More from Hokies on loss at Duke
If you have already read my game story in the previous blog post or in the paper or elsewhere online, here are some extra quotes that were not in that story:
Also, here is the correct link to the game story:
http://www.roanoke.com/sports/virginiatech/vtbasketball/1749552-12/duke-overpowers-hokies.html
Jarell Eddie on the effect of Raines’ early fouls: “It was tough because it made us have to put 4 men at the 5 spot to guard Plumlee, and Plumlee’s one of the best big men in the league if not the best big man in the league.”
Eddie on his game: “Just trying to shake the funk off. I had two wide open shots early. When you get wide open shots, you got to knock it down. Seeing two of them go down early, I get in the flow, I got to the free throw line after that.”
Erick Green on the loss: “Jarell’s finally getting out of his slump, he’s stepping up…. We was right there. It’s just disappoiinting that we couldn’t put a 40 minute game together. …. I’m so glad to see Jarell step up. We’ve just got to get other guys to step up. When it gets close to the end of the game, we’ve got to have more guys make plays. …I’ts encouraging to see we that can hang with these guys but it’s bad that we didn’t put a 40 minute game together.”
Green on the Duke defensive game plan on him: ‘Coach K did it the best, honestly, taking the ball out of my hands. When I get the ball I’m looking to attack. I feel like nobody can check me. So when I get the ball I’m going right to the rim, I’m making plays for others …. Just fullcourt press me, denying me. Every time I got the ball…. they was getting the ball out of my hand. .. When that happens I’ve got to count on others to make plays.”
Green on Raines’ 2nd foul: “Just a dumb foul he made…. He’s got to keep his hands up. We need him in the game. That’s why I was mad. Because the only way we’re going to win is if we have Cadarian Raines in the game. We need him to step up. We’ve got Jarell Eddie, now we’ve got to get Rob and some other guys.”
James Johnson: “Our effort tonight I thought was good for about 30, 32 minutes. We came out ready to play in the first half. We just weren’t able to make the plays down the stretch. We missed free throws.”
Johnson on the defense on Curry: “No breakdown. The same thing he did at home. We were there, he’s coming behind those screens and he’s shooting behind them. He made tough plays. He’s shooting those things deep, behind those screens. And he’s good enough to where if we come out on him hard he can put the ball on the floor.”
Johnson on defending the 3: “We did a decent job. I thought we were there on a lot of those 3s. They made some tough shots. … We got a hand in their face they’re still able to make shots. … We just had to go to the zone because of foul trouble and just to give ourselves a little bit of a breather. … They hit a couple clean looks in the zone.”
Johnson on what happened after VT cut it to 6 pts in the second half: “They overtook us inside with their post guys. They really did a good job on the glass from then on out. And we missed free throws there. …. We missed a layup, a point blank layup … You’ve got to make those plays.”
Johnson on the centers’ foul trouble: “You’re going against Plumlee and Kelly and you’re out there with CJ Barksdale …. and Marshall Wood. …. A lot of times we had those two guys on the floor together against those big guys and they’re a little bit too much for them rigth now.”
Johnson on the VT offense in the first half: “We talked about being in attack mode. … In the first half we did a good job of attacking the basket and in the second half I thought we got in there a couple times, we didn’t make the plays … As the game went on, I thought we got tired. I thought our lges got to us a little.”
Johnson on the VT defense in the second half: “They did a really good job as far as wearing us down, going inside to the big fellas.”
Johnson on the second half: “Whether we get tired down the stretch, whether they do try to pound it inside on us, whether we’re in foul trouble, we’ve got to try to find a way to have guys step up and make plays.”
Coach K on the game: “The 3 seniors just asserted themselves in that second half. Mason was a bull inside. Ryan, he’s playing a lot of minutes without being in condition. And Seth’s two 3s kind of got us going.”
Coach K on VT: “They should be proud of the fact that they haven’t hung their heads. … It’s a 3 point game at half, six with I don’t know how much to go and they’re right there. I really respect that. That’s part of being in a great league where people don’t give up, they play every ballgame and certainly Virginia Tech did that tonight.”
Coach K on the Duke defense in the last 10 minutes: “We made a little bit of an adjustment to the ball screen. We just defended the ball screen better. … They finally defended the ball screen. … In the second half we rebounded better.”
March 6, 2013 - 3:12 AM
Good reporting in neither article did I see the final score
The only excuse we didn’t hear was we didn’t listen to the scouting report. Other than that you could have reprinted an article from a month ago and heard the same thing. To me this indicates this team are slow learners and not progressing as expected.
Actually if you look at the game story in the previous post, you will see Erick Green did say we didn’t pay attention (to the scouting report)!
The score is right there in the third paragraph of my game story. It’s not in the “more quotes” post, but it is in the previous post, in the game story.
Just about any team in the ACC can challenge for a half, even VT. Hard to get too excited about a half of basketball, especially when the one player who scored half your points has only a couple of games left.
Though Green really showed his ability last night. They were really trying to take him out of the game and he still scored 25 on solid shooting. He did have some defensive lapses though.
Brown and Eddie disappeared again. Man we’ve got to have a better point guard next year, I don’t think Brown can handle it. Maybe Rankin can surprise next year?
I’m hoping the young man from Germany is a hidden gem. He’s a point guard and I think he’s averaging about 22 PPG. Normally the foreign players are pretty sound fundamentally.
Thanks mark I saw the score on my third pass through the article. It’s the first thing I look for
Tom L, the biggest reason is because we have the ‘coach’ that Jim Weaver paid sub-basement level pricing for, and we got basement level results. Johnson has yet to provide even adequate coaching on offensive philosophy or on defensive philosophy. Yet, he has mastered the concept of pointing the finger of blame at his players while being too gutless to accept the blame for not coaching his players to rise above such deficient defensive & offensive play.
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Cue the apologists tearily rushing to his defense in 3… 2… 1…
I don’t think anyone has run to his defense, certainly not me. There’s really not much to defend, but some have said to give him a chance. I agree with you whole heartedly that I’ve seen nothing to make me think he should be in that seat and it’s not really even the losing. It’s his demeanor courtside and his comments after – although I don’t think he did that following the Duke game.
One thing is for sure we’re stuck with him for at least a couple more years. The problem is that by that time the program will in free fall and it will be difficult to interest any coach in taking over a failing program even if it is in the ACC.
Let’s just get this season over with so I don’t have to watch anymore…
VTR, I actually like Johnson personally. He seems like a nice guy and all that. He even represents the university well, and I’m glad we made a minority hire as it is much needed in our sports programs.
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I also think that he could become a decent small major coach in a few years. Like at UNC-Asheville, Elon, Liberty, or other places like that. Jim Weaver did him no favor by throwing him in headfirst into an ACC job. It could drastically diminish his prospects for life after VaTech when a new Athletic Director is hired. That’s not fair to Johnson in that regard. But… he’s just not ready for this level of coaching. That’s not a slam, it’s like any other person in the private sector being promoted from an entry level position into one of upper management immediately. They’d naturally flounder.
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My two gripes with him are plain. I think he showed really bad form by publicly ci his players by name during the season. That should never be done. The excuse of ‘trying to motivate them’ is bogus and not acceptable. I really hope that he never does that any more. He didn’t do it after the Duke game, you’re correct. He has, though, done it multiple times after several games this season. That’s more than a rookie mistake. He evidently is too shortsighted to understand that his favorite whipping boy – Jarrell Eddie – will be half of the senior leadership next season when Erick Green(who also says far too many ‘me vs. them’ statements) is gone. Maybe if Johnson ‘coached him up’ better, Eddie would be more productive, instead of just having Johnson publicly call him out.
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The second thing is that Johnson never takes ownership, something every other coach understands. Even when it is obvious that the players just played a goofball game, coaches across America say things publicly like – ‘we just need to get back to fundamentals’ or ‘I didn’t prep us enough on how to fight through screens’. Johnson always points the finger at the players, and in a public way.
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Those two things are just poor form. What’s not discussed publicly is that the locker room is divided. There are 2-3 players really leaning towards transferring. People criticized the former coach for personnel losses, but Johnson has the same issues, only for different reasons. So much for the ‘family atmosphere’.
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You’re right, nothing will, or really should, change for another 3 years. Only once we get an athletic director who is not a disgrace like Jim Weaver, will we then be able to get a good basketball coach. It’s pretty plain that Charlie Steger doesn’t care about basketball, because he allows Jim Weaver to not care about basketball. The sooner Weaver is gone, the better we’ll be as a sports program. The problem with all of that is that we have to continue to pay our Hokie Club dues and to buy season tickets while the basketball program stinks, to put it mildly. Talk about zero return on investment, LOL…
Tom L, the ‘young man from Germany’ averaging 22 pts is like a player averaging 22 points here in HS. i translates into about half that many points in college, if that. The fact of the matter is that none of the athletes secured by Johnson & staff are rated as highly as the current players at that position. Lots of people like to pretend wrongly that Johnson has no talent at the various positions on the court, but that is totally wrong. johnson has adequate talent, in fact more talent than what he has recruited.
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It’s just a matter of Johnson actually providing coaching for that talent. Something he has yet to do with the superior talent he already has on the team. To think he would somehow provide adequate coaching to the incoming talent that he has yet to provide the current talent is pretty funny, and totally unexpected.
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But heck, we’re supposed to give him undetermined amounts of time (in a blind defense of Jim Weaver’s philosophy) to succeed, so whatever… It’s only our loss as fans and a program that is being ignored, no big deal…