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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEJanuary 7, 2013Brian GregoryBRIAN MORRISON: We have with us now Georgia Tach head basketball coach Brian Gregory. Coach, a few comments about your team and we'll open it up for questions. COACH GREGORY: Played a very good team on Saturday. Miami has had a couple weeks now to kind of adjust. I thought they played extremely well. They were very good defensively. I thought we did some good things. In this league, you got to do them for 40 minutes and you have to make some shots. With younger guys at times we're going to struggle making some of those shots, making some of the plays you need to make. But in this league you have to move on. Now we move on and we go to Raleigh and play an explosive team in North Carolina State. Again, the most important thing is we look at today, take advantage of today and continue to improve. BRIAN MORRISON: We'll open it up for questions. Q. You did something very odd. You added two players over the Christmas break, the Poole brothers. I've been watching their so far very limited role in the rotation. Is that going to change as they catch up? What do they bring to the team at mid‑season? COACH GREGORY: With Stacey we didn't have a choice of when we added him. He transferred mid semester last year. Sat out. Got all his things in place academically. Did a great job both in the summer and in the fall semester in the classroom. He's in a tough situation. He didn't play much his first year and a half at Kentucky. Obviously, sat out a year for us. It's been two and a half years since he's really been a factor where how he played was important to the team. With that, he's played some minutes and played in the first half of the game on Saturday. He needs to catch up to speed in terms of what we're trying to get done, how we do it. It's difficult mid semester transfers because when he came last year, you're already engrossed in the season. He misses the whole first part of practice and so forth. But he's a tough kid. Right now we really need him to play grade defense, get on the glass, let the offense kind of come to him. With Soloman, different situation. Kid who wanted to graduate early, kind of get a head start in the college game. Discussed back and forth what was best for him, what he wanted to do in terms of potentially redshirting this year, practice, getting his feet wet in college. But him and his family and I talked. They said even if he plays four, five minutes a game right now during this first month, kind of see where he's at, that's only going to benefit him in the years to come. I see them playing more as they get more accustomed to how we do things. Obviously you're throwing him in the mix in a great basketball conference. Every possession is important. Sometimes when a guy hasn't played much or for a high school kid, those are difficult challenges. I think they both understand it. I think both of them look at the big picture as opposed to right now. Q. Soloman is a true point guard. Can you talk about maybe that's something this team could use. Is it possible later in the season he could be mature enough to play a significant role? COACH GREGORY: Well, I mean, that remains to be seen. He plays the point for us, and any dynamic, he was a big scorer in high school, different things like that, out on the circuit. Really wants to learn how to play at this level with the ball in his hands, making good decisions, different things like that. As he continues to progress, then that role may definitely increase. Q. NC State has had an odd season, a lot of pre‑season attention. Where have you seen them improve over the years? Compare their first and second months of the year. COACH GREGORY: With NC State, again, sometimes expectations are difficult to meet. I think Mark has done a great job. They're 12‑2. It's not like they're 6‑8. Their two losses were on a neutral court to a top‑25 team in Oklahoma State, and they lost to No. 2 or 3 Michigan I believe on the road as well. Those are their two losses. Neither one of those would be considered bad losses. Obviously they have an upper class that is tremendous in Lorenzo Brown, in Scott Wood, in C.J. Leslie and Richard Howell. They've done a nice job of adding freshmen to the mix. Those guys have impacted the program as well. You have a team that has six guys averaging in double figures and are so explosive offensively, adding those three new guys does take some time and adjustment, and I think you're starting to see that over the last three or four weeks. They're starting to hit on all cylinders. Again, you can say close game on Saturday. On the road, those are the games that you have to win. The veteran teams, the teams that understand it's a possession‑by‑possession game, every possession is important. I think they clearly demonstrated that on Saturday with the win over Boston College. Q. Are you surprised to any extent that your top two scorers are freshmen? COACH GREGORY: Maybe a little bit. Again, those guys are logging some minutes. We brought them in here to play. I think our upperclassmen, if you go down the list, are all playing extremely well for us. That's probably why we're 10‑3 right now. I think Daniel Miller and Mfon Udofia and Kam have done a good job, and at times Brandon Reed has really filled in terms of his role, doing a good job in that. With Marcus and Robert, we knew that those guys that could make an impact for us. They're taking advantage of the opportunity, they're getting better every day, learning every day, much improved on both ends of the court since we started. They made plays defensively and offensively obviously against a very good team in Miami on Saturday that they just weren't capable of making in our first game against a very good Tulane team. I like the progress they're making, their development. In this league, it's hard sometimes to rely on freshmen, and that's why our upperclassmen are so important to us. Q. Carter you pretty much anticipated would make an impact. Georges‑Hunt I don't know as much about. COACH GREGORY: Maybe the media didn't. I did (laughter). I thought he was potentially maybe, for us, didn't get as much hype as some of the other guys around the league, but I felt from day one he would be one of the premiere freshmen in our league. He lost about 15 pounds from his senior year to when he entered Georgia Tech, got in great shape. Has a high basketball IQ, has a great motor. Basketball is very, very important to him. He's in the gym non‑stop. When you got a guy like that that has the physical tools and you add the IQ to it and the feel for the game, the different ways that he can impact a game, I just felt that he would really make a big impact for us. I just loved everything about his game. The best part is I think he's only scratching the surface. I think he can really improve in some key areas that is going to make him, when all is said and done, one of the best players in this league. Q. Could you talk a little bit about your defense. You've held eight of your opponents to under 40%, four of those to under 30%. COACH GREGORY: I thought we played pretty darn good defense on Saturday. If you would have told me that we were going to hold their starters to I think it was 13 of 39 from the field or 12 of 39 from the field, 3 of 13 from the three, I would say, I'll take it. The problem is we let Brown lose on a couple plays. Give him credit. This game is a big game for him. His dad played at Georgia Tech. One of our great players here. We told our guys, he always kind of has a little extra juice. I wasn't here during the recruitment of him. I don't even know if Georgia Tech recruited him or not, but at the same time he's always played well against us. He's streaky, but he still plays with great confidence. Overall our defense has been pretty good. I still think it's an area we can continue to improve in. Most important thing with our defense is guarding the dribble, keeping the ball in front of you, defending with five guys. That team concept, I think our guys have done a great job of not only buying into but then also going out there and executing. You have a senior point guard in Mfon that kind of sets the tone for that, then a pretty good anchor in Daniel Miller who is leading the league in blocks, top three or four in blocks. If we can continue to do a better job on the defensive glass, that's going to help out every aspect of our game. BRIAN MORRISON: Coach, thanks for taking time being with us today. We'll hear from you next week. COACH GREGORY: Thanks, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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