More from Hokies on loss to State
If you’ve already read the game story with quotes in the previous post or in the paper on elsewhere on the site, here are some extra quotes.
Jarell Eddie on his good game: “I was just playing well those few days before we came down, shooting the ball well. And it was able to fall down for me tonight.”
Eddie on the first meeting and the rematch: “Rebounding was the difference. In the game we took them to overtime, I think we were plus — we had 21 offensive rebounds. Today they really beat us on the glass. That was the difference in the game.”
Caarian Raines on Richard Howell: “He was knocking down the mid range jumper. Every time he shot it he made it. It was pretty hard to guard him today.”
Raines on the rebounding: “They were just going every time, being strong every time. We just missed a few box outs here and there and they made us pay.”
James Johnson: “We were ready to play. Six point game at the half and weren’t able to do much, get much going in the second half. They did a really good job of going inside, CJ Leslie and Richard Howell. The first game we had 20 offensive rebounds. They did a good job of keeping us off the glass and limiting our second chance opportunities tonight. … We played well in spots but not enough.”
Johnson on State’s run late in the first half: “We turned the basketball over a little bit during their stretch. We weren’t attacking as much as we needed to be and we were a little loose with the basketball and it led to their transition baskets. … We thought if we could have them play against our set defense all night we’d be fine but those turnovers led to transition baskets.”
Johnson on Richard Howell: “They started the first possession going inside on us. That’s been kind of the blueprint the last few games, teams trying to go inside … just to pick up a foul on those guys (Barksdale and Raines) or trying to get a basket. Howell, he’s been a load for everybody all year and he was a load tonight. He scored driving the ball to the paint. We gave up the ball … 2 feet in the paint and then when we did force him out he hit the jump shot. He did it all tonight.”
Johnson on Erick Green: “He’s a much better kid than he is a basketball player…. With the rocky season that we kind of had, those guys could have easily folded, Erick’ could have easily folded. And he didn’t and we didn’t. I think the guys looked at him to see how he was going to be. They looked at me to see how I was going to be. Erick hung in there. … It means so much to Erick. I remember Erick’s freshman year and looking at him on the bench and he didn’t play as much as he wanted to play and he didn’t play as well as he wanted to play and I remember seeing tears in his eyes. … He kept working on his game.”
Johnson on next year: “There’s certainly going to be some changes. We’ll have a deeper bench, we’ve got some recruits coming in. The program will definitely be evaluated offensively, defensively and then everything within. … There’s certain things we want to change.”
Johnson on Eddie: “He made shots today. … All year long he’s been kind of up and down but he came out today ready to play and made some shots and kind of carried us…. That was definitely encouraging for Jarell Eddie and for the team.”
Green: “The first half kind of caught me off guard. I saw a lot of double teams and just staying with me off the pick and rolls. … They had a great defensive plan and we just didn’t put a good 40 minutes together. ….. I didn’t come in here thinking we were going to lose the first game and go home. I’m a winner …. In the first half, in the whole game, they got out in transition. Their bigs ran.”
Green: “I know it was a losing season but I learned a lot. I’ve learned how much hard work pays off. I had a great group of guys to be around, I had a great coach. I wouldn’t want anybody to end my career with but this guy right here who’s been with me since junior year of high school. It doesn’t get any better than that. It sucks it has to end. I’m going to miss college basketball. I’m going to miss being in college, miss hanging out with these guys, miss hanging out with Coach Johnson, laugh and joking,. … I’m definitely going to miss playing in Cassell Coliseum in front of the Hokie fans. … My message to everybody is just work hard. No one ever thought I’d be at where I am today. .. Hard work and dedication can take you a long way. …. Just walking off the court kind of brought tears to my eyes that it came to an end. They always told me four years would fly by and I didn’t believe it, and it really did fly by. It hurt, just walking off with a loss because …. I’m a winner. …. Heading in here that’s all I was looking forward to is just holding the trophy up and ending my college career as ACC champion. .. It just sucks, it hurts, because I didn’t want my college career to end like this.”
Green on teammates hopefully learning from his work ethic: “No one would have thought I would have been the player I am today, but if you put some … things aside and just work hard and stay in the gym, anything can happen — you can become a better ballplayer. …. My main thing is to teach these young guys (to) work hard and keep getting better and change this program around. … hope they see my work ethic. I hope they see the grind I put in, how much work I put in.”
Green on next year and James Johnson: “He’s a great coach. He didn’t have the depth that a lot of teams have. But he’s a great guy. The best thing about Coach Johnson’s not the coach, he’s a great person. He’s taught me so much and helped me become a young man. I think he’s going to do a great job with this program and change it around once he gets some good players, once he gets some players in here. … They’re going to be a great team next year. They’ve got a great coaching staff, a bunch of great players coming back. They’ve just got to work hard. I hope they see how much work I put in, that anything’s possible.”
Green on his future: “I’m just going to continue to fight and get better and better and hopefully I get a chance to move on to the next level. … I’ve got a lot of work to do. … I’ve got anoher step ahead of me and I’m going to work even harder.”
Green on not getting to the lane: “I tried to attack but everybody was in the gaps. They were just sitting there, just waiting for me. Even in transition I saw three people just watching me.”
Green on his career: “It does fly by. Enjoy every minute you get it. Freshman year I thought it was going to be a long long time but each year it goes by faster and faster. … This year it was amazing how fast it went by. … Enjoy every opportunity you get playing college basketball. It doesn’t get any better than this. Enjoy the college campus, being around people and having fun. This is the best time of your life. So enjoy it … and work your tail off.”
Mark Gottfried: “We did a good job on Erick….. Lorenzo made his mind up he was going to do a good job on him. I thought he did. I thought our team’s defense was better. We were active, we were quick, we rotated better. I thought that was probably the key to the game. …. When you’re going to play against a guy like Erick Green, he’s the nation’s leading scorer, that’s going to take some energy. And [Lorenzo] spent some energy doing that defensively. … Today his focus was defensively.”
Lorenzo Brown: ‘I just basically fed off the energy from my teammates. They did a great job helping me off the screens and containing him from shooting the 3-pointer and driving it. … He’s a great player and we did a good job.”
Gottfried on Richard Howell: “He’s Mr. Reliable. … He’s a big key for what we were able to do.”
Lorenzo Brown: “I felt like this was going to be our toughest game. They sent us to overtime at our place.”
Gottfried on the second half: “Our pressure defensively initiated our opportunities in the break. When we got our pressure up and we were deflecting passes and we were disrupting them, it enabled us to run our fast break more, which I thought was the key. Once we got out into the open floor we were able to separate from them.”
And here is the link to the game story with quotes if you have not read it yet:
March 15, 2013 - 12:57 AM
The interesting part of next season is when Johnson finally realizes that Eddie & Raines will be his leaders. As eager as Johnson has been to criticize Eddie publicly, it will be interesting to see how he tries to fluff him up as he did with Green.
On Aug 23, 2012 – the day the schedule came out, I predicted a 12-20 season for the Hokies. I was off by one game. Actually, three. VT upset Iowa & OkState, then lost to GaSouthern. Otherwise, they won the four I had for them in conference. Only one other poster on RT made a similar prediction, and he also did it prior to the beginning of the season. Everyone else was under the false assumption they would at least make the NIT, since they were ‘free’ of Greenberg. Funny how things work out, isn’t it?
I’ll wait for the specifics of the schedule, but I’ll say this – the wins won’t be any more frequent next year, if you know what I mean…
Yeah, he did everything but makeout publicly with Green. A bit sickening at times, but he realizes that he got the job because Green was threatening to lead a player mass exodus.
Eddie can shoot and he can rebound but he cannot handle the ball – he’s a turnover machine. Raines can play too, I think he’ll be strong around the basket next year. Barksdale had some glimpses. Jury still out on kid and play. Brown was really not good at much of anything this year and was a huge liability when shooting the ball. So the problem is no point guard. I just don’t see them being any better, probably a little worse – but it can’t be much worse.
I still expect you’ll see some transfers from this team so stand by for breaking news (not that I have any info). I just think most of the players really soured on Johnson. His comments were selfserving and really demeaning to players. I thought Greens comments the other day were insulting saying JJ was a good coach he just needed to get some good players.
I just wish the media would have been a little harder on him and VT coaches in general. I understand being soft on players – they’re just college kids, but these overpaid coaches should be made to answer for anything and everything.
There was not a glimmer of hope for the future this year. Let’s just hope Johnson’s tenure is a short one, but either way it’s going to be long wait. If Johnson had a great roster of recruits coming in next year and year after he’s 3-4 years from being mediocre – I don’t think he’ll last that long.