Jan. 30, 2005

Recap |  Box Score |  Notes

Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams
On the team's win:
"We won that game with our defense, and we had a pretty good intensity level for 40 minutes. We were shaky sometimes offensively, but at the same time, we didn't give Georgia Tech many open looks. They're a very good team, but are just missing a key piece right now. They've been in every game they've played. I thought the defense won the game. We played some zone tonight, which really helped us in the second half when we got in some foul trouble."

On the team's offensive balance:
"It's nice if Nik [Caner-Medley] can get 25 every game, but in college basketball you can take one guy out of the game. We had to go other places, and some guys stepped up and came through. Nik had a good night offensively, but I thought John [Gilchrist] was more aggressive looking for his shot and was great from the free throw line. I still have a lot of confidence that Chris [McCray] will knock down some big shots for us as we go on. And Sterling Ledbetter was terrific in the first half. That was the most pressure he's played under in his life, and it was great to see what he did."

On responding to the NC State loss:
"We've all worked hard. It would have been very easy to turn it in after that, but we continued to work and maybe worked a little harder. If you're a competitor, and I think we are, you bounce back from those things. That's one of the things you have to be as an athlete. You're not going to win every game in college basketball. Very few people go undefeated, and you have to be able to handle losses as well as wins."

On back to back consistent efforts:
"It was good, we were consistent defensively. In the league this year, it's going to be tough to be able to run great offense for 40 minutes. You have to score your points when you can, and we still scored 79 tonight."

On play of John Gilchrist:
"He was going against good guards. Both [Will] Bynum and [Jarrett] Jack are great defensive players, and they put [Isma'il] Muhammad on him for a few times. He can move with most point guards, so John didn't have it easy. Now the big thing is seeing how he can recover for Tuesday night.

On team's attitude and toughness:
"We made a pretty good statement this week, and now we have to continue that. A lot of teams go up and down during a season. I hope this is just the start of things for us, as far as our determination to play well every time out. If we can do that, we've got some guys with experience now who didn't have experience early, we should be able to go pretty deep."

On play of Ekene Ibekwe:
"I'm happy for him. I always look at a player very closely in that situation. I remember Travis [Garrison] responded very well when he didn't start a few games last year. He came back, and he was a better player down the stretch for us. Ekene's doing the same thing. If you notice, Ekene's been out there a lot at the ends of the last two games, and he's played well for us."

Maryland Forward Ekene Ibekwe
On playing as the Terps' sixth-man:
Coach Williams made the decision to start Will [Bowers]. I have no problem with that. I'm all for the good of the team. I've been playing well the past couple of games off the bench, so we'll see how it goes from here.

On playing smarter defensively:
"I have to be smart and take my time. I can't always go for a block or for a steal. I'm more aware of what I can or can't block. That's going to be a benefit because I can be on the floor for more minutes."

On his momentum-changing three point play:
"I knew I could take advantage of the guys inside and get them into foul trouble, so I told John I wanted the ball. I got fouled, but finished up strong and converted the three-point play."

On the state of the team:
"We're playing more as a team and looking for each other more. We're not getting frustrated when something doesn't go right because we know there's another play to come back to. We're feeling real good about the way we're playing."

Maryland Forward Travis Garrison
On his career-high 15 rebounds:
"That was one of my main focuses coming into the game. I think I only had five rebounds at Duke, so I wanted to do better today. I go out there and do whatever the team needs me to do right now, and today that was rebounding."

On putting the Duke win behind him:
"We had to, we had no choice. If we wanted to come into this game and win, we had to put Duke behind us and focus on Georgia Tech, which we did."

On how the Terps pulled away:
"Georgia Tech is a good team. We couldn't let them get any second-chance points. We came into today's game with a lot of confidence. We came in today and wanted it. We were focused and ready to play."

Maryland Guard Chris McCray
On winning back- to-back against ranked conference foes:
"Everybody in the locker room did a great job of letting go of the Duke game and coming into today ready to play. We still had [NC State] in our minds, but we know we made a statement down at Duke, and now we've got to keep winning."

On the play of Sterling Ledbetter:
"It's big. I got in foul trouble and Mike Jones is hurt a little bit, so Sterling was able to step up for us today. He's been playing well in practice, so he's earned his playing time."

On the play of Ekene Ibekwe:
"As soon as he got in, he made a statement scoring a bunch of points and grabbing rebounds. He was huge for us today."

Georgia Tech Head Coach Paul Hewitt
On the game:
"It is OK not to shoot the ball well sometimes, but I thought we had too many breakdowns defensively in the second half. In the first half, we got a nice lift off the bench from Mario West, as well as Ra'Sean Dickey. Even though we were down 10 [points], we felt like we were in striking distance. All we had to do was to have a good solid half of basketball without any breakdowns to give ourselves a chance to win. It looked like we were doing that, but toward the end we gave up too many easy baskets."

On their zone defense:
"Maryland had not been shooting the ball real well coming into the game, so we wanted to test them a little bit. We got out of the zone somewhat earlier than I wanted to because they got out to that lead. We just took some shots out of character early in the game that gave them a chance to get out ahead of us."

On the second half:
"We worked very hard to get back in the ball game and we didn't play particularly well for much of the game because of that. To get it to a three-point game with six minutes to go with as many breakdowns as we had was not good."

On Maryland:
"Gary's (Williams) teams always play very hard. He has done a great job with his program. He may not always get the top-name recruits so to speak, but his teams always come out and give an unbelievable effort. He has kept his teams in the NCAA tournament for 11 years running."

Georgia Tech Guard Will Bynum
On his controversial third foul:
"You can't reverse the call. Once it's made, it's made. There was nothing we could do about that. They thought it was a foul. Then we got a big help off the bench, but Maryland was rolling at that point."

On the loss to Maryland:
"It's tough. We have to keep staying positive and go back and work on the things we need to work on. We have to take it one possession at a time, game by game."

On playing on the road:
"We need more concentration and focus. It's not like we're going to have the fans behind us, so we have to do the extra things, like making sure we know how to defend every play, every screen, every possession. We need 110 percent effort from everybody."

Georgia Tech Guard Jarrett Jack
On the game:
"From here, we just have to go home and protect our home court. We know how tough the conference is this year, and Maryland is definitely a formidable opponent. All in all, we're still right there. We were down ten [points] at the half and three at one point."

On being within three points:
"I thought we were going to be able to pull it out. We were in some foul trouble, though, and struggled from the field. We tried to get started but it kept piling up. What we needed was good defense."