What Josh Pastner Said After Georgia Tech's 73-64 Loss Vs. Duke

Pastner is winless vs. Duke while at Georgia Tech.

Brett Davis - USA Today Sports

Opening statement:

“First off, I obviously want to give a lot of credit to Duke and Coach K and their program. They’ve got a great team, a lot of great players. Obviously, he’s one of the greatest coaches, maybe the greatest ever to coach, regardless of sport. So, you’ve got to give Duke a lot of credit, they’re very, very good and obviously a legit team that can win a National Championship.”

“All you can ask for is a chance to win the game, we had some chances. I will say we’ve continued to get better. Our guys have always fought and competed. We got down 11 in the first half and they scrapped, clawed, punched, kicked, fought for us to give ourselves a chance to win the game against an elite team like Duke. I was proud of our guys’ effort. And again, like I said, we continue to get better. We had some turnovers in the first half and that bit us in the butt. We had 10 in the first half and that’s where they got their 11-point lead. We fought back, got the lead, but those turnovers, again, just end up biting you in the rear.”

“James Banks, back-to-back games where he’s had a great motor. I thought Moses Wright played his tail off. He and James obviously missed a lot of short shots, but I can live with that in a sense because they played so hard. Everything we talk about is motor. Michael Devoe dove on the floor multiple times, came up with some great 50/50 balls. Bubba Parham, great 50/50 balls. Obviously, Jose [Alvardado] was tough and hard-nosed. Obviously, our guard play, we’ve just got to limit some of those turnovers, but I was proud of all the guys and we’ve gotten better. That’s a great team that we played, a team that’s good enough to win the National Championship.”

On running out of steam offensively over the final three minutes of the game:

“Yeah, we probably got a little tired because we exerted so much energy to get back. I was just talked to Marvin Lewis and I was telling him, it would be nice if there was somewhere you could steal some minutes, maybe give a little rest to those guys. It’s just hard when you get yourself down against a good team like this. You lose your margin of error and you’re struggling to score and then what happens is you just fight and claw to get yourself back in front, and you do, and you exert so much energy that it’s hard to sub at that time because you’re just kind of moving. But it is what it is. We missed a lot of short shots right at the rim. And all you can ask for is an opportunity to get there. We missed a couple of open looks, and when I say you could live with it, in a sense, as a coach, is all you can ask for is you give yourself a chance to win the game and we had some opportunities.”

On the difference it makes having Jose Alvarado back in the lineup:

“With Jose I think we’re a pretty good basketball team, and without Jose we were just highs and lows. We were maybe a little better than average. And that’s nothing against our guys, because we have really good players, it’s just Jose does a lot for us that doesn’t show up in the box score with his leadership, toughness, he helps other guys on the floor. So, without Jose it just puts so much pressure on a guy like Michael Devoe to have to defend, rebound, score, and a guy like Bubba Parham, he’s got to do so many other things and other guys have to do so many other things. It just takes the pressure off of guys.”

On defending Duke’s transition offense:

“They are so fast. I thought Cassius Stanley was so fast, what an incredible athlete. And Tre Jones is obviously really good. Some of those fast breaks were based on our turnovers and a couple times that we scored they were just right down our throat the other way. But I told both announcers who were doing the TV game today, I said they’re an elite – probably the best transition offensive team in the country. I don’t think anyone is better than them in how fast they are in transition offense.”

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