Will Wade Presser After GT: “This is not a team that’s like a rocketship, that’s just going to shoot up.”

Will Wade met with the media after his teams home loss to Georgia Tech. Above is the full press conference.

And here are the cliff notes on what he talked about…

Key points from the interview:

• Wade calls this the story of the season: “two steps forward, one step back”  The team struggles to build rhythm, momentum, or sustained good play/preparation.
• Poor rebounding and finishing at the rim (missed a ton of layups, especially point-blank ones in the second half ).
• Getting into the paint took huge effort due to GT’s physical defense, but they couldn’t finish possessions.
• Free-throw shooting was bad at critical moments (though GT wasn’t great either at 50%).
• Off-week and preparation concerns — Wade sensed trouble all week after the break. They didn’t use the time well, struggled even against their scout team in prep and had issues starting games properly (had to restart a scout session on Tuesday because they couldn’t start well).
• He praised Georgia Tech and coach Damon Stoudamire for having their team ready, physical, and fighting back after their own tough prior game.
• When asked about an exchange with Copeland late in the 1st half, Wade said he doesn’t even remember it amid the chaos of the game.
• Says this qualifies as a bad loss at home, which hurts their resume badly. Before this, their profile was “clean” (no bad losses, some Quad 2 wins, but no Quad 1 wins). Now it’s blemished, and they’ll need to “punch above our weight class” multiple times to recover for NCAA Tournament hopes.