Thursday 01/28/2016
Opening statement:
“This was a really good team win tonight, I thought we played about as well as we could play in the first half. Especially offensively, where Pittsburgh guards you really well. I thought we shared the ball really well, Jaron (Blossomgame) made a couple of buckets early and it was exciting to see a bunch of other guys score as well. I thought Avry (Holmes) was really good tonight on both ends; he did a good job on (James) Robinson, Gabe (DeVoe) hit a big three against the zone out of a timeout, and Donte (Grantham) had a nice basket late in the game on a baseline action that we run. We just had a lot of guys contribute, and that is what you need in these types of games is to have a lot of guys play well … and I thought we did tonight.”
On how key Blossomgame’s scoring binge has been to the team’s success:
“It helps, no doubt, you have to have great players. He is playing very well right now, playing confidently and making some shots, which opens things up for other players and makes him even harder to guard. So there is no question that it helps, and he made a couple of early shots which helps with confidence. We fed off of it and it led to one of our best halves of the season.”
On if the offense is less of a liability this season:
“Yes, I would say we have more guys that can score in different ways. We shoot the ball better, Donte (Grantham) shoots the ball better than he shot it last season, Gabe (DeVoe) is better, Avry (Holmes) is a better shooter than Rod (Hall). We just didn’t have enough outside shooting in the past to help. JB (Jaron Blossomgame) wasn’t the shooter that he is now, so things get clogged down in the paint and it gets really hard to score. You can still run good things, and I have said this to you guys in years past. We could run good offense and still get good shots, but we would miss them and we look like a terrible offensive team. We weren’t a good offensive team last season, but it might not have always been what we were doing, we just couldn’t finish the play with a make. Sometimes you run bad offense but a guy jumps up and makes a shot and you look like a great coach. We have had that happen more this year, where a guy has an ability level that he can make a tough play makes us look better, but to be honest with you, if you are going to be good in this league you have to have guys that can do that and this year we have more guys that can make shots.”
“Good win for Clemson. We had leads early in the first half, so it’s not like we weren’t ready to play. They just made runs in the second part of the first half, but simply put, we’re not defending well enough. They got to the free throw line, they got rebounds, they got steals, they got more possessions than we did in the first half and in the second half as well.
“They’re a good team. They’re playing well, they’re feeling good about themselves, they’ve got confidence. It just comes down to we’re not where we need to be when we’re not making shots, and I’ve been saying that since October.”
On defending Clemson’s Jaron Blossomgame:
“He’s a good player. We haven’t gone through and seen everybody, but he’s attacking. We really wanted to go and do a good job on him, and we simply didn’t. He got to the basket, he got to the line. We wanted to get some charges on him, we didn’t get those. We wanted to get fouls on him, we didn’t get those. Our guys were in foul trouble, he wasn’t, and that really changes games.”
On Pitt’s guard play:
“I thought we had some good looks, they just weren’t knocking them down. We have to do other things, we have to get it done on the defensive end. The guys we put out there play well normally but when they don’t make shots it’s going to be problematic but then you have to have your defense and your rebounding be the difference maker and that certainly wasn’t the case tonight. We’ve got to get to that point when we do that but they made some shots and defended well and we didn’t do either.”
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