Feb. 19, 2010

Head coach Gary Williams

On Georgia Tech:
"Georgia Tech has been ranked quite a bit this year in the top 25 in the country. They have a very impressive front line and they're very deep in the backcourt too. I think the difference from last year is their depth. When you have three guys that can play upfront like they do, I noticed that they split the playing time pretty equally between their three guys. That's always a luxury to have. [Zachery] Peacock is a senior, a good leader and he's accepted his role coming off the bench. That can be tough sometimes as a senior when you're good enough to start and I think that's helped them be a good team this year."

On pressure defense:
"When Keith Booth was here we played six or seven guys and pressed the whole game. We don't do that anymore but we'd like to think we can press when we have to. It seems like there aren't as many teams that press anymore. There are two in our league, Georgia Tech and Clemson that are very effective with it. But if you look nationally, there isn't the pressure defense out there that there was in the 1980's. I've just always considered the press as another defense. Man, zone, box-and-one, pressure. Just so it's there to use when we have to. Sometimes pressure defense is just to change the game and the tempo rather than get steals. Teams take quicker shots; they might rush a little bit."

On having the energy to play four games in eight days:
"We talked a lot about the adrenaline factor. You might be tired but there's no reason you why for one game you can't play on adrenaline. That's what we talked about before the [N.C. State] game and we struggled with that, but somewhere I thought we found something to be able to dig down and find the energy. Usually in that situation somebody really steps up. Greivis [Vasquez] had a great game, but he's had other really great games. I thought Adrian Bowie really stepped up in the second half and really helped us get that lead down quickly. That was very important to give us the confidence that we could come back. He was playing physical and tough and that was the big thing."

On Jordan Williams' continued development:
"Jordan I thought was a good player coming in. He didn't get the publicity coming in but I thought he was a very good player for us the way we play. We needed an inside scoring threat that we didn't have last year and we got that. The good thing for Jordan is he got to play right away. Dino Gregory wasn't able to play the first eight games so it gave him that opportunity to get as much playing time as he could handle. He had some games where he was able to get some confidence; I thought the Villanova game was big for him where he had a double-double. He was able to gain some confidence that he could play against some good players and that's helped him."