Everything From Damon Stoudamire at ACC Basketball Tip-Off

Stoudamire participated in his first ACC Media since arriving at Georgia Tech

Jackson Caudell | Oct 25, 2023

In this story:

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Georgia Tech Basketball is almost back.

Before the Yellow Jackets begin their regular season, they had to make a stop in Charlotte for the 2023-2024 ACC Basketball Tip-Off and Georgia Tech head coach Damon Stoudamire was there to answer questions and he was joined by guard Lance Terry and guard Miles Kelly.

Here is everything from that Stoudamire had to say about his goals for the season and much more.

1. Coach, having the success that you've had collegiately and professionally, just what you can say about going through the journey that you had and how you can utilize all of those experiences to teach the youth of today, to teach Georgia Tech about what it takes to get there and to sustain when you are there.

DAMON STOUDAMIRE: "Yes, I think that it's a lot to that. It's a lot of layers. I feel like I've been in basketball, 30 plus years of organized ball let's just call it, and I've been with a lot of good coaches.

But I think that for these guys, these guys back there, I've kind of avoided trying to tell my story. But as of lately, I've been digging back into it a little bit.

I told these guys this, and I'll finish the story because ironically enough it ended here. When I was at Arizona, we had some really good teams. I played with a lot of first-round guys.

The least talented team I played on was the most together team. It was built around me and another player.

But we were a together team. We clicked. We bonded. We hung out together. It ended with us making it to the Final Four right here in Charlotte back in '94.

I'm not going to say that this team that we have at tech this year is going to the Final Four, but what I see is a team that's connected, and if they keep playing the right way and they just listen to -- I always say this -- listen to my words, not how I say it all the time, I think they'll be successful.

What does that mean? I don't know. But just the fact that I've come through so many different eras, and I'll say this, coming back from the pros, it's helped me because with these guys, with my team, I'm not going to skip any steps. I'm just not going to skip any steps with them. I'm not going to do that.

If Tatum and Brown and all those guys don't skip steps to success, then I'm not going to allow them to.

There's been a lot of teaching, there's been a lot of learning. There's been a lot of stoppage. But at the end of the day, basketball comes down to being the mentally tougher team because when you're tired, your mind tells your body what to do, and what happens is at the end of games, you've got to be able to execute on both ends of the floor. You've got to be able to take care of that ball. You've got to be able to box out when you don't want to. That's the game.

All those things that are involved, I'm going to keep beating them down. What I would say is guys, get ready for more stories because they're going to come. They've just got to come at the right time."

2. Coach Stoudamire, you've had a great career, college, pro, now first year for Georgia Tech as a head coach. What would a successful season look like for you, and what are some of your goals going into the season?

DAMON STOUDAMIRE: "You know what, I haven't made any goals. Honestly, I don't know what a successful season looks like, but I do know this, I think this team is just going to keep getting better and better. I can see it. It's probably the first team that I've ever been a part of where the offense is ahead of the defense.

I've promised myself, but more importantly I've adhered to it with the guys. They've got to share the basketball. Like one of the first things I looked at with last year's team was last in the conference in assists, and for me, I just came from a place where we were one of the best assisting teams. We had a lot of good players, so you've got to be able to share the ball.

Like I said, I do believe we're a team that'll just keep getting better and better and better, and by the time -- I know conference play is weird because as I look at these schedules, now I'm going back to when I was in college just two years ago and I know we didn't have as many teams where I was at in the league.

I looked at our schedule, and I was like, damn, we play Duke on December 2nd. The conference starts quick around here.

By the time we get into the meat of that conference schedule, I look for us to start going this way. What does that look like, wins and losses, I don't know, but I definitely know we're going to be competitive as hell. We're going to play hard and we're going to be competitive."

3. What are you most excited about with your team when you think about just going into the season?

DAMON STOUDAMIRE: "You know, I'm just most looking forward to the way we gel together. When you bring in a new coach, it doesn't matter what level you're on. You know there tends to be a little bit of resistance. I always tell guys, it's nothing personal, but it just happens that way. I've been a part of coaching change before, never in college, always in the pros, but I think as we've been together more and more, they kind of see my vision.

The only thing I have in terms of my vision is us playing together on both ends of the floor. If we lose, we lose as a team. If we win, we win as a team. There is no I in that.

I just want guys to be connected. That's the biggest thing for me.

Then I'll say this just like with anybody else, I don't know what our margin of error will be as of yet, but I do know we can't have injuries. I can't have injuries. We can't afford to have our best guys and our key guys sitting out for long periods of time.

Right now -- we had a couple injuries, luckily for us, it's not injuries that's going to take its toll deep down the road, but we've got to stay healthy."

4. Looking at the fact that you're obviously working to inspire these gentlemen on the team this season, who have been some of the sources of inspiration for you that you can kind of reach back to when you're working as the head coach of this team?

DAMON STOUDAMIRE: "You know, the thing about it is I have a lot of those in my life, whether it's George Raveling -- George Raveling is a guy that -- I didn't even go to USC. He was there at the end, but I didn't go there, I went to Arizona.

But his perspective, and that's all I need at this time is perspective.

I still talk to other coaches, and a lot of times you need -- without the other person knowing, there's reassurance you're doing the right thing because you're listening to their message and what they're telling their team, and a lot of times we're all going through the same thing.

Coach Olson was always there for me, but he's since passed. But at the end of the day, I have a lot of guys that I try to talk to and get a perspective from, and then that perspective doesn't always have to come from basketball. It's about managing.

I think managing is more important than basketball. How do you manage egos? How do you manage success? How do you manage failure? How do you get guys to understand that the little things matter?

Managing, whether it's the team, whether it's the staff, whether it's the support staff, managing is also a part of winning, and everybody has a role.

As I go through this and as we go through this together, I'm looking forward to seeing how everything shakes out in this first year."

Facebook: AllYellow Jackets

Twitter: @AllYellowJacket

Follow Jackson on Twitter: @jacksoncaudell

Check out all Georgia Tech Photos

More Georgia Tech Related Content: