They said it: VCU (11-3, 2-0) vs. Georgia State (10-3, 2-0)

0
Georgia State coach Ron Hunter
VCU coach Shaka Smart

Staff Reports
Commonwealth Times’ Sports Twitter

Shaka Smart on Ron Hunter:
“Coach Hunter’s done a really great job capitalizing on that experience, those guys have terrific energy and the way that they defend. The way they get on the floor, they’re pressing, they’re switching up their defenses; I think those guys are playing obviously as well as anybody in the league.”

Smart on Georgia State being picked 11th in CAA preseason poll:
“When people were doing the preseason predictions I don’t know if they failed to realize this, but Georgia State has five seniors that have played basketball at the college level for a long time. A couple of them played at the high-major level so that’s one of those things you really shouldn’t overthink. If you have five good seniors I don’t care what league you’re in or who you are, you’re going to win some games.”

Smart on GSU’s defense:
“They’ll definitely put some heat on you, they do a nice job of matching up out of their presses making it tough for you to find open areas. You have to have poise with the basketball, you have to be able to handle the basketball with one guy guarding you and as the second guy comes to you you have to be able to find the open man. But they’ve got experienced guys who know how to play the game and they’ve been able to extend into their full court pressure. And then in the halfcourt they’ve done a real good job being aggressive with their matchup zone and they’re playing some 1-3-1 as well, which has some teams on their heels.”

Smart on handling the press:
“We played against pressure [Monday] against Hofstra. They play 1-2-2 and we’ve played against it some in the past with some of the teams we’ve faced. Georgia State I think it’s a little more aggressive than some of the presses we’ve seen. Certainly our guys understand what it’s like to be trapped. I think any press that’s what it comes down to is being able to deal with traps and that’s something we have a lot of experience with in practice. That doesn’t always guarantee you’ll be great against the press, but it’s something that we’ll emphasize for sure.”

————————————————

Hunter on tonight’s match against VCU:
“At the end of the day I just worry about us, we take it one game at a time, that happens to be the next game that we play. Win or lose we’re going to give it our best effort, we’re going to play hard for 40 minutes, so whatever happens happens, I don’t look at it as a measuring stick or anything, I know where we need to be and it’s not about another opponent it’s always about us. We don’t worry about scouting reports, we don’t worry about any of those things, we spend most of our time worrying about Georgia State basketball and we keep improving. Whatever happens tomorrow night (Wednesday) happens, at the end of the day I’m just worrying about us.”

Hunter on current status of his team:
“I don’t think we’re playing great basketball right now but we’re playing winning basketball and that’s all that matters.Right now we’re just looking forward to our next game and we’re just going to continue to get better, that’s what this thing is about. I came here to build a winner and that’s what we’re going to get done.”

Leave a Reply