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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 7, 2011

Paul Hewitt

THE MODERATOR: We have with us now Georgia Tech head coach Paul Hewitt. Coach, if you could, a few comments about your team, then we'll open it up for questions.
COACH HEWITT: Iman Shumpert continues to have an outstanding year, six points away from a thousand. 41st player in Georgia Tech history to score a thousand points. We also expect Nate Hicks to practice this week - today, tomorrow and Wednesday - and should be available for the game against Florida State.
THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions for Coach Hewitt.

Q. I've been asking coaches and wanted your feedback on the idea of the strains on players these days from outside the program, parents or friends that are telling them things counter to what in the team's best interest. Is that a major problem, a minor problem? Is it something you have to deal with or is it not a big deal?
COACH HEWITT: It's a problem. I don't know where I put it, major or minor. It's probably somewhere in between. There's no question that more people are talking to or paying attention to the ups-and-downs of the student-athletes these days.
Funny story. Funny you ask this. My sister has a friend whose son is a Division I player. She called me to ask me what he should do, transfer, stay. I said, look, the kid is a freshman, let him stick it out, give it a shot, see if things work out.
20 years ago we expected freshmen to sit and wait, sophomores to maybe contribute, juniors to be starters. Now halfway through freshmen year, you're getting calls from people, people contemplating what should I do with this young man's career.
Usually if the kids are kind of left alone, they kind of figure it out. They'll play, they'll work, they'll get better. They're not going to look outside of the their own things that are outside of their control for the reasons they're not playing well. They'll keep working.
Again, there are a lot more people looking at what these kids are doing. Funny you ask that question. I basically tried to tell her, Just leave the kid alone, leave him alone, he'll be fine.

Q. Is there anything you do preemptively to say, look, these are issues I'll balance or shouldn't be interfered with, and these are issues I'll deal with you on a day-to-day basis?
COACH HEWITT: I personally never tried to break it down to what's off-limits. I try to stay in contact with our parents, try to talk to them as much as possible. For the most part I've been pretty fortunate. I've had parents who have been really good in allowing us to coach their children, allowing the young man to kind of battle through what might be tough times.
But some of these kids, they come from communities, and I tease one of the guys on my team all the time: It's got to be tough to be you because everybody expects you to be great because you were great in high school. He understands what I'm saying.
It's definitely an issue, like I said. Is it a major or minor problem? Somewhere in between. But for some of these kids, it's tough to be them. They have to go home and say I'm a role player now even though we're winning. If they're not the leading scorer of the team, things aren't going really, really well, it can be tough on them.

Q. You mentioned how well Shumpert has been playing. Can you talk about the fact that there have been times Glen Rice has given you that really second scoring option, and has it been difficult to find a third guy to help those two?
COACH HEWITT: Yeah, Glen, as you mentioned, he's having a terrific year. He's really matured as a player. His consistency obviously is much better than it was last year, much greater than it was last year.
It has been somewhat of a chore to find that third guy. The obvious option is Brian Oliver. When he shot the ball well and played well, we've been a very good team. He's been up-and-down this year shooting the basketball. He continues to come and work and continues to try to take good shots and not get forced into a deal of just trying to get shots up to try to score points.
But that's been part of our issue this year, is getting that third consistent scorer.

Q. This year in the ACC, freshmen in the league are accounting for 49% of the scoring, 49% of the rebounds. You have three to four freshmen that play considerable minutes. Can you talk a little bit about your freshmen class.
COACH HEWITT: Well, two of them are redshirts, and obviously it helped them last year to be around the practice. Kammeon Holsey didn't practice, but had a chance to get in the weight room and get bigger and stronger. He and Danny Miller have played well for us.
As we mentioned about scoring, I'd like to see those guys establish themselves a little bit more offensively down low, but they've contributed to some very good wins for us.
Jason Morris is a young man that can really score, can shoot the three, can go off the dribble. He certainly has to improve defensively and rebounding the ball. Nate Hicks I think has a very, very bright future. He's missed the last 10 days or so with the appendectomy. But he's made a very quick recovery from that. As I mentioned earlier, he's going to practice. He should be in uniform, ready to go on Thursday against Florida State.
All four of those kids I think are going to be very solid contributors to our program for the rest of this year and moving forward. All four of them are very good students. They're just quality kids who I think are going to be building blocks, again, as we move forward for the rest of the season and into next year.

Q. Jay Williams on ESPN the other day was saying that the ACC may get only three bids to the NCAA tournament. There's a lot of national talk about how the ACC is not as strong. Are you surprised by that? What is your sense of that?
COACH HEWITT: Surprised by the talk?

Q. You look at a lot of the games, a lot of the players, it seems like there's more depth across this conference than nationally it's perceived.
COACH HEWITT: Well, I think we'll get more than three. We'll know for sure Selection Sunday.
What I will say is I think the standard that the ACC has set over the years sometimes comes back to be a negative with people. I've been in the league now my 11th year. Every year, maybe with the exception of one, I always heard that the ACC is down. People on this call heard me say it before. You look at the last 10 years, we've had five national champions come out of the league. We played for the national title in 2004. I think it's a stylish thing to say that the ACC is down.
Are we young this year? Definitely, definitely a young league. But I think it's a league that's improving. I think as we go into March how our teams do in the NCAA tournament will probably change everybody's minds.
But I can't remember a year I've been in this league, maybe '04, where I didn't hear that the ACC was down. Again, the matter of the fact is that the ACC is getting better.

Q. The freshmen this year across the league seem like a pretty strong group of freshmen. Is this one of the stronger groups that you've seen or remember?
COACH HEWITT: Again, I've gotten so used to seeing great players come into this league. I think, if anything, that's hurt the league a little bit, is that we've had the very, very best freshmen in the country coming in year in and year out. Unfortunately, we've lost quite a few players. I would say the PAC-10 and the ACC are the two leagues that lost guys early to the NBA than all the other leagues.
It's a very strong group. Again, in the 10 years I've been here, I'm just used to seeing great players come in top to bottom in the league, not just the marquee schools, but everybody. Everyone has the opportunity to recruit the best high school players from coast to coast to come to the ACC.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for taking time being with us today. We'll hear from you same time next week.

End of FastScripts

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