Everything From Damon Stoudamire After Georgia Tech's Win Over NC State

Georgia Tech followed up their win over Pittsburgh with a win over NC State today to move them to 15-14 and 9-9 in the ACC. The Yellow Jackets got great outings from Baye Ndongo (career-high 29 poitns and 17 rebounds), Duncan Powell (23 points and 10 rebounds), and a career high 12 assists from Nait George. There are two games left in the regular season and the Yellow Jackets are playing well at the right time.

After the the game, head coach Damon Stoudamire spoke with the media and here is everything that he had to say.

Opening Statement

"This was a great team win. win. For me, we had some great individual performances, but I just thought the collective effort of the guys from start to finish was consistent and we talked about maturing, So growing within games and last Saturday, we were in the same situation. Yeah, we were at home, but we still handle business. And so I was really proud of that effort. We had 14 offensive rebounds. But the biggest stat for me is six turnovers against the team that really gets after defensively. So I'm proud of the fellas because to me, from a maturity standpoint, they showed me where we can go because this was a game playing at home, right now the way we've been playing we were supposed to win this game That's what you say, but, but how we play and how we responded you know after winning big games, you know, it hasn't always been there, but you know the the effort, the energy the connectivity and and the sense since the urgency from jump was there."

1. On the Defensive Effort...

"Well, yeah, the game, it's funny because the game played out the way... I was going to do some things early anyway, in terms of the rotation to try to get, but I was going to try to take Duncan out a little earlier, put Mustaf in but with Souare picking up the fouls, you had to play by longer. And I really didn't want to do that to play him the whole first half, you know, that's why I took him out real fast in the second half. But, you know, Jaeden did a great job. He gave us another ball handling, gave us another downhill driver, he was big in that, in that first half, especially because up until probably, you know, the last time out for last four minutes, you know, You know they you know he took a little bit for him to get into it, but obviously that last four minutes of the first half he started really passing the ball And that's what I felt open started to open things up, but that was really big getting Jaeden up in there, we were able to size down a little bit, you put Duncan at the four now makes him it makes things a little different and you know fortunately for us, a nd we've been double teaming a lot of bigs, you know this this this second half of the season, ever since Christmas. But Middlebrooks did have his moments, but we were able to sustain him. And we made him work by, made him work on the other hand."

2. On Baye's strong stretch of play...

"I think he had to go back to work you know it's just everything about Baye looks better you know, his energy you know his body, you know what I mean, you know, it's just, you know, there is a, you know, there's a, it's like a, it's young players as well, you know, but you have to like come back and, you know, work on your game because you go to the top of the scouting report. And so I think that, you know, Baye is a guy people forget, you know, He didn't even start on his high school team. So the success he had last year was all new. And give him a lot of credit for that because he asked a lot about leading. He asked a lot about what to do because he doesn't know. And a lot of kids don't really ask those questions. And so I think that he looked himself in the mirror and I think that's why he got better. There's nothing that we as coaches haven't been telling him from the jump. But he's putting in the work."

3. On Nait George being an effective player even when he is not scoring:

"I've always told Nait to me, you know, you don't have to score for this team to be successful. If you look back, you know, even putting them in the starting lineup last year, some of his, some of, some of our biggest wins, you know, he didn't, he didn't, he didn't really score a lot neither, But he's a connector. He's a guy that gets the ball to the right people. And you can look at our stats, you can tell what he means to it by looking at the other guy's numbers. And so I'm not necessarily worried about him in terms of his scoring. But we obviously need that scoring. But those 12 assists were really big. And I thought that, like I said, towards the end of the first half, he'd really start connecting. And you know, got guys open."

4. On Duncan Powell...

"Duncan was really good. It's funny with Duncan, Yesterday, we practiced with yesterday... that, you know, he's a guy that we rely on, you know, he's just getting better and better, you know, and I thought that today he went back to getting the glass, you know, that was the biggest thing, you know, we talked about it and, you know, he had been settling for threes and not really going to glass and doing different things, but he had 10 rebounds today, five offensive. You know Duncan, it and I've been saying it all along, you know, he's a mismatch problem because, he's a three you know, but he's strong like a four, so he overpowers I think the smaller guy you know, he and he can post up and do different things and so he's been a bonus, it's been a bonus having him, and you know, happy we got him."

5. On Lance Terry...

"Yeah, I thought he played huge, you know, and then last four minutes of the first half, he did some really good things. I think Lance is a guy who plays so hard. I wish I could get a more blow, more of a blow. You know, and I think he's finding his rhythm, you know, 15 points on 15 shots. That don't even really bother me. I'm not really concerned about that. You know, matter of fact, I got mad at him one time because he passed up an open shot to go run inside. You know, you got to keep shooting open shots. We need Lance to be really good for us to be successful. When we're playing well, he's normally playing well. And I'm happy for him. And we need him to keep coming. We need more of these type of performances. We need him to stay consistent. And I know he's had some injuries and things of that nature, but we just need him to be consistent. Because he's a big part of the."

6. On what has made the defense so successful since the loss to Florida State...

"Well, I think it's been a little bit of both, but one thing that I decided to do, about that time, Florida State to me is a tough team to play against because of their style of play. I just said we weren't going to play on our heels no more, defensively. And so that's why you see us trapping the post and doing different things. You know, it's just, I think the guys bought into that. And what happens defensively, you know, is that once you start getting the stops, it gets contagious. And so they start buying into what you're saying a little bit, well, okay, coach was right, you know, we get some stops, then we can get out and we can run and do the different things, because if you look at the game,s just take last Saturday vs BC we could never get going defensively and our energy on offense wasn't the same you know I'm saying so we have got after we made an emphasis and I think guys have responded you know I you know I'll use Nait as an example, I didn't think, I didn't think Nait was a good defender at all but he's been doing a great job over the course of last month, month and a half challenge, staying between this man and the ball, doing great things you know so you know I'm proud of our defense because you know it's allowing us to do different things but more importantly it's bleeding into our offense and so We're better on the offensive than because of our defense.

Additional Links

Instant Takeaways From Georgia Tech's 87-62 Win Over NC State

Final Score: Georgia Tech Scores Nine Runs In 6th Inning To Win 14-1 And Clinch Series vs Western Michigan