Thursday, January 08, 2004

Paul Hewitt call-in show

Only caught the 2nd half of the show, but here is the re-cap of that portion:

Q: What are you doing about BJ Elder's cramps? Are you looking into "defenciencies"?
PH: BJ's cramps are not a result of conditioning issues. They are more an individual issue. If you remember he had the same problem during last year's UGAy game, where he came of the bench to help win the game. BJ is doing all the things our nutritionist has prescribed, like potassium pills, Gatorade, etc. They do a great job. We are starting to look at if there is something deeper, like some other deficiency.

Q: How do you plan to play Tarver?
PH: Theodis will play the 5-spot exclusively and will alternate with Luke. With Tony McHenry and C.Moore playing the wing spots, who are so versatile, we need Theodis in the 5-spot.

Q: What about the intentional foul called on Isma'il at the UGAy game? Do you worry about a trend in this direction?
PH: He called it how he saw it. I imagine if he watched the replay he would change his mind. But it got called. So be it. I don't think that is any sign of a trend.

Q: Didn't seem you rebounded well against UGAy
PH: No doubt we did not do well on the boards

Q: What positives do you see from the UGAy game?
PH: We looked stunned in the first half, particularly the first 8-10 minutes. UGAy established themselves in the 1st half and sometimes it is hard to get that back when you are playing against 4 seniors. However, I would proud of our kids in the 2nd half. The positive is that we were down by 13 points in their place and they did not panic. The came back, two points at a time. The guys we wanted to shoot were shooting, the right guys were hitting the boards, there weren't many bad shots.

However I was disappointed in the last 3:27 of the game. Execution was not what we wanted. There were small mistakes, such as BJ's dropped pass out-of-bounds. He tried to catch it with one hand and I have always stressed catching passes with 2 hands. When BJ dropped that pass I had a flashback to a game at Providence that was decided on a play like that. That last stretch we did not play well and this is what we have stressed to the guys this year. However when you are winning games by large margins, you are not put into the position of practicing those things in game situations.

Q: On recruiting, we thought Jeremis Smith was the dunker, but we heard Anthony Morrow won a dunk contest at a recent tourney.
PH: (laughing), I have not had a chance to talk to Anthony since he won that contest.

Q: From a scheduling perspective, are you planning to get bigger name opponents into AMC in the future. We remember years past when some bigger name opponents came in here.
PH: Yes, we are working on that. Obviously St.John's is not what we thought they would be when we scheduled that game. We are always looking for teams that the fans want to see and that will help our RPI ratings.

Q:What about life on the road in the ACC (comments from Wes)
PH: You have to win at home and hope to squeek out a couple of wins on the road. Road games will be tough and wins will be few and precious this year. Wake Forest really has the upper hand in the ACC right now, because they have already beaten UNC in Chapel Hill.

Q: Have you looked at UNC game tape
PH: I have not had a chance to review UNC tape yet. I have been on the road recruiting the past two days and just got back. But we know they are a tough opponent. Felton is tough and we need to tend to him. They should play faster than they did last year, will take charges, good weak side defending. Rebounding, better half-court offense and our defense will be critically important (said a lot more but couldn't catch it all).

Q: Keys to the game for GT?
PH: Getting off to a better start than we did versus UGAy. We have to get "out of the gate in good shape".