Josh Pastner: "They’re Very Well-Coached"

Georgia Tech head coach Josh Pastner met with the media after his team's 63-61 win at NC State.

Opening Statement:
“First off, it was a great basketball game. Coach Keatts and his staff do a great job. I think North Carolina State is really good. They’re very well-coached, and they have a lot of good players. It was a great basketball game for both teams, and it was one of those things where, the way it was going, the last team that had the ball would have the opportunity to win the game. It was a very good basketball game.

We had 12 turnovers in the first half but only four in the second half. That was really good for us. We did a better job taking care of the ball in the second half.

Offensively, we shot the ball well, but our staple all year has been defense. We’ve been a very good defensive team. We had a little bit of a slippage in about a four-game stretch defensively. I changed some things where I went more offensive-minded within our lineups, and it kind of hurt us a little on the defensive end. It got us going offensively, but it really hurt us defensively.

We’ve been back to who we are for the last few games defensively, and we found a way to get a win. It’s a great win. It’s a great win for Georgia Tech, for us, for our program. When you’re just fighting, scrapping, kicking, clawing, trying to move up in this incredible league where everyone is just so good, everyone is so well-coached, there are so many good players, and the games are so back-and-forth and every possession is so important.

It was just a very good basketball game. North Carolina State is very good. They’re very well-coached, and they have a lot of good basketball players.

On takeaways going into the ACC Tournament:
I believe we’ve gotten better through the course of the ACC season. We have six ACC wins, and obviously we’re striving to get more. However – and this league is so good – you can be getting better, and it doesn’t show up in the win column. That’s how good this league is.

Our guys have gotten better. We got crushed in May when we lost Josh Okoge. When you’re trying to build it back and you lose a guy like him that you weren’t expecting to leave to be the 20th pick in the NBA draft, it’s crushing. It’s crushing.

So for us this year, it was a fight every day for how to get better. It was going to take some time, and we’ve had some good stretches and some other stretches where we’ve been a little bit up-and-down. I’ve felt lately, like the last few weeks, that we’re getting better. It just hasn’t always shown up in the win column, but I can see it in practice that our guys are improving.

Moses Wright has just continued to get better every time he steps on the floor, and Jose Alvarado has gotten better. James Banks III, even though he’s a junior in eligibility, he’s really a freshman. He didn’t play his first two years, and he barely played in high school. We’re just a young team, and this league is that good.

You can actually be getting better, and it just doesn’t show up in the win column a lot of times and that’s why, besides the NBA, it’s the best basketball in North America. It’s the ACC.

On turnovers in the second half:
Oh, we didn’t throw it to the other team. That helps. Michael Devoe had four turnovers in the first half but none in the second half. Devoe played thirty-nine minutes and Alvarado played forty. That’s a lot on those guys, and Alvarado had four assists and two turnovers. I was really proud of Khalid Moore. He played thirty-six minutes.

We lost Curtis Haywood who started for us, to a season-ending injury. Moore, who’s a freshman, had to come in and he played thirty-six minutes today against that pressure and didn’t have a turnover. I’m really proud of Moore.

On being down with five seconds left:
We work a lot on late-game situations, and that was one of the things we talked about in the summer. Studying the league, I take a lot of time looking at that stuff. The majority of games are decided by six points or less, in that range, and so you’re talking about possession-by-possession. We work a lot on time and score.

We’ve had back-to-back games now with Boston College and North Carolina State where we’ve had to find a way and pull it out at the end to get ourselves a win. We’ve worked on time and score. I told our guys in the huddle, ‘We’re going to find a way to win this game.’

We executed our assignments. We did our job. We talk about discipline all the time, knowing your job, and doing your job. We had good discipline in knowing our job and doing our job. Alvarado made a good decision not to pull up. He kept attacking the basket and then found Banks III.

On James Banks’ game-ending play:
James has continued to get better everyday. He didn’t play much at Texas his first two years because he was behind two NBA lottery draft picks, and he bounced around from team to team in high school so his playing time was limited so this is really his freshman year. When I got hired here, our associate athletic director Marvin Lewis and I spent a lot of time on the staff we were going to hire for this team. It had to be guys who were very good basketball coaches on the floor because we haven’t picked up the five-star recruits.

We’re getting guys like Moses Wright who are probably a zero-star recruit, and so because of that we have to be perfect in the development of these players. Our staff has done a good job of making everyone better. James had a good foundation coming from Shaka Smart and his program from Texas.

On the design of the final play:
I called a timeout, we drew up a play and executed it. I believe it's a make or miss game. If you execute the play and make the shot, then it’s a good play and a good coach. Otherwise, it’s a bad play and a bad coach. You’re dependent on the 18-22 year olds to put the ball in the basket, and tonight we did.

On the making or missing the final free throw:
I thought about calling a timeout to tell James to miss the free throw, but then I was concerned that if he misses it he might then foul an NC State player. It was something we have never practiced and because of that I was worried about trying it. I felt we were in a good situation with one second left and they were out of timeouts. If they were going to make a tough shot then so be it.