Advertisement
basketball Edit

Pastner talks GT's return to the court post-COVID shutdown

Georgia Tech men's basketball coach Josh Pastner spoke to the media on Tuesday ahead of the Jackets' game against #20 Clemson on Wednesday night. Tech missed four games over the last two weeks after a positive COVID test and subsequent contact tracing and quarantine measures went into place. That number could've been three games, but NC State had to pull out of last Saturday's game after they had their own COVID issues.

The Jackets are now jumping into the deep end of the pool with the Tigers who were swept last year by Pastner's squad.

Pastner went with the mask instead of his normal face shield look on Tuesday
Pastner went with the mask instead of his normal face shield look on Tuesday (Kelly Quinlan/JOL)
Advertisement

OPENING STATEMENT:

We're ready and excited to get back on the floor tomorrow versus Clemson, and excited to play. We've been off for a long time, we've had to kind of mix and match with our limited practices, some contact, some noncontact, not everyone is there, but excited to get back on the floor on Wednesday. We haven't played in a long time, we had really great momentum prior to us getting put on pause or shut down.

We'll still be a little bit limited for Wednesday and I can't go into specifics on any players because I've got two adhere to privacy and Georgia Tech. But once obviously, when we get to the game, you can figure it out from there.

Clemson is really good. I mean, they are really well-coached. Coach Brownell is one of the best coaches in the country. I mean, they are taking on a lot of good players. I love (Aamir) Simms, man, Is he good. They can shoot it. They run a lot of great actions. They're excellent defensively. They are just an incredible team and their coach, their coach Brownell and his staff just do an incredible job.

ON JUMPING BACK INTO THE FIRE WITH TWO RANKED TEAMS CLEMSON AND VIRGINIA

Well, then you got at Duke after that, and then you got Florida State at home after that. I mean, you know, so it's just it is what it is. You're right. I mean, we got to two tough games coming out of pause. Now look, Clemson was on pause they had a tough game on Saturday verse Virginia. Now like I said, it didn't matter how good Clemson played on Saturday, Virginia was going to win the game. They were just incredible.

There's one thing that we know we got to be really good at and that's competing and effort. Could we be a little off-kilter or balance and maybe not as effective in some areas, obviously, that can happen but you know, it's just good to get on the floor. It's been a long time since we've played we haven't practiced with our entire team you know yet so we'll hopefully now there's gonna be some highs and lows, you're not dealing with robots, you're dealing with human beings and momentum and continuity matters in sports, you know, and so, but in the end, that's, you know, you got to go out and try to get it done. And we play in a really good basketball team that we'll need to play really well.

ON IF THE TEAM IS READY TO PLAY NOW

I can tell you this, we don't our guys are tired of practicing. They're tired of noncontact and then sometimes contact and then individuals and then sometimes team practice. You know, it's time for we play a game and I'm glad that as of today, at 312. On January the 19th. We are scheduled to play Clemson I can tell you that between as of right now, us and Clemson are scheduled to play tomorrow as of 3:12 pm right now and seven o'clock tip so that's where I'm pretty sure that this is going to happen. I mean, anything can happen between now and then but it looks very positive that the game will proceed.

ON TRISTIAN MAXWELL'S STATUS

Tristan will be out tomorrow not be anything to do with COVID it is because of his foot. He's been off for a few days, his foot. So yes, he is not cleared to play based on his foot. He was and then we had to pull him back based on some issues with his foot. So he has not done anything the last few days based on his foot. Kelly, what I would tell you is it's probably going to be you know, at this point of the year I mean, I want to get dressed and ready because you never know when we're going to need obviously how The years gone with COVID and stuff you don't you need everybody ready. But obviously, when you're dealing with a foot, you got to be extra careful. So, you know, the longer this goes, I mean, the less likely there's going to be an opportunity for him this year, nothing more than the fact of the based on the injury and just really being careful with it. So we'll just have to take it kind of one day at a time until a really, you know since he's gotten back, it's kind of he's been up and down as in terms of how he's been feeling. So we just wanted to get through that part and try to get him fully where he just feels really good every day.

ON HAVING A VETERAN TEAM THAT CAN HANDLE BEING OFF BETTER THAN A YOUNGER TEAM

This is my first time to be in the middle of a season and be on a pause like this. And, you know, my belief can, I don't believe in by games, or by weeks, like, I don't even I mean, when they told me that you could possibly when I came to the ACC you could have two weeks to buy games, like no, no schedule games, like give me 50 games, they're happy. You know, I want to play games. And so I mean, I love the practices, but you want to play you want to compete. And you know, cannon how I've always believed in not having, you know, keeping in a routine of two games a week and etc, like that. So. So I would tell you that I can't really answer your question. And, and Luke (Hancock) would probably know, and Luke's right on that. I mean, you're gonna have experience in a veteran group. So that should help but I've never gone through this, you know, where it's, you know, we've gone through a week of a by, but you've been able to practice a normal routine if that makes sense. This has been different because we've had a lot of time off, not everyone together, not practicing no contact. So it's been very different. And so this will be new in first for me as well, too.

ON WHAT HE HAS LEARNED FROM BEING OFF ABOUT HIS TEAM AT TIMES THIS YEAR

My number one lesson is prior to our Georgia State game, and Mercer game, we didn't do any contact for a long time to avoid getting shut down. Because if we had contact with a positive we were out. And which we accomplished by getting to the games, the issue is, if I continue that Hall, we would have been zero and 27. On the year, we might not have won a game if we continue to have no contact practice. So the lesson that I learned is, you've got to practice with contact in a normal environment, the best that you can to be able to give your chance your team the best chance to have success. That being said, when you when you're practicing like that, and you have a positive You're out. And that happened to us. So that's the trade-off. So now coming back, we had to have a time period where we can do no contact that that lasted. But the second we did contact we were allowed to do contact. Paul, I jumped right into it and knowing that the risk that yes, while you're doing contact during this stretch, if you have a positive, you're not going to be playing any further, you could be shut down even further. And so I decided to take the calculated risk that we're hoping we're not going to get any positives because I had to give our chance our team somewhat of a chance to be ready to play against when I knew we were going to play against North Carolina State prior to them getting shut down then now to Clemson. So that being said, that is a risk when you do that. And if there's a positive you could be out, the whole team could be shut down again. So that's that would be the lesson that if anything other than just you got to be able to practice to give yourself a chance to have some sort of success of doesn't mean you're going to win. It just means that some normalcy to give your team the best chance of preparation.

ON RESCHEDULING THE LOST FOUR GAMES AND WHERE THAT STANDS

There has been talks, but it's got to work out for both teams and the ACC. I think the closest situation for a game to be rescheduled first will probably be the Louisville game. Nothing's been concrete yet. But that's a possibility because there's you know, looking at open windows. We're working with all the other teams as well too. It's just you know, it's really a crapshoot. When you look at it and so that's just kind of how it is right now. But nothing's been officially on the books. Nothing's been officially scheduled, but we're trying to work through it and see what happens.

ON CLEMSON'S DEFENSE

That's been so disruptive. Well, they're there. They're just an excellent defensive team. I mean, prior to Saturday, they're the number one defensive team in the country. They force teams and turnovers. You look at our two games last year, like both games, even though we won both games. It was an absolute old-school, backyard brawl, both games were really intense, was all about defense. Now, we made some threes in both games, if you look at the probably the difference in both games was, you know, the threes we made. That was a big difference. But you've got to be able to, you know, they're as good defensively, like Virginia's defensively they're just a high-level defensive team. They force you to turnovers are great in shrinking the floor and in the gaps. You know, they're just they take charges. They're just very sound. And they're like Virginia defensively. They're just they're excellent at everything they do defensively. And they're a very good offensive team also.

Advertisement