Everything From Head Coach Damon Stoudamire After An 89-65 Win Over Florida A&M

Georgia Tech head basketball coach talked to the media after the Yellow Jackets captured its ninth win of the season.

Opening Statement…

“I thought we did a lot of good things, excuse me, in this game. I love this, you know, I love playing it, you know, saving the game to play before uh before conference play because I think it's important. I think you, you know, just having a bunch of practices, I don't know how, you know, sometimes you can get better that way. You know, guys cheating plays, guys doing different things, and you know how it goes. This was a good game for us to come out here and play. I know that A&M was short a couple of players. I just thought we did a good job early in setting the tone with our inside guys. Mo (Sylla) and Baye (Ndongo) thought they did a good job in the first half. We were sharing the ball. Second half, I didn't like it as much. We turned the ball over way too much, you know, but I'm not going to make a big deal out of that. The most important thing is. We just have to continue to keep getting better. Yes, 20 turnovers is not what we need, but I can just see our team growing in a lot of different ways. I think we're trending in the right direction. So, I'm excited about that. Um, you know, I'll, you know, I'll single out one guy. I'll single out Chaz Kelly, and it's not because he went five for five and two for two for the three. That's the reward. But like, you know, for the last, you know, three weeks, I just think he's been really good and solid and. He's understood the assignment of what we need out there on the floor, and I thought he did a good job, you know, again this evening. So, he got some payback for a lot of things tonight, but you know, really happy for him to do the things he was doing out there.”

On if this would be Chaz Kelly role when he recruited him to Georgia Tech….

“That's what I thought it was going to be. He's done a good job. I thought early on he was trying to do too much. I told him you know, and I get it, but I told him you don't have to impress me. I've seen a whole lot of basketball. I need you to understand the assignment, and that's to make sure the ball's moving. That's to make sure that everybody's eating and things are looking good and in position. And then, as you lose in the game now, you'll make shots and do the different things that you need to do. I think early on, um, he fought that, but I think that, you know, along the way, me and I had a conversation. I think that, you know, he's embraced, you know, everything that's come his way. That's why you've seen his minutes go up. You know, he's done a good job.”

On how the game against Florida A&M prepares Georgia Tech for ACC play…

“What a game like this does for us is it gives me another opportunity to, you know, settle in on what I think is a rotation. It gives me another opportunity in this particular game, Baye Ndongo, to play minutes, you know, and be able to get up and down. So that's that's big for us, you know, that's big, you know, we need, for instance, Baye to you know, get back in a little bit of shape and things of that nature. Tonight, we were able to run some guys a little bit longer, give them longer minutes, and you know, we had some illnesses ourselves. We had a couple of starters that really hadn't practiced all this week, and I would say I probably played Lamar (Washington) more minutes than I wanted to, and I actually played Kowacie (Reeves) more minutes than I actually wanted to. I thought we got a lot of mileage out of the guys that we had. I thought Jaeden (Mustaf) did well. I thought obviously Chaz and you know, I was able to get Davi (Remagen) some minutes, you know, so this is always good. Um, because it's always better, and let me first say this, we're not a good enough team at this point to be looking past nobody. So, it's just always a good game to play. When you can get out there, and you can have a game instead of continuous practice because after a while, you want to see it against some other people.”

On playing in the NBA and going against Charlie Ward on the court…

“I played against Charlie. I played against him about five times a year, counting preseason. My first three years, you know, playing the Knicks, being in Toronto right there. We played them a couple times in preseason, you know, played them four times a year in the regular season. Competing against Charlie, and you know, he exudes a lot of toughness. His team tonight exuded toughness. I think he's one of the one of the best people I've ever met and come into contact with. Honestly, it still kind of rubs me the wrong way that he never got an opportunity. I don't know the dynamics behind that. Never got the opportunity to play football, because based on how they do stuff in 2025, you might be looking at number one pick and then a first round pick in basketball because of what Charlie Ward was doing at Florida State back then. I just told him, I told you sometimes you got to wait to tell people things because you when you're competing, you can't do that. But I told Charlie Ward, Charlie Ward actually was the only player basketball or football when I was in college that I had to make a window to watch when he played because them Florida State teams he played on was good, you know, and he did a lot for the sport and I think he did a lot of us in a lot of different ways. Charlie's a high character person, you know, a man of God. Um, known him a long time. He lives in Houston. I had a house in Houston at one point, you know, and he's done so many things. How many people have been the head coach of a high school football team and then have been the head coach at a Division I school, you know? So, you know, again, I have a lot of admiration for him and what he's done and the way he competed, and he was one of the ultra competitors that I played against, you know, in my time in the league.”

On going into the ACC play with so many players who can score the basketball…

“Offensively, we've been getting better. You can see that, and we have to just continue to move in that direction. I think that we have a team that, when I envision this team when we put it together, would have a lot of people in double figures. We might not have a 20-point guy right now, but we've got a bunch of guys that, every game it could be somebody different, and I think that's what you're seeing down the line. I've been happy with our offensive with our offense over the course of the last three, four games. You know, again, aside from the 20 turnovers that we had tonight on that end of the floor, I think we've been playing well.”

On playing HBCU programs and having them on the schedule…

“You know, the challenges that they have. I try to keep one of them on my schedule at all times. You know what I mean? So, it's nothing new. So you try to get guys, you know. Start there, you know, and then if they don't need it, you go somewhere else. I appreciate HBCU’s. In another time, I remember back when I was younger, I used to actually want to go to H.B.CU, you know, to be honest with you. I just think that there's a lot of history at a lot of those schools. It's always good. It's Atlanta, you bring one. You know, the first year we played Howard, you know, we played Howard. You know, they brought everybody and, you know, fam had a good turnout. So, you know, I think that it turns into a nice little gathering for current students in some respects and definitely alumni who are in the city. To the best of my ability, I'll probably always schedule at least one a year.”

On Lamar Washington and Jaeden Mustaf on the glass…

“We are going to need a little more than that, you know, going into ACC play. You know, probably another thing that was a little disappointing is FAMU, they played small, and so where I come from, it's like you put five small guys on the floor, you know, it's just the toughest small guys win, right? And so there were some instances out there that I didn't like, you know, where I thought they out-toughed us, you know, for some rebounds, for some loose balls, and you know, this is the type of thing that can’t happen as we move forward."

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