More comments from VT on loss at UVa
If you’ve already read my game story in the previous post or in the paper or elsewhere on the website, here are some extra quotes on the Hokies’ latest loss:
Marshall Wood on the loss: “It’s very disheartening…. They’re just really good shooting the ball. They knock down shots. Joe Harris is a really good player and he came out hot. … You put somebody small on him, he can post them up or shoot over the top of them. You put somebody big on him, he’s going to run them off screens….. He knows how to use screens.”
Erick Green on the first half vs. the second half: “Instead of this time getting down on myself, I kept my head up …. and came ou the second half and had a great half. .. I’ve got to be able to pick it up and not be able to have just one point in the first half … My shots wasn’t falling. I had some great looks. .. Just more confident (in the second half) … but I’ve got to play better in the first half. We had guys step up in the first half when I was down. That shows improvement, that shows guys stepping up and taking bigger roles and that’s a great thing for our team. …. I’m glad to see my teammates step up (in the first half), but on my part it was frustrating because as a leader I’ve got to be able to play both halves and keep our team in the game and I didn’t do that. I had a good second half. For our team to be able to beat a team like this, I’ve got to be able to put two halves together. … UVa just outplayed us tonight.”
Green on Harris: “He’s a great player. He came out hot, had three wide open 3s and just buried them. … We’re not listening to the scouting report. We’re cutting through Joe Harris screens. … We’ve got to listen to the scouting report.”
Green on Eddie and Brown: “These guys are great players. .. I don’t know what’s going on with them. But they’ll come along. I’ve still got faith in them. Marquis Rankin had a heck of a game. … We’ve just got to get Rob and Jarell going… (Brown) looks good in practice. I don’t know if it’s his confidence when he gets in the game, I really don’t know. Him and Jarell look great in practice. I honestly just don’t know what it is, but they’re going to get going.”
Green on the team: “Everybody needs to just relax, …. ignore the outside stuff, ignore what people are saying about other people and just play the game and have fun.”
Green on not being 100 percent: “That’s not an excuse but I’m still a little wore out and drained. … My body just feels a little fatigued, that’s all, but that’s not an excuse.”
James Johnson: “Virginia played a magnificent game … and we didn’t play well at all, but they had a lot to do with it.”
Johnson on Harris: “He came out of the gates blazing. Before we could make the switch and get somebody else on him, he already had … three 3s. … We tried …. a bigger guy (CJ)… We tried a little bit of everything. We tried CJ on him, we tried Jarell on him and Robert got his shot at him and the first play of the second half they just put him down in the post and posted Robert up. And then we tried Marquis on him. I thought Marquis did the best job on him as far as staying close to him and making all of his shots difficult. But he’s a tough matchup for us.”
Johnson on Green: “Other guys try to get involved and now Erick starts standing around and not being the aggressor…. (He had) good looks (in the first half), shots that hed’ been making, shots that he made in the second half. … We need him to be aggressive right now and those other guys got to play off of him and try to get their shots off his penetration, in transition, get to the offensive glass. We need him to be aggressive. We can’t afford to play a very good team like this and him have one point at the half . … I told him in front of the team (at halftime) that you need to be more aggressive.”
Johnson on Eddie not starting: “It’s the way he’s playing. We tried to go with Will, and Marquis I thought came in before he caught cramps and did a pretty good job … and wasn’t able to put him back in, I though the was one of our better defenders in there on Harris…… I like what Will Johnston is doing out there on the floor so I’m going with him right now.”
To go with a walk-on over the 2nd leading scorer on the team for performance reasons, that sums up how it is going for this team, eh? “We need him to play. And if he’s not, I’ve got to try to shake something up here a little bit. I don’t have much but I’ve got to try to shake something up. Will came in the lsat game and hit a couple 3s, and that’s two more than Eddie has hit. We’re trying to shake something up and relax him a little bit, maybe sitting down a little bit and watching and seeing what’s happening out there could help him. ….. He made the one shot. I thought he was going and then he missed a couple wide open. … It’s just not going down for him.”
Did Johnson agree with Green that guys were not listening to the scouting report on Harris: “Not with this game plan. Harris is just a heck of a player.”
Johnson on UVa: “They did a great job of building a wall against Erick in transition. …. And then our guy that’s been playing pretty well the last few games, Cadarian, we threw it in the post and they post-doubled him tonight and that kind of took him out of it.”
Johnson on Wood: “He’s starting to get his legs back, he’s starting to get his bounce, his energy and he’s shooting the ball with confidence.”
Paul Jesperson of UVa on why UVa is that much better than VT this year, what with 16 point and 18 point wins: “We do things a lot different than a lot of teams throughout basketball. That’s what separates us. We’re a defensive minded team and we try to remain humble.”
Jesperson on the UVa defense: “Jontel was matched up on Green tonight (but) it’s never Jontel vs. Green …. It’s alwasy Green vs. our whole defense. We’ve got Jontel’s back and we’re always in his gap trying to make things difficult for the person he’s guarding.”
Harris: “Guys like Akil and Justin did a great job of screening. … Offensively, we’re doing a really nice job of giving up good shots for great shots. We’re a very unselfish team. … Rankin did a nice job I thought of tagging me but when I have a littler guy on me I can almost shoot over the top of him or take him into the post, which is what we tried to do.”
February 13, 2013 - 2:28 AM
Wow. Looking at the comments in the last two threads, it’s obvious the finely shellacked veneer of ‘family’ has some cracks in it. The last time I heard a ‘team leader’ calling out his teammates like that was when Kobe Bryant called out… well any time Kobe has ever talked about any of his teammates ever. As for the comments by Johnson regarding ‘the other guys’, I’ve not heard a VT basketball coach say anything like that about his team in well over a decade. Not from Greenberg, not from Stokes. That is quite disturbing.
Ah well, at least the ‘family’ is having ‘fun’, right?
The one man offensive ran out of gas and yet the chokies choked again! So thus the motto continues: “We only have 8 scholorship players!” The losing streak continues as well Go Chokies!!
Mark, your main article title: “Hokies no match for Cavaliers” is very fitting. Key question is, “When will our Hokies be a match for the Cavaliers?” Other than Green, none of our starters would be in the CAVS first 8 and UVa’s four freshman would start for VaTech. JJ, has little talent, a short bench and basketball in the ACC is no place for a first-time head coach. Unless JJ has some “magnificent” recruites coming in, next year will be worse without Green’s 20+ points per game.
GO HOKIES, GFB-VT `63
This is the same Hokie team you had ranked #19 in early December. What a joke.
This program is sinking. JJ had the guys playing as a team and winning at the beginning of the season. Now they aren’t. It’s up to him to figure out why. And I don’t want to hear “other guys aren’t stepping up”. They were in the beginning, and now they aren’t. Why JJ? Figure it out!!! I have an idea, but your the guy making the money to get these kids where they need to be, both mentally and physically. Here’s a clue: The mental part for the supporting cast is real shaky and it’s tying them up everywhere.
Weaver asked for this. It’s on his head!
JJ is doing a commendable job….but we need a coach to get us over the top.
This team is not getting better, they’re treading water till the seasons over. Unfortunately I think the honeymoon is over between the team and JJ. He’s had to do things to try to get a spark and I think feelings are being hurt. They’ve got to realize you have to perform to play. 30% shooting from the floor and a little over 50% from the foul line ain’t cuttin it. I can understand having shooting problems from the floor with people guarding you but to go from 75% at the line early in the season to around 50% now is just lack of desire and focus. We’ve seen our last win this season.
#5 Barney, the difference is that we’re not playing weak OOC patsies now. Excluding Iowa & OkState, our first dozen games were against really weak teams. We were not facing talent. Now we’re facing big boy teams, like we’re supposed to be.
#7 Tom L, I too am disturbed at how JJ is handling the team overall. It really seems to have become JJ & Green, then ‘the other guys’. There are FAR too many quotes coming out of post game press conferences that are really divisive, and lots of them are by JJ. That’s just not good. It’s very disruptive. That’s my voiced complaint about him.
I know he’s doing his best. He’s a rookie head coach thrown into the ACC. That’s not his fault, who would turn down a job like that? The problem is that it’s becoming rapidly apparent that JJ is a small college level coach on a national stage. It’s unfortunate. That’s not to say he won’t improve. It’s rapidly becoming obvious he won’t improve while he’s at VT, though.
Hopefully, the next AD will actually care about basketball and make the necessary adjustments. 2016…
Just hope Green is still having fun, I guess he still wouldnt trade this for anything, if I were him I wouldve said I’d trade being the top scorer for the team to be good, but anyway I guess as long as he’s having fun, but not so much fun that he gets dehydrated and needs help to go get water
CR, I know you take a lot of heat on football, but you are right on point with your comments.
JJ is actively trying to deflect blame. We lost Dorenzo and Davila – both should have been easily replaced. We lost Finney-Smith and an outstanding recruit who didn’t want to play for JJ. This guy was a coach on this team and a player favorite – wonder what they think of him now? This is what happens when you let player(s) select a coach. No defense, no discipline and no leadership from the coach. You’re right CR, he’s rolling on his players – Shameful!
These players are kids, basketball is a game, but this coach gets paid REAL money. Take the blame you deserve it.
Oh and the SOS when we were winning was about 290 out of 320 teams so who really thought we were a winning team. It was just running and gunning and for a while the shooting was hot and got us a few wins. Then we hit a very mediocre ACC league and it all fell apart.
This is the second time JJ has said what Green said was the plan wasn’t the plan. Either Green isn’t listening (along with the rest of the team) which is a problem or JJ is not telling it like it was which is a problem. You can look at him courtside and realize he’s in way over his head. Weaver you suck.
Top scorer in area not shown any interest by VT? Andrew Rowsey