Everything From Head Coach Damon Stoudamire After 95-81 Win Over LaFayette

Georgia Tech hit a season-high 95 points in a win over LaFayette on Saturday. Head coach Damon Stoudamire talked to the team after. Here is everything he had to say.

Opening Statement….

“I thought this was a great team effort. In the first half, I didn't think we did our job defensively. They shot 51 and 46 from the three. And nobody's really done that to us this year. But in the second half, I thought we did a really good job. They shot 36 and 21. Butler and Williams did a good job keeping pressure on us, and I think that was a good test, and we can learn from that both on the floor and watching film, because I thought there were just as many mistakes that we made to allow them to do the things they did as much as they did the things they did. But again, for me, it was a good win. We're going into the break. We come back out, we have one more non-conference before we start conference play. And so that for me is the biggest thing, is to build up of it. I can see us getting better. I can see guys getting more confident. I see a lot of great signs of things to come. We get some guys healthy. And uh just looking forward to the second, well, not even the second half of the season, but after Christmas break. Then the fact that we had looked down at the statue, we had three guys on 20 points. It was how they got it. I thought Wasey didn't play that well in the first half. And then the beginning of the second half, I didn't think he was playing as well uh to his.Now in his defense, he had been out; he's a little under the weather, so he hadn't been here. I think that the maturity and the growth in his game is that he started going to the offensive glass and started getting rebounds, started getting steals and doing different things in the past. He couldn't have impacted the game the same way and that to me was the biggest thing for him. And Lamar is funny man because-
he does a lot of good things for us. Sometimes it's not always the pretty stuff. But when I coach him, it's a lot of toughness and a lot of grit. I think that he brings a lot to the team. He reminds me of a couple of guys that I've coached in the past. But he does a good job. Ten assists, one turnover, we'll take that any day of the week. Then Akai (Fleming) for a freshman, I trust him, and he goes out there and we're getting paid back for it. 20 points on eight shots, got to the free throw line 12 times, and made free throws. So he's really getting acclimated on offensive end. There are some things you gotta clean up with him on defensive end. But again, he's only played 12 games of college, so he'll get better in that area. And I thought P (Peyton Marshall), I thought his 15 minutes was huge for us. I thought he did a great job, big-time block. But the things that he did, we needed him when he did it. He had the second-highest plus-minus on the team. And so we got contributions from everywhere ,and I was happy about that. And again, it was a great team effort and something for us to hang our hat on going into the break.”

On Lamar Washington blossoming…

“No question, I'm hard on my point guards. I'm hard on guys that handle the ball just because I know what that assignment is. You gotta be selfless, you do for everybody else. You gotta take criticism when it probably ain't your fault, like it's part of the assignment. I think that Lamar, he's different than what I've had here before because you could coach them before. But then when he knows that you believe in him 100%, you can coach him harder. And so those things, that's a quality that you would want in every player that you're able to coach. But he just does such a great job and you look down the stat line, it's nothing but 100%, three for three from three point lline five for five from the free throw line. 98 % one turnover and 60% from the field. doesn't take a lot of shots to do the things that he does. And I think that's a compliment to him as a player. So again, you can tell he's getting comfortable out there. And then more importantly, you can tell that the team is rallying around that as well.”

On finding out guys he can rely on and keep on the floor.....

“I think a lot of the stuff that we're doing, I've been doing up to this point is more personnel driven. Who we playing against and you know, some of those minutes might be inflated a little bit, because Mo (Mouhamed Sylla)was hurt. Mo hadn't practiced all week, so he was trying to get through. He gave us what he could, but he was hurt all week, so he really didn't practice. And then you obviously don't have Bayh, you don't have Jayden, and they played small. They weren't a really big team, so we could match up with them by playing small. But I'm comfortable with playing small, I feel like I got a feel for everybody. I'm getting comfortable with that. know what guys bring to the table and I think that I experimented through the early season kind of giving guys the same minutes to see what it looked like, big picture and long term. But I think that I know what buttons to push, so to speak, with the group that I have now.”

On the second half defense….

“I thought it was really good, you know, and I thought it allowed us to get out and get easy buckets. You know, that's who we are. We got to get stops. You know, we got to get out and we got to run. Offensively the last couple of games we shot the ball well, so our total number looks really good. But in the times that we weren't shooting the ball well, we had to hang our hat on defense. So that's what it has to be. And as we move forward in our last non-conference and then getting to ACC play, we're gonna have to be able to guard the three. We're gonna have to be able to limit teams with one shot. We're gonna have to have game rebounding. And those are things I stress each and every day margins of the game, we got to win.”

On having guys like Fleming and Reaves who put pressure on the defense…

“It's great. But I think that, like. You know, even looking at the free throw shooting, you know, and how I've been saying like we getting better. You know, it's just hard to see at times right now, but we're getting better because we struggled earlier in the year to free throw line. And you know, as we were moving forward, you know, guys are, you know, Kowacie and Akai, you know, they shot 20 of our 30 free throws, you know, and then even Peyton, you know, he missed three straight free throws last game. He was two for two from the line today. Um, Lamar was five for five. So, you know, the fact that we're able to make shots makes the game easier. It doesn't put as much stress on the game if you can make free throws.”

On update on Jaeden Mustaf and Baye Ndongo....

“I actually don't have a date. I know this was kind of planned to get them through to this point so they can have extra time and then we got to ramp them up. They can go coming next week when we come back. We got a window and we got to work, but the one thing we need to do. We need to make sure guys can get on the floor and they be healthy. I just feel like we have to figure that out as a group, but then those players have to figure out. Again, they're being asked to do things that maybe they haven't done in the past, The reality of it is that it's a different era, so to speak. You gotta figure out how you can help the team and maybe you can be healthy. But maybe you can't do the things you did but your presence. And I think that's the biggest thing that even at times we miss with by for instance, his presence. I think he's a common influence but he'll be fine. He was on the court the last couple of days and the biggest thing is just him getting comfortable. And getting some practice time underneath him. It doesn't have to be like go full throttle, but I just don't like guys personally just coming out there. You just throw them to the wolves and we don't have time for that so to speak. So we do gotta speed them up. But starting on Thursday, he will be doing some stuff and we'll move forward. Looking for the day of the Duke game is kind of, man, I'm lying. Florida A&M ain't them, you know getting them, you know, you gotta go, you gotta go test drive the car, you know, before you take it on the freeway, so to speak, you know what . You can't try to go on the freeway now, you know, without test driving, so you know, we're gonna test drive it, you know, and then we're gonna take it on the freeway.”

On the offensive scoring….

“It's coming, we still gotta get better. But like I had been saying, we weren't gonna miss shots forever. I think that just the numbers and the guys that we had, they put me to work, it said that. And so just happy and proud of these guys as they continue to keep moving the trajectory upward, and you see a lot of payback with a lot of these guys. There's a lot of 100 % on this shooting chart. You know, we pretty much everybody took a shot over 50%, and so we just haven't had that a lot. Not just today, but since I've been here at Tech, so guys are getting paid back for the work they've been putting in. We've been asking a lot of them, but they've been putting in work. I think it was after, no, it wasn't Marist. We played that game on Saturday. We had that window for about 10 days. We really put in some work, and you can see guys getting paid back for it.”

On Kam Craft and where he is…

“His attention to detail gotta get better. And I think that the thing about it is he got locked in a little bit more. I'm asking. He shot the ball wellin some games and some games he hasn't, but I'm not necessarily gonna take you out for missing shots. I just think for a guy like him, if he gets lost in some of the margins, the little things and just it'll help him. I think that he's going to the rim, he left a couple on the table today. And I think that'll open up, but I just really believe that for him, he has to continue to buy into what we're doing. Which he is, he just hasn't got any payback, but he has to continue to just keep working and to pop open for him. To his credit, throughout this time, he wanted them dudes out of all these guys on the team. And I coach pretty hard, he allows you to coach him.
The one thing about Kam (Craft) is he never gives up on himself. And so that's what I actually love about him. If you remember, I played in the second half, I put him right in. Hell, he ain't run up to court, he shot a three. So, you know, the thing about it is that I can live with that. You know, I can live with that. I want to hold you accountable for other things. Yes, I can reel that in. But what I need you to do each and every possession, is defensively, I need you to know what we're doing, what, you know, what ball screen coverage we're in. Are you guarding a shooter or a non-shooter? If a shot goes up, are you going to box the guy out? Like, that's what I'm looking for, more consistency on that end. And I think that if he gives more consistency on that end, because it's not the effort, it's playing hard. But he has to get more consistency with the attention to detail part. I think that'll bleed into him on the offensive end and he'll start to have a success that we all know he's capable of having.”

On having three interchangeable centers….

“It feels good, honestly, especially in a game like this, oh, knowing that Mo was hurt. Knew he wasn't gonna be able to play the minutes that he normally plays. So to have Payton and to have Cole and then Baye (Ndongo) out as well, so you couldn't size down with him. Usually, you would put him at the five in games like this, but it gives you a comfort zone. And in all actuality, I was playing Cole and Payton, and I was gonna play Cole for a couple more minutes and then come back with P. And then they went small, so that's why I went small, just so we can match up with their shooting.”

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