Post-game interview with Damon Stoudamire
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00:00 >> First day, first give BC credit.
00:08 They thought they did a good job tonight of executing things that they needed to.
00:16 We tried to limit post and
00:21 the other guys, Harris and McLaughlin.
00:25 McLaughlin had a good game.
00:27 And overall for us, we just, we gotta do better with leads.
00:33 It's a lot of growing pains.
00:36 I think I understand it as frustrated as I am sitting here
00:40 about the loss of this game.
00:41 I understand when you're year one and you're trying to build and
00:50 you're going through the process of trying to figure things out.
00:53 Like sometimes the ball don't bounce your ways, I've seen it 100 times.
00:58 I got drafted by an expansion team.
01:00 Towards the end of my career, I was with a team that wasn't really good in Memphis,
01:07 but they had really good young players, Kyle Lowry, Mike Conley, Rudy Gay.
01:12 And when you're going through that process,
01:16 it's gonna be nice like this, no matter what.
01:22 And you just gotta keep on fighting.
01:28 And I think that at some point we'll learn from it.
01:32 Unfortunately, it doesn't help right now with the way I think those kids
01:37 are feeling in the locker room.
01:40 But that's all we can do.
01:43 We just gotta continue to grow because we didn't get it done.
01:46 And then we had our chances.
01:48 There's a lot of other things that was going on, but we had our chances.
01:51 So again, I say for me, as you're building something,
01:57 you gotta keep your eye on the big picture and
02:01 stay process driven, and this is a part of the process.
02:04 >> Okay.
02:06 >> It seemed like there were maybe four calls there.
02:12 And then in that final three minutes, the reversal, the time out on the flagrant.
02:17 And then kind of a sequence of questionable calls,
02:22 if you watch the replay, like a block that was called foul, things like that.
02:26 And you obviously lost your tempo for a second at T.
02:30 But kind of what were you seeing?
02:33 What was the explanation for some of the calls?
02:35 Was it frustrating for you to kind of see that?
02:38 >> For me, again, I'm gonna fight for my team.
02:44 That's all I was doing.
02:46 We're trying to get the game back.
02:50 You fight, you fight, you fight, you're just fighting for your team.
02:53 Whatever they call it, whatever I feel about them, I feel about them.
02:58 But it's part of the game.
03:00 Again, I've been in this a long time.
03:02 I've been on both sides of it.
03:04 But I feel bad.
03:08 I just feel bad because they played so hard.
03:14 But there's just breakdowns and things that happen within a game.
03:19 Again, I'm just telling you, the craziest stuff happens when you're going
03:24 through the process of trying to be successful.
03:26 I'm just telling you the craziest stuff happens.
03:29 And it doesn't matter whether it's a loose ball right in front of our players,
03:35 and he slips and don't get it, and the other team gets back.
03:38 I'm just telling you, it's part of it.
03:41 So for me, I'm not gonna place no blame on nobody.
03:47 Cuz again, like I said, we had our chances.
03:49 And we just gotta keep growing from this.
03:53 >> Okay.
03:54 >> Well, I guess along those lines, how do you keep your team and
04:00 their spirits up?
04:00 If you know this sort of crazy stuff is gonna happen,
04:03 how do you keep them focused and just let them know, let's just keep going,
04:06 let's keep working?
04:08 >> Well, I think that they'll be fine eventually.
04:11 I mean, I always say, I say the same thing.
04:15 Win or lose, 12 o'clock, you gotta let it go.
04:19 And you gotta get ready for the next one.
04:21 And I think with us, it's all the little things.
04:28 I just, I don't know how much better
04:34 you're gonna get in season practicing on the court when you play Tuesday,
04:40 Wednesday, and Saturday for the next two months, two and a half months.
04:45 But we just gotta keep on beating down that film.
04:48 And see, that's the process that a lot of them, I don't think,
04:53 actually have been through it before like that.
04:57 Because for me, the attention to detail is really important.
05:02 And it's important for, for instance, the point guard,
05:05 he gotta know what the five man doing.
05:07 You can't just know what you do on the court,
05:09 you gotta know what everybody do on the court.
05:11 Like it's a part of it.
05:13 And like every scenario that we've had in the game, we've had in practice.
05:22 Every scenario that we've had in the game, we've talked about it.
05:26 And the biggest thing is being able to take the game plan and
05:31 put it on the floor.
05:32 It don't always work that way.
05:34 There are tweaks to go into it.
05:36 I always say this, anything on the floor where guys are communicating,
05:42 it supersedes anything that the coaches say.
05:45 Because you know what?
05:47 What I see from the sideline might be different from what they see on the floor.
05:50 And I've been a player, so I understand exactly what that is.
05:52 So I just, for me, I just want our guys to think about
05:59 the little things that we didn't do well.
06:02 And then hopefully that can help us in the next game come Tuesday.
06:06 >> Right.
06:06 >> First half, you only had three turnovers.
06:10 And of course, that leads to better chances of scoring.
06:14 Second half, I think you had eight turnovers.
06:17 A lot of empty possessions when you had chances maybe to increase the lead or
06:21 come back.
06:22 How difficult is it for them lately to put together those two halves
06:28 that you're looking for?
06:29 >> I mean, we haven't put together two halves all season.
06:35 We played 28 minutes here, 30 minutes there.
06:38 But what I'll say about that is,
06:39 the problem with turnovers is when you don't get attempts at the rim.
06:45 Simply that.
06:46 So I think most basketball teams, not just Georgia Tech,
06:51 most teams are better when they play defense.
06:54 When you limit a team to one shot, and you get out and run.
06:56 Everybody like to run, right?
06:58 So when it becomes a half court game, and
07:01 now you're asking everybody to think, now it becomes tough.
07:04 Now everybody has to remember things, that becomes tough.
07:07 Now, you gotta have people that maybe might think for
07:10 one, somebody else on the floor.
07:12 It is my job to try and put guys in
07:17 positions so they can show their strengths and hide their weaknesses.
07:22 That's what good coaches do.
07:23 I believe that.
07:24 I truly believe that.
07:26 And so the thing about it is, in those moments,
07:30 I know who my team is, through and through.
07:33 I believe you.
07:34 I know exactly what each player is.
07:36 I know their strengths, I know their weaknesses.
07:38 I know what they can and can't do.
07:40 And I think sometimes what happens to us is we become prisoners at a moment, and
07:45 we just start playing basketball.
07:47 We don't know the score.
07:49 We don't know the clock.
07:50 And so the empty possessions turn in,
07:53 the empty possession on the offensive end turn into not getting a stop on
07:56 the defensive end.
07:58 And after a while, what has to happen is, we only had one time out.
08:02 And so I was trying to get through and see if we can turn the tide.
08:08 Didn't happen.
08:09 But again, it's a learning process.
08:12 All this is a learning process, I promise you.
08:14 Because from the first day I got here, the stuff that I'm talking about,
08:19 it was like a foreign language to my team.
08:21 And they're getting better.
08:24 They're getting better.
08:25 Don't always see the result of it, but they are getting better.
08:28 >> Got time for a couple more, Patrick.
08:31 >> Coach, I admire the, BC scored 57 points in the second half, and
08:36 it seemed like there was some pretty good variability in the team,
08:39 in your team's defensive intensity.
08:41 Do you agree?
08:41 And if so, is there much you can do about that in the swing of a game?
08:44 Is there somebody you can call on, or the timeout, I guess, to try that?
08:48 But anything else to do?
08:49 >> It's hard.
08:52 Again, when you know some things with your team,
08:57 I think it's human nature for kids to play better on defense when they score.
09:02 And so we only scored 36 points in the second half, and I think that hurt us.
09:05 We're never gonna be a good team.
09:08 If we're walking the ball up the floor, you're taking the ball out the net.
09:14 And that was the biggest, that to me was the biggest thing.
09:19 I think that when they look on the scoreboard, and we come in,
09:23 we start the second half, they see a cushion when they see a 16 point lead.
09:27 I don't see a cushion.
09:28 I see we gotta get better, we need to put our foot on people's necks, and
09:31 we gotta get home.
09:34 We gotta get another stop score, stop score, stop score,
09:37 then that turns into three kills, and then now three kills come to another three.
09:40 Now you're getting kills.
09:41 And so I think what I gotta do is I gotta get guys to understand that we're really
09:47 good when we play defense, when we have intensity.
09:50 And we can't rely on our offense to help us play defense,
09:54 because it don't work like that.
09:55 Because defense is actually the only thing that travels.
09:58 And I thought in the first half, we were making shots, so
10:04 obviously we played deep.
10:06 So in the second half, we didn't make as many shots.
10:09 And so I think that our defense suffered a bit.
10:14 We'll continue to work on that.
10:16 I don't, intensity and all the different things,
10:21 cliches after a while, you have to look within yourself.
10:26 And you gotta figure it out, and we'll help them.
10:30 >> We'll go Chad and then Kelly to wrap up.
10:33 >> Is Mari Abraham still with the team?
10:36 >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mari- >> Is he here tonight?
10:39 >> No, he had the flu.
10:40 He's been out with the flu.
10:41 Him and Suarez are out with the flu.
10:43 >> Yeah, no problem with that.
10:45 >> Kelly, wrap this up.
10:47 >> It was a little bit like, my uncle likes to call the NBA comeback,
10:51 where you have a game and then they're down 20 and come back third quarter.
10:57 Is that a teachable thing for your guys, to see that, hey,
11:01 even if we're up 16 or whatever, this is not, when you go to cruise control and
11:07 just play, it seemed like they kind of went to cruise control.
11:09 Is that sort of what you saw a little bit?
11:11 >> It didn't feel like an NBA comeback to me.
11:14 I've been in a lot of them NBA comebacks.
11:17 >> Yeah, like where somebody gets out or whatever, yeah.
11:18 >> I mean, I don't know.
11:21 Again, I'm a little different.
11:24 I teach different.
11:25 When I teach, I critique.
11:29 It's never personal.
11:30 I don't really know.
11:32 I don't really know.
11:36 Now we can learn from it, but I don't know how much we can learn from it when
11:39 you're coaching, you gotta be able to see it for what it is.
11:46 But then you gotta be able to leave that moment right there and get better.
11:50 I think that's a kid thing.
11:52 You know what I mean?
11:53 And so I've probably been with
11:58 a handful of kids in my life, in college that I've coached.
12:07 Aaron Gordon came the first day and said, Colt, how do I be here for eight months?
12:11 Will Barton said, Colt, how do I be here for 24 months?
12:15 TJ McConnell said, I wanna be a pro.
12:19 Those were people that let you bleed into them because they wanted the truth.
12:23 In order to get better, sometimes you gotta hear the truth.
12:27 [LAUGH] So we've talked about a lot of things that have happened today.
12:35 And I do believe that our guys can get better.
12:37 But there's a lot of times when they haven't been hearing the truth, so
12:41 it kinda hurts when you hear it, but it's critique, it's not personal.
12:45 We gotta get better at taking the critique and not thinking it's personal.
12:51 Because I like all y'all, I don't have no agenda.
12:54 The only agenda I got is winning.
12:56 And so no different than I get critiqued.
12:59 When I look at my phone and be, it's a bunch of coaches.
13:02 They gonna tell me what I didn't do or didn't, and I'm all right with that.
13:06 I'm totally all right with that.
13:07 I just want these kids to get something from it, because I do know this.
13:11 If they just listen, they'll be so much better.
13:16 Cuz again, I'll go back to what I said a little earlier.
13:19 I don't know how much better you can get on the floor.
13:22 But I do know you can get better mentally in preparation for the game.
13:26 >> All right, thank you, Coach.