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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 11, 2013James JohnsonTHE MODERATOR: We have with us now Virginia Tech head basketball coach James Johnson. Coach, if you could, a few comments about your team and we'll open it for questions. COACH JOHNSON: Of course, coming up with our rival school there, Virginia, who is playing extremely well right now, extremely well. Had a very good win at Maryland yesterday, impressive win at Maryland. My team is coming off a stretch of losses in which we're playing pretty well. We're playing pretty good basketball. We're getting better in certain areas and aspects of the game. We just haven't been able to finish games. We have had steady play from Erick Green, but just haven't had consistent play out of enough guys to finish games. But coming up to a tough stretch. Virginia is playing really well. We have to work on our (indiscernible) tomorrow night. THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions for Coach Johnson. Q. I was checking if there was any update on Erick? COACH JOHNSON: Good to go. Was at practice yesterday. Good to go. Just dehydration. Just dehydrated. Q. When you look at Virginia, the way they sort have been scoring the ball the last two times out, what's making them so effective now? COACH JOHNSON: One thing is their defense. They're a tremendous defensive team. Your opportunity to score is going to be limited every possession. It's very important. You have to try to find a way to manufacture points. Offensively they got a lot of different guys that can score the basketball. Joe Harris is playing at a high level right now. Mitchell gives them an inside present. Justin Anderson is playing extremely well right now. Nolte can shoot the three. Jesperson shoots it. Of course, Jontel is their leader there. A lot of different guys that make plays, that can put the ball in the hole at given times. They play together as a team. They share the basketball. They're going to guard the crap out of you. We're going to have a tough time scoring. Q. James, with Jarell's situation the other day, what are you doing with the other guys to guard against frustration boiling over? COACH JOHNSON: I don't know, Jarell's frustration doesn't have much to do with the long streak. He's like that on himself all the time. He wants to do well all season. He will get frustrated at a missed shot, when he wasn't able to make a play. It's something I'm trying to teach him as a young man, that he's got to be able to fight through adversity in a lot of different situations. His life is going to present a lot of different adversities. He's got to learn that. He's been working on it personally for a while now. Q. How was he at practice yesterday? COACH JOHNSON: He was good. He was good. Talkative. He was good. He understands he made a mistake. He understands that he hasn't played well, that he needs to play better for the team. As a junior, he understands that. He understands what the team needs, what I want. He just has to go out and get it done. Q. Is he staying in the starting lineup tomorrow? COACH JOHNSON: We haven't done too much yesterday. I'm going to evaluate it in practice today. I like what Will Johnston did in the time he played in the game. He made the two threes. He ran the floor. Thought he did some good things. I'm going to evaluate both of those guys today in practice. Q. Coach, when you play Virginia, one of the big concerns is matching up with Joe Harris. I wonder what kinds of headaches in particular he causes. COACH JOHNSON: Well, Joe is a very good basketball player, all‑around basketball player. I think he's one of the best guys I've seen in a long time at reading screens, very good in their motion offense. He plays at a very good pace. He knows how to change speeds when changing direction. He shy‑fakes, knows how to get to the basket. He'll post up a little bit. He shoots the three. He's a very good passer. He rebounds the ball really well. He's an all‑around player. When you have a player like that, you got to always be alert guarding him. Can't take away one particular thing because he can do so many things well. We just got our hands full guarding him. It's going to take a couple different guys to guard him, kind of show him some different looks. But he's a very good player and very smart, very, very smart player. Q. Coach, given what happened with Erick at the end of that game on Saturday, will you change anything in terms of minutes? Do you have to do anything differently going forward to avoid a situation like that, where he needs to be carried off the court? COACH JOHNSON: Well, man, I'd like to be able to do it more. But especially when you're playing a team like Virginia where you have to manufacture points, and points are going to be hard to come by because they're such a great defensive team, and we don't have guys right now that are putting the basketball in the hole like we need them to. It's very hard to take him off the floor. It's very hard to take him off the floor. We're going to have to find ways to give him a breather in certain spots. But I'm expecting him to play the minutes he's been playing all season. Q. About Virginia, yesterday against Maryland, in the past two games, they've scored a lot of points with Tobey out. They've gone to a smaller lineup. Have you noticed that opening up their offense? How do you combat that? Maryland went small. Does it work to your advantage given you don't have that much depth down low anyway? COACH JOHNSON: We don't have many options to go through. Maryland got a few options, a couple different looks they can put out on the floor. We don't have many options anyway. We're going to have to try to play the way we play and go from there, try to match up certain guys with certain guys. But as far as going small and playing different lineups, we don't have a lot of different lineups to play. But as far as opening up their offense, I just think they got a lot of guys playing well right now. Anderson is playing well. Jesperson struggled in the last few games. Got it going yesterday with four threes, I believe. Harris is Harris. Mitchell is playing well right now. Nolte, they got a lot of guys play well right now, which helps their offense. Q. James, one thing that hasn't come up here in the questions you've gotten is the rivalry nature of this game. Is it just something at this point in the season with the way things are going that's not really an issue or do you think it would never be that issue going into preparation for a game? COACH JOHNSON: I think for the fans, the state, people across the state, it's always going to be a rivalry. But for us as a coaching staff, as a team, we're approaching it like it's the next game. It's definitely a big game for us because it's the next game. But we need to try to get a win here. We're struggling, and they're playing pretty well right now. So going up there and getting a win, it's going to be difficult for this team. But we're preparing just the way we prepare for all of our games all year. Not necessarily that it's a big rival game, but it's a big game because it's the next game. It's going to be intense. It's going to be a hard‑fought game. Both teams are going to give it their all and play hard. Tony is going to have his team prepared and they're playing really well right now. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for taking time being with us today. COACH JOHNSON: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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