Truly an unfortunate ending and Mark Adams provided some clarity for a multitude of factors that played into the final result. Here are the takeaways from the postgame presser:
On the decision to not call timeout on the final play of the game:
“I told the guys after I wish I had called timeout. Four seconds is about time to go, you know you can get it. Five seconds you can get a straight line to the basket, with four you can get a shot a little bit closer than what we got. We work on that play quite a bit, we thought we had a better chance, at least I felt like being organized because we knew what we were going to do, rather than setting it up after they had a chance to draw up their defense. I told the guys looking back I wish I had called timeout.”
More clarification on the schematic of the final play and if Harmon was intended shooter:
“Well we have two or three options on that. We have a couple of cutters that we can throw it to, or it just goes back to (De’Vion) if we can’t get it to them. I haven’t seen if those other guys were open, but it just happened to work out that way.”
On the decision to switch to a 2-1-2 zone down the stretch:
“Credit to their offense we had troubles guarding them, that was very frustrating defensively for us. So we worked on a zone, a particular zone against them and it was effective but certainly was our second option. Frustrating for our coaching staff that we couldn’t do a better job playing man-to-man defense.”
On Mike Miles and the way Tech defended him:
“He still got 24 points. He’s really good at getting fouled and that’s another area where we feel like a lot of those fouls aren’t fouls and it doesn’t just happen with us it happens all over the place. So just gotta give him for drawing those fouls. He’s obviously a very good player and they’re much much better when he’s on the floor.”
On the decision to not call timeout on the final play of the game:
“I told the guys after I wish I had called timeout. Four seconds is about time to go, you know you can get it. Five seconds you can get a straight line to the basket, with four you can get a shot a little bit closer than what we got. We work on that play quite a bit, we thought we had a better chance, at least I felt like being organized because we knew what we were going to do, rather than setting it up after they had a chance to draw up their defense. I told the guys looking back I wish I had called timeout.”
More clarification on the schematic of the final play and if Harmon was intended shooter:
“Well we have two or three options on that. We have a couple of cutters that we can throw it to, or it just goes back to (De’Vion) if we can’t get it to them. I haven’t seen if those other guys were open, but it just happened to work out that way.”
On the decision to switch to a 2-1-2 zone down the stretch:
“Credit to their offense we had troubles guarding them, that was very frustrating defensively for us. So we worked on a zone, a particular zone against them and it was effective but certainly was our second option. Frustrating for our coaching staff that we couldn’t do a better job playing man-to-man defense.”
On Mike Miles and the way Tech defended him:
“He still got 24 points. He’s really good at getting fouled and that’s another area where we feel like a lot of those fouls aren’t fouls and it doesn’t just happen with us it happens all over the place. So just gotta give him for drawing those fouls. He’s obviously a very good player and they’re much much better when he’s on the floor.”
