Hokies discuss loss to Duke
If you’ve already seen the game story in the paper or in the previous post, here is what Erick Green and James Johnson and Coach K had to say (you’ll hear from Seth Curry, and more from Coach K, in the Sat paper and on the website Sat)
Green on the loss: “This is not the way I wanted to end my senior year. It just sucks right now. …. I believe in this team… We’ve just got to get some guys on board. We’ve just got to stop making excuses. It’s always an excuse, someway, somehow, instead of just playing the game. We’ve got to have more guys step up. We’ve got to have a lot more guys step up. Scoring four points ain’t going to help us win no games. That’s what it boils down to. … Everybody keeps thinking it’s just about scoring. There’s so many ways you can score — rebound, fast break, steals, play defense, get an offensive tip-in. Get yourself going, get to the free-throw line. We were in one-and-one [for free throws] with nine minutes to go and no one attacked. It’s just so frustrating. It’s knowing the game, seeing how many fouls someone has. It’s just frustrating. .,,, I’m tired of saying the same things over and over again. But I still believe in this team. .,,, I just don’t get it, man, how you don’t have … my family always calls it that ‘dog’ in you, that thing that comes out when you’ve got heart. …. When someone gets down the lane, I’m not saying foul them hard, but you’ve got to put them on their butt, make a statement. Do stuff like that, have some fun. We just looked so dead out there. We’re just out there getting our butts whipped and it’s just not even fun.”
Green on all the Duke 3-pointers; “Once again, not paying attention to the scouting report. …. We’re shooting through gaps on Curry instead of chasing Curry. It’s crazy, man. We go over the same thing every single game. It’s just so frustrating. It just boils down to paying attention.”
Green on why Curry was so hot in the first half: :How many 3s did he have wide-open? … He’s a great player, but God dang, if you’re … open that many times, you’re supposed to hit that many 3s.”
Johnson: “Duke was very good tonight and we were not good at all, both ends of the floor. . Their pressure on the defensive end took us out of the game early and took us out of our execution early, and we dug ourselves a holel … We wanted to try to come out and get off to a good start. We knew, coming off a loss, they would be ready to play and come in and try to hit us with the first punch … and we didn’t respond well to that. We dug ourselves a hole and we weren’t able to get out of it at all. I was pleased with … Raines, still playing well … and I was pleased with Barksdale’s effort. …I didn’t think we took a step forward tonight. …. CJ Barkdsale took a step forward, I think Cadarian Raines continued what he’s doing and of course Erick … but as a team we di not take a step forward. …. We’ve got a couple guys that are better players than what they’re playing, but I expect those guys at some point to play better than they’re playing.”
Johnson on all of Duke’s 3s: “Curry came out on fire, hit three 3s in the first couple minutes of the game. Before I could turn around, he had 19 points before I could find my seat. He was a tough matchup. … He hit some tough shots, we were right there on a couple of them. Defensive breakdown here or two but for the most part I thought we were there.”
Johnson on Green and the Hokies: “Guys just got play better. … It’s been the same old song. … We’ve just got to have guys playing better, … He’s doing all he can do. He’s scoring the points and then tonight Curry’s got 19 points and got to put him on Curry to kind of cool him down. Curry didn’t score a point on him. He ended up with 22 .. but you’ve got to put Green on him to kind of shut the fire down. That’s hard to do, when a young man like that, he’s playing the minutes he’s playing, the offensive end they’re throwing 2 and 3 guys at him, they’re pressing hm and then he has to guard the best player on the other team. That’s really difficult for him. … Green is a very good defender. He’s … probably one of the best defenders in this league, I just can’t afford to have him work his tail off and guard the best player on the other end and have him do what he’s doing on the offensive end. … But I did have to try to cool Curry down if we were going to have a chance.”
Johnson on Marshall Wood not scoring after getting 14 pts and 16 boards in his last game: “He’s a freshman. You’re going to have that….. Joey van Zegeren’s a freshman, they’re going to be up and down like that. … I’m not expecting 14 and 16 out of a freshman in the ACC like that every night. We got some rebounds out of him. We got some good looks out of him. He fought on defense. … He was really disappointed in t.”he way he played.”
Johnson on Eddie not being consistent coming off his good game: “I was concerned about that. … When he hit that driving layup early in the game I thought he was off to a good night and it just didn’t happen for him. He’s trying … It’s just not going down for him right now. You go from knocking big 3s down at NC St. to coming back and shooting an airball. I don’t know how it happens.”
Coach K: “We actually had a chance to practice. We worked a lot on our defense and I thought it paid off today. We played outstanding defense. … Our shooting was terrific. Seth set the tone for that in the first half, he put on an amazing display with 19 points (in the half). … Our guys set good screens and Seth worked real hard. He had just a short window and he took advantage of it. When he’s shooting like that we just try to get him the ball in a couple different ways and he came through. .. They went all after Seth in the second half, which opened up some drives for us.”
Coach K on Plumlee: ”I thought Mason played almost a perfect game. He was such a leader for us… Seth had such a great first half, you had to get him the ball. Mason played without getting the ball and I thought he handled that really well. … We just really wanted to go in to Mason and he could make plays from in there. … He’s playing so well, he needs to touch the ball.”
Coach K on defending Green: “We did something a little different in the fullcourt to try and get the ball out of his hands…. You just make guys who haven’t been bringing the ball up the court bring it up and that can get into them a little bit. … Guys that are shooters now have to do more than just react off of Green and our guys did a really nice job executing that.”
Coach K on the halftime lead: “We were able to have a 20 point lead at halftime with Quinn out 11 minutes.”
February 22, 2013 - 2:30 AM
The beloved chokies choked again!! Its great to see the beloved chokies lose and on national TV too!! I guess the chokie nation can’t defend their beloved chokies for stinking up the place!! It was funny to see Johnston take that 3 and to hear the pathetic chokie fans go ahh when he missed! So thus the motto continues: “We only have 8 scholarship players!” Typical chokie fan: ” we tried but the one man offensive can’t do it! I saw brown play but he played like trash but we are still the best even though we lost only by 32!!” Go chokies!!!
VT is mailing it in at this point of the season.
The Duke game was as much a no show as what happened when they played GT.
JJ has not displayed any brilliance at coach to make me think he is the guy to lead this program. In other words, I realize that we don’t have an overload of talent right now, but he is not coaching to any level where people are rising beyond their talent levels.
As Vince Lombardi would point out, every player has a gap between the player they are and the player they could be, and it is the job of the coach to reduce that gap.
I am not seeing that in JJ. More times than not he seem in over his head. And Louisville, Pitt, Syracuse, and ND are enter the league soon (and all are ranked). This team will be the welcome mat of the league for them.
My sympathy to Green and JJ. Hopefully more bodies next year will lead to more competition and better effort.
Ironic that Green was ‘having fun’ earlier in the season after losses that he scored a lot of points, and has now realized his college career is winding down and he’ll have nothing except a scoring title to show for it.
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It’s pretty obvious that the situation has been, for a while, Green & Johnson ‘vs’ the rest of the team. So much for that team spirit, that feeling of ‘family’. The interesting thing is that Green & Johnson continually contradict each other in their perspectives on the games, yet both continually berate the other players on the team. That is leadership? That is coaching?
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I’m having trouble trying to think of a coach anywhere at any time that publicly criticizes his players so often as James Johnson. I find that very distasteful. Perhaps the problem lies with the failure of James Johnson to properly coach his players. A perfect example is Green’s complaints about Curry getting open off screens to hit so many 3 pt shots. For the vast majority of the season Hokie players have failed to properly work through screens. If Johnson has addressed this, it shows no evidence, and he has never mentioned working on it.
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See, this was a problem even when the Hokies were beating bad teams in December, but nobody complained back then because they won & slapped fans hands after games, having ‘fun’. The reason it should have been addressed even then is to prevent results like the Duke game. There are many other examples, but that one suffices.
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Jim Weaver certainly has gotten what he paid for, the bottom of the ACC. The good question is – what happens next year when Johnson loses Green, on whom he’s tied the entire program? We are family, indeed…
Actually, we don’t have guys “that are better players than what they’re playing”. There are a few things that stick out to me about this team. Both of which seemed to be missed by JJ. First, Eddie and Brown simply aren’t very good. You can’t continue to play guys based on potential. You just can’t wait 10 games for someone to start playing. Both of them, in my opinion, should be coming off the bench. Secondly, Van Zegeren IMO was one of the few that WAS playing tough and with passion. Then, JJ took him out and we didn’t see him again. Why? Because he missed a layup? VZ is playing better and better, tougher and tougher and he’s one of few that have that passion outside of Green. Play him. The starting lineup? Green, Johnston, Beyer, Raines, Van Z. Folks may laugh, but I’m willing to bet that this team would fare much better and be more solid overall. Finally, the Hokies continue to play slowly all over the court. Be quicker! Pass quicker! Follow your shots quicker! Move without the ball quicker! Shoot quicker! Make all of these decisions….wait for it….quicker!!! It’s as if their brains are working too much. Turn them off! There isn’t any natural flow to this team anymore. It’s painful to watch. I mean, they stand their and dribble the ball instead of moving the ball quickly and letting things open up. Horrible offense. My goodness…..there must be a disease at VT called “We such at offense in all sports”.
Can Rankin and Brown( he’s a walking turnover machine) be released ?and Brown can’t shoot or dribble the ball and his defense is poor…they may want to move to Div 3
Eric Green is a warrior. Unfortunately he is alone in his efforts. His frustration and candid comments are directed towards his teammates. If I read between the lines, however, there has to be frustration with Coach Johnson and his ability to coach up this team to play tough, disciplined basketball. This is especially true on the defensive side of the ball. Simply put, this team plays soft man defense, does not fight thru screens, and shows no passion or character when things go badly. Green’s diatribe was spot on.
I would hope that there is a very tough, physical practice today. If not, Coach Johnson will have a short tenure in Blacksburg.
This team can’t shoot, period! I don’t care how much time you spend in the gym shooting, if your mechanics suck so does your shot. It’s like practicing a bad golf swing. No matter how much you practice, you still have a bad golf swing.
How pitiful. How futile. How embarrassing.
If this is the best VTech can do they should withdraw from the ACC.
Maybe they could be a .500 team in the SoCon (but I doubt it)
Since a majority of these kids were recruited by Seth, I can’t believe HE thought some of them were capable of playing at this level. I never saw so many BAD ballhandlers and poor passers! I hope JJ is a better judge of talent then his predecessor or things arern’t going to get better anytime soon.
Greenberg took Tech to new heights. Now look.
Potato chip: I have no idea what team you are referring to…we are the Hokies…I don’t know who you’re talking about
No Rich you are the chokies!! Its the hokies but add a C in front of hokies and you get chokies!! If you don’t understand its very simple the hokies don’t deserve to be called by their real name because they suck and sorry fans like yourself and other loyal fans think its ok to post comments about how great the hokies are and yet in the two major programs this year in football your team choked and with the basketball program well you see its the one man offensive and the beloved hokies are chokies all the way to the bottom of the acc basement allowing good teams to feed off of this pathetic team! So Go chokies and deal with it Dude!!
Funny how hypocritical green is. He said of curry that yeah hes a great player but if youre that great you should hit those open shots so yeah he should have scored that many points. Which is funny causd in the Uva game when we shut him down he claimed that we didnt have anything to do with it but he just missed open shots. Well if that is true then Green must not be a great player even though he egotistically claims he’s one of the best guards in the nation.
And rich you know who we’re talking about. Why do yall call us the french? Its called a derogatory term for your rival team, welcome to sports