What Josh Pastner & Michael Devoe Said After Georgia Tech's 73-56 Win Over Nebraska

Tech moves to 4-2 on the season and Devoe finished with 26 points.

Head Coach Josh Pastner:

Opening statement:

“Good win for us. Coach [Fred] Hoiberg is one of the best coaches in the country and he’s going to get Nebraska going like he did at Iowa State, there’s no question about that. So we were fortunate with the win today. It was a little bit of an ugly game. Obviously, our identity is our defense. We defended well, played good D. The biggest thing is we had 16 turnovers. Now Khalid [Moore] and Michael Devoe combined with 10, so we’ve just got to be better in that area. But we found a way to get a win and we won through our defense. That’s who we are. And there’s just going to be some rough patches offensively as we all know until Jose [Alvarado] get back [from injury]. That’s just kind of the deal. It’s just going to be a grind out type of session with these games until Jose gets back and we’ll have a little better continuity and flow. But hey, bottom line is a win is a win. Every game guys have fought, they’ve competed, they’ve scrapped, they’ve played hard for us every possession defensively and that’s what we can control and that’s who we’ve got to be.”

On playing better in the second half:

“Yeah, we were better in the second half. And I thought in the first half we had some opportunities we just missed a lot of short shots, missed some layups around there and just didn’t get it done. But that’s a credit to Nebraska. But we eventually settled in and made some shots. We got down 26-22 but then we ended the half the right way, up four going into half. And then we came out in the second half and played well and was able to get a little breathing room and got a little lead there and was able to take it home.”

On if this was the best they’ve played defensively this year:

“I think we’ve been pretty good defensively. If you look at our numbers, I don’t know if it’s one of our best. It’s up there, but we’ve been pretty good defensively all year long. So, I don’t know if it’s our best defensive game, but one thing we’ve been good at has been defense this year. That’s the thing that has been a constant. And we’ve been good defensively all four years. It’s the one thing that we can control because it’s an effort. Defense is about how well you stunt, multiple efforts, multiple plays during a possession. You’re flying around like your hair is on fire type of mentality defensively. It’s a motor. You can’t be good defensively if you’re cool, casual or cute. Now offensively, when we turn it over, we play cool, casual and cute. It doesn’t work. But defensively, you just got to muck it up and have a grimy type of mentality and we do that, and that’s our identity. Now we have to carry that over on the offensive end. I’m not cool, I’m not casual, and I’m definitely not cute. So I don’t know why we play like that on offense a couple times on a few possessions. So, we’ve just got to clean that up.”

On Michael Devoe’s eight rebounds:

“I was really proud of Michael on his boards. I got on him at halftime that he wasn’t sticking his nose in there. I got on Bubba [Parham] one time because he leaked back. Guards have got to come up with the scrums. Guards have got to stick their nose in there and guard rebound. That is so important. Bubba, one time I was mad at him and I got on him because he leaked out when the ball was there and you have to get it. And Mike a couple times in the first half, he was just kind of watching and I jumped him and said, hey man, what are you doing? That’s just being cool, casual and cute. That doesn’t work on defense. It doesn’t ever work. And so get your nose in there, get your rear end in there and rebound the ball. And he had some big guard rebounds in the second half and ended up with eight total boards. So I was proud of Mike for that.”

Shooting Guard Michael Devoe:

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