What Josh Pastner Said After Georgia Tech's 80-72 Loss To Notre Dame

Opening Statement:

First off I want to give Coach Brey and their staff and their program great credit. I think they're just a really, really, really good offensive team. Maybe the best offensive team in this league. They're highly skilled, very well coached. You can't leave points on the board because they'll make you pay for it based on their offensive skill set. They're a good basketball team. One of our big things for this year is about offensive rebounding. We did a great job in that category. We have 20 offensive boards, which has been an important part of us being better offensively this year. So we've done a good job on the glass, and we did a good job this afternoon on that. Good job in the red zone (points in the paint), 44-18 advantage us. We did a good job on taking care of the basketball, and we continue to make good strides in that with only five turnovers. The bottom line came down to they had some tough 2’s and they made nine 3’s, and we didn't make enough 3’s. We were 4-18, and that made it tough. The three point shot is the equalizer. As much as we got offensive rebounds and twenty three more shot attempts, the three point shot was the equalizer. We didn't have a great score in transition offense. We missed some opportunities there and obviously missed some layup opportunities also. But you have to give Notre Dame credit. They’re a really good basketball team. Very well coached, and they've got really skilled offensive players. I think they might be the best offensive team in the league.

On Notre Dame’s perimeter defense:

I don't think they guarded Khalid, Jordan, Evan or Moses anytime they were in the paint. So that made it tough. Not having Michael Devoe hurts us in that scenario because it takes away another shooter. But it happened to us earlier in the year when Jose wasn’t playing. [Other teams] wouldn’t guard certain guys. It just continues to make it tough for us, so we just got to keep staying after. That's why we've been a good offensive rebounding team because we're not going to make threes. We’re the lowest ranked team in the ACC on relying on three point production. We've taken the fewest threes, and we've have relied on the three point shot for scoring the lowest in the ACC. But we're number one in two point field goal percentage and number one in scoring from two. So that's part of us is getting on the glass and trying to help score that way when guys aren't being guarded.

On missing shots at the rim:

We just we had a lot of short shots right there [at the rim] and some key times that we just did not finish, including on some fast break opportunities. That stretch where Evan [Cole] missed that dunk and then he missed that short shot. Khalid had a couple opportunities right there. You can't miss those short shots when you're playing against a team that is that skilled offensively. And we’re down our best shooter in a sense, so we have to take advantage of those red zone shots. Which we did, we had 44 points. But we maybe could have had 64 if we made more layups.

On Moses Wright getting in foul trouble early in the second half:

Yeah I took him out after [his fourth foul]. I think I took him out for a minute or two, and they made a little bit of a run because he was playing really, really well. He ended up with 17/8/4 and with three blocks. But once he went out for that two minute stretch, that's when they made their run.

On Jordan Usher and Khalid Moore’s scoring efforts:

They took the guy guarding Jordan [Usher], and they sat him on the block. I think they did the same thing with Khalid [Moore]. Jordan tried to attack the rim, but I told him at half that you can't shoot your way out of it if your feet are set. You're going to have to cut, you're going to have to get going in transition. We were trying to do some things to move around and set some false motion. But they just didn't guard a couple of our guys. That's where it makes a little bit tough for us because the three point shot is the equalizer. But if they're not doing that, we've got to then take advantage of offensive rebounding, which we've been pretty good at. Unfortunately we missed a lot of short shots.

On possibly playing more than 7 players:

I thought about it, but I stuck with the seven man rotation this afternoon.

On Bubba Parham:

Bubba played 35 minutes and he had zero turnovers. He played the right way. Our offense really wasn't the problem. We scored 72. The problem was we missed a lot of short shots. I mean, there's not much you can do to draw up when you just missed those layups. We left a lot of points on the board with our missed layups. A lot.

On Michael Devoe's injury status:

We'll just take it day by day. I hope he plays Tuesday, but probably I would say he’s doubtful or questionable because it’s quick turnaround. Hopefully by next Saturday he's ready to go vs. Pitt.

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