in games decided by three points or less. Then there is another game you lost by four points. Is this the wildest season in that regard as you've been through in coaching? COACH GREENBERG:  I'd have to look and see that, Al. I don't know. I think league play brings close games, for sure. I think when you're having one of those special seasons, those games go your way. When you're not having one of those special seasons, it seems to snowball. That's why the other day was so exciting for us. I was talking to Dave Odom the other day, and he was talking about the Florida State game. He said Leonard's having one of those seasons. At the end of the game, something special is happening for them. For you, it's gone the other direction. You have to just keep on coaching your team, and that's what we're trying to do. It's disheartening, but it also says we're not that far away. Despite everything that's gone on with our team, we've remained competitive and in position. Again, we've got to continue doing what we're doing but just try to do it a little better and make a couple more shots. Q. I'm curious. The guys were talking about the rivalry with UVA and what it would mean to them to return the sweep this year. Do you address it at all? Try to down play it, play it up, how do you handle that? COACH GREENBERG: Any time you have a rivalry game, you're always playing for something bigger. But, again, Virginia, Virginia Tech means a lot to our basketball team. It means a lot for us continuing to move forward and winning games. But it also means a lot to the Hokie Nation like it does to the Cavaliers. It's obviously a game that on the court is extremely competitive. Off the court you would hope it would be civil. We don't recruit a ton of the same players, but we have recruited a couple of the same players. Our biggest thing is we're very proud of what we're doing here in Virginia Tech, but we had a great road win against Virginia. They're now our next game, and we have a chance to, again, in league play, to sweep anyone is difficult let alone to sweep your rival. Q. A lot of people from the outside are saying that maybe Virginia knocked Tech out of the NCAA Tournament last year and Tech has the opportunity to knock Virginia out of the NCAA Tournament this year. What do you think of that assessment? COACH GREENBERG: Losing a league game to a basketball team shouldn't knock you out of the NCAA Tournament. Quite honestly, we lost to Virginia last year, and they beat other people. I think they won six or seven games in league. So, if that's what the criteria was, I didn't know the criteria in that room was they lost to Virginia twice and they shouldn't be in or they lost to Virginia Tech twice and shouldn't be in. We were a good basketball team last year and lost to Virginia twice. They played a good game, and they played well and they beat us. Virginia's a good basketball team, and we're fortunate enough to beat them twice. Does that mean they shouldn't play in the NCAA Tournament? I'm not sure that's right either. Again, unless you're in that room, no one knows why a certain team gets in and a certain team doesn't get in. Unless you're one of those people voting, having breakfast, lunch and dinner together, no one really knows. So I mean I can't say that that's what happened. That's really not our motivation. Our motivation is this is a home game. We need to win our home games and try to win as many games as we can going into the ACC Tournament. Q. Wouldn't you just love to be in that room once? COACH GREENBERG: I don't think they're inviting me. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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