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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 1, 2017Erik JohnsonKelly HughesConway, South Carolina Georgia Tech - 71, Boston College - 67 ERIK JOHNSON: Really proud of them tonight. I thought they fought through the entire game. That from the beginning was a physical battle. Georgia Tech is athletic. They're physical. There was pushing, there was shoving, and I don't mean that bad sportsmanship kind of way, but in the kind of basketball game you love to play. It was a gritty, down-and-dirty basketball game, and I was really, really proud of how we competed. When it came down to it, we came up two or three basketball plays short. The turnovers when we had 3-on-2s and 2-on-1s and to come up empty and in fact turn the ball over, that made the difference because they went and finished some big shots. I've got to give them credit. I thought our kids played really good defense. The game plan was excellent. They were tough. They stuck together. They did all the things a coach could ask. The team just said in the locker room that they're just -- they're just sick that they couldn't get these seniors a win in this arena on their last trip to the ACC Tournament. The woman sitting to my right, Kelly Hughes, has given sweat, blood and tears. She was our first recruiting class here. She has rewritten so many of our record books and helped change the culture about BC in so many ways. She represents us incredibly, and again, it's been an honor to coach this team as well as Kelly. Q. Coach, you were able to come back from a six-point halftime deficit and actually get this thing tied up in the third quarter. What did you decide to plan at halftime to get you back in this thing? ERIK JOHNSON: Yeah, we finally actually made a couple shots. Really the defensive game plan didn't change. I thought our kids did a really good job. We adjusted a lot of things, and with a young team sometimes that's a scary thing for a coach. I asked them to do some things that we haven't done before in the ways that we were congesting the paint and taking away some of their athletic post players and drivers and all that, and we just stuck with it. On the offensive side there really was just too much inconsistency, the 23 turnovers at key times. When we had opportunities to score and we did finish, we were able to get back in that game and even lead, and they made a couple plays that we didn't, and they deserved to win the game. Q. Kelly, you've had such a huge career at Boston College, I think, what, third or fourth all-time in the three-point made list, way up there. What were they doing today to kind of stop you from hitting those threes? KELLY HUGHES: I think it was more so me. My shots weren't really falling. I was getting open looks. Obviously they were contesting a lot of my shots, but I was getting open looks, and it's just my job to knock those down; I can't wait until the fourth quarter to start hitting shots. The game could have been a lot different if I'd hit one or two shots earlier in the game, so that's definitely on me. It's my job as a shooter to put the ball in the basket. Q. When you take a loss like this to pretty much end your season, what do you take out of this to get ready for next year to build the program to get going? ERIK JOHNSON: Yeah, so today is all about Kailey Edwards, Emilee Daley and Kelly Hughes. As a coach, obviously I look at so many of these young players that Kelly and her classmates mentored, in teaching them, and what was fun for me as a coach was looking in that locker room and seeing them start to understand, oh, now I understand what Kelly meant when she said this. I understand why -- Kelly had been through the wars and she had to build this culture, and I understand how special this is. Again, the biggest thing I can hope is that these young players take those gifts, those lessons from these older players and make them proud alums, that they can come back, and again, I love the young talent we have. They need to get more disciplined. We need to get more consistent, there's no question. But again, hopefully they learned a lot from these guys, and we can make them proud as they move forward in life. Q. Kelly, just talk about playing for Coach Johnson for four years in your time at Boston College. KELLY HUGHES: Absolutely I wanted to play for Coach Johnson and his staff. Some of the most caring and genuine people you'll ever meet in your life. You don't really find people like Coach Johnson and his staff in the profession of basketball who really care about you as people, as students and as athletes. On behalf of the team, we owe a lot to Coach Johnson, especially as seniors for bringing us in, giving us an opportunity to represent Boston College, both on the court and off the court. So we're very, very thankful to have a chance to play with "Eagles" across our chest. Q. Which one of you taught Mariella that scoop shot that seems to go in about 80 percent of the time? KELLY HUGHES: Not me. ERIK JOHNSON: I'd like to take full credit for teaching Kelly to shoot threes and teaching Mariella to score in the post -- no, that's called recruiting, right? The only thing I'd like to add to Kelly's comments is just what a special place Boston College is, and it was great when I got that job and I still remember the first phone call I made to the Hughes family, and they knew what Boston College represented, and for Kelly to come in, she's changed so many things about just the way little kids flock to her and her teammates, the way our team interacts with the community, the way they give back, just our camps and the community support, the alumni, those kinds of things. It's really been fun to watch them embrace Men and Women For Others and the Jesuit ideals of Boston College. Again, it's the -- I'm proud to work there, and I'm proud to have coached these guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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