What Damon Stoudamire Said After The Yellow Jackets 6th Consecutive Loss

Georgia Tech is trying to find answers and fast. Here is everything that head coach Damon Stoudamire said to the media postgame after the Yellow Jackets fell to 11-14 on the season.

On going 16-46 from two point range…

“We haven't been a really good two point shooting team all season to be honest with you. You have to go strong you gotta go not looking for contact. You gotta go looking to finish. And if the contact is there, you draw the foul. You gotta try to go finish strong. We just didn't do that. We didn't do that along with coming out in the second half and starting slow. It just kind of bled into everything that happened that last 20 minutes.”

On the key to turning the team around and getting a win…

“Well, first and foremost, you know, we need to win. You know, I think that we all understand that, you know, but it's a loaded question. We gotta be better at dealing with adversity. I just don't think that collectively we're great at dealing with adversity. And so when you start with adversity, let me start with the first word, which is being uncomfortable. So when you're used to being uncomfortable, and you allow yourself to be uncomfortable, then you learn how to deal with adversity. We just haven't done that. And a lot of times, you things are lost, and it's hard to unpack some of the things that happen when you lose because the only thing we see is the final score, which is important. And you cannot diminish that. But the biggest thing is we gotta learn how to fight. We gotta learn how to hit first. That was one of the first things I learned growing up. It's like if you get into a fight, right? If somebody walks up on you, you don't let them hit you first. You know, and it's just like to me, we're just on our heels. We need someone on the court to galvanize the troops. It can come that way, but it can't always come from the sideline. And so the things that we need to do to be better as a basketball team, collectively at times. It has nothing to do with making or missing baskets. It's staying together and fighting through a little bit of adversity. Because when times get tough, you know, we don't stick together all the time. And that, to me, is hurting us more at the end of the day. You know, obviously, again, yes, we need to win. We do. We need to win bad. But it's not going to happen just by falling in our lap, you know, because when you need something, when you need a win, you gotta lock in a little more. You can't grab a rebound with one hand, you gotta grab it with two. You can't lunge for a ball that's on the ground, you gotta dive for a ball that's on the ground. You can't short close on a guy and contest and don't get off the ground if he's a three-point shooter. So it's a lot of things, but I'm just gonna start right there. It's the adversity part, and we gotta figure that out. See, it's crazy as it is, it's still a lot of season left. It's a lot of season left, and whatever happens, we have to be better through the adversity part.”

On struggling coming out of the half…

“I thought we were in a good position, thought we were in a good spot. We played well in the first half. But to me, they jumped on us. I thought offensively, and it compounds, we missed a couple at the bucket. Then I thought we took some questionable shots. And next thing you know, it's an 11-0 run. Listen, when you're fighting the way we're fighting in our margin of error is not as big uh as others, you can't have those things happen. We just didn't do a good job in those first four minutes.”

On if the team was tired after the long road trip to California…

“It was a long trip, but I appreciate Steve for giving us that built-in excuse. The way I look at it is, when you've been struggling the way we are, we gotta find it. We gotta figure it out. That's a part of the adversity. You can either cave in to you know, the different notions out there or you can try to fight through it and do the things that you need to do to win a ball game. You know, I don't know, just we weren't the same team when we came out of the dressing room, you know, in the second half. We just didn't have the same collective energy; we didn't have the same fight. And, you know, at times I just don't like the looks on our faces as well. But we'll deal with that, and we gotta, again, we gotta keep fighting. There are still a lot of games that we have six games to go, I think six. So we gotta finish this thing out the best way we can.”

On the current climate of continuity in college basketball, and if it is affecting the Yellow Jackets with their leadership…

“I think that it can. I don't think for me, like your point, I always want in-house leadership. You you need leadership in that locker room. I don't think leadership always has to be from your best player. You like it to be from your best player, but it doesn't have to be from your best player. I think in the past, I thought about a situation that I had. I think that you gotta have a lot of maturity when you're bringing guys together because there's a short window. And so you get that short window, then you have to have guys that buy into everything. You know, it's probably to add to what you're saying, it's probably just as important to do. You gotta do your homework on who you're bringing in. You know, a little bit more. You gotta dig, you gotta vet the situation. And then sometimes, in certain situations, you gotta really listen to what people are saying because, you know, you have to figure out in a real short window, you know, whether that's a fit for you or not a fit for you. The one thing that the best leader I ever had was not my best player. He transferred to me from VMI. And there was a lot to that in talking to him. It's funny, the things that you stand for are the attention to detail. He made his bed every morning. If you know VMI, you know VMI, right? He made his bed every morning. He did all the little things. And, you know, he kind of stuck with me. When I left Pacific, he came with me. He actually came to Boston with me. He was with the Maine Celtics. He was with the G League team. And he went to the Charlotte Hornets. There's something to that. But he was so mature. So his balance and how he impacted the team by not being the best player, it's something that I'll take with me because it meant something to me and the things that he valued. Other guys didn't value, but he knew how to get through to each individual. And so if you got a bunch of guys that are coming from different places and they all wanna be the man, that's not reality. Somebody has to be a role, somebody has to play a role.”

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