Everything That Damon Stoudamire Said After A Blowout Loss To No.14 Virginia

What Georgia Tech head basketball coach said after eight consecutive loss

Feb 18, 2026; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets head coach Damon Stoudamire on the sidelines against the Virginia Cavaliers in the first half at McCamish Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images | Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Georgia Tech is in desperate need of some answers after another tough outing. Head coach Damon Stoudamire talked to the media after the game and gave his thoughts.

On how stressful it is to get down big early in games… 

“It was tough,  you know. It's almost getting like Groundhog Day when you talk about our starts. You know, it's weird, you've got to figure something out. You're playing against a team like Virginia. You're hoping guys come out and play with some energy. You hope that we're gonna come and we're gonna have more intensity, play with a little more pride early on. I thought that in spurts, early, we tried. We weren't always smart about it. We definitely didn't defend the three-point line. And that's something that we talked about. Obviously, that's been hurting us more than just this game. We've been giving up a lot of threes lately. That's just the makeup of it.  At the end of the day, what I saw from UVA was just a team that was good, looked like some grown ass man out there now that the game is over,  it is what it is. And I thought that they put a lot of pressure on us.  And in those moments, man, you gotta be able to be tough enough to go make a shot, stop runs, different things.  You get to the point where you're trying to stop the bleeding, the whole first half and call timeouts. From that standpoint, just, for me,  after a while. Alex is not even about winning and losing. I'm looking to see what we made of. Just being honest at the end of the day, because sometimes it's more about people tapping your chest. I can say I feel that personally, as a coach, when I'm playing, when we're playing against whomever we're playing against tonight, it was UVA because I can't put the jersey on and run up and down anymore. So sometimes I just, you just wanna see a little bit more fight, that's all. And that, for me, at times it's a disappointing thing.” 

On if it is hard to replicate Virginia’s ability to trap with their bigs on the perimeter…. 

“The one thing I've always said and you've always heard me as you've been here is that your habits start in practice. So you can't take practice for granted. So, in practice, sometimes we play harder in practice than we do in the game. I don't know if that's trying to get playing time, but man, you're trying to play hard in the game. When you play against teams like this, you can tell. You know, their habits, their attention to detail,  you know, they take the assignment from practice to the game. That's what I see.  You know, and I think that's something that I even told our team, you know, and I was like, the things that I always talk about, they just did that to us, you know, and you can't replicate it in practice if you don't try to do the right thing and practice everything.  So for me, that's the way I look at it.  They played harder.

They do those things on a consistent basis. Yes, they shovel bodies in and out as well. So they're a deep team, seasoned team, I would say too. But at the end of the day, you still have to match that intensity because we had our moments where you see, we talked about even building up to the game, we can beat them off the dribble. But you just can't play one-on-one. They're a good defensive team. They got double gaps; they do different things. Guys, pay attention to the scouting reports. They're looking at our guys, and they know who the shooter is, who's the non-shooter, who can I play off of, who can I not play off. That matters, it matters. You gotta be able to take the game from the paper to the court.” 

On losing the rebounding battle and the team effort there…. 

Looking at our stats sheet compared to theirs. Our perimeters,  you know, got… 11 rebounds, their perimeters. I'm just looking at two right now, so I don't even want to look down the rest of the line, but their perimeters. (Malik) Thomas had four, (Sam) Lewis had five, (Chance) Mallory had seven. You know, when you get as short as a bigs, we always talk about our guards gotta be better rebounders. I didn't add Mustaf up in there because I kind of put Moustap and Vi together, you know, since we've been playing small.  But, you know, our guards gotta help us rebound.  You know, when we were pretty good at playing small ball, our guards would come in and help with the rebound. And when you're negative 17 on the glass, it usually comes down to guard rebounding. That's gonna be the difference, and I think that was the difference tonight.”