Georgia Tech came to Raleigh and upset N.C. State. Now it’s the Wolfpack’s time to go to Atlanta, and State coach Mark Gottfried still thinks the Pack has their hands full.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got a lot of respect for how they have played,” Gottfried said. “Even though their record may not be great, I think that they have done an excellent job. So we’ve got
\nour hands full.”<\/p>\n
Question:<\/b> Coach, the first time you played Georgia Tech, what are the things that stand out that perhaps you’d like to change for the coming game? Was there anything they did in particular that you’ll be more concentrated on this time?<\/p>\n
Coach Gottfried:<\/b> I think there were
\ntwo things. I think one they made a lot of shots.
\nWe did not defend them well. They made some
\nopen shots and they also made a lot of tough
\nshots.
\nThen on our end of the floor, I thought we
\nexecuted as poorly as we have in a long time. We
\nmishandled the ball. Dribbled it out of bounds, we
\nbobbled passes so the combination of those two
\nthings spelled for a bad day for us.<\/p>\n
Question:<\/b> How do you think they progressed
\nsince then and your team may be different from
\nthe first time you played?<\/p>\n
Coach Gottfried:<\/b> I think we’re better
\nthan we were then. But I think they are too. I’ve
\nwatched them on tape. But I do think that we have
\nimproved in a lot of areas, so hopefully we’ll play
\nbetter.<\/p>\n
Question:<\/b> How encouraging was it to play
\nLorenzo Brown the other day going into this
\ngame?<\/p>\n
Coach Gottfried:<\/b> Very encouraging.
\nHe had a bounce in his step, which is what our
\nteam needs. His energy was higher, and he
\nplayed much better. We’re like any team. When
\nyour better players play well, you’re a much better
\nteam, and he did that against Wake.<\/p>\n
Question:<\/b> You’re here, it’s the first week of
\nFebruary and N.C. State is pretty much
\nregarded as a bubble team. Do you think about
\nthat or look at anything in terms of what you
\nneed to do to get in that NCAA field?<\/p>\n
Coach Gottfried:<\/b> Well, you always
\ndo. Anybody that tells you they don’t, they’re lying.
\nYou always do. But that cannot be our emphasis
\nevery day. Our emphasis has to be on the next
\nopponent and how are we going to play well in this
\none game.
\nBut as a big picture, I think it’s natural, and
\nhopefully we can do well down the stretch.<\/p>\n
Question:<\/b> As a guy that was a commentator
\nlast year, if you were standing on the outside
\nlooking at N.C. State right now, what would you
\nsay is their strongest thing and what would you
\nsay you have to do to make the image better?<\/p>\n
Coach Gottfried:<\/b> Well, we played a
\ngreat schedule in the non-league, which was good.
\nObviously you have to keep winning games. It’s
\nfun for the commentators to talk about who is going
\nto get in the tournament in the second week of
\nFebruary. But the way to get in the tournament is
\nto win games. Everybody that’s in the tournament
\nevery year, they’ve played their way in. They’ve
\nearned the right. So that’s what we have to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Georgia Tech came to Raleigh and upset N.C. State. Now it’s the Wolfpack’s time to go to Atlanta, and State coach Mark Gottfried still thinks…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,81,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-stories","category-n-c-state-wolfpack","category-uncategorized","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-81-id","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3222,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221\/revisions\/3222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}