University of North Carolina Athletics
ACC Semifinal - North Carolina Versus Georgia Tech
March 10, 2001 | Men's Basketball
March 10, 2001
North Carolina head coach Matt Doherty:
"It's like surviving a vance. It wasn't the prettiest game. I thought
our defense was really good. As a coach I sat there and felt like they
were making every shot, but you look at the stat sheet and we held them
to 32 percent. I thought Brendan (Haywood) did a heck of a job on Alvin
Jones. Alvin was three of 16. Brendan, especially with two fouls in the
first half, did a tremendous job and I think that was really the key to
keeping us in the game. We weren't shooting the ball particularly well.
I thought we had some good looks against their pressure defense in the
first half, the ball just wasn't dropping. As much as the ball was
dropping yesterday, it didn't drop today. Hopefully it works every other
day so tomorrow the ball will go through the hoop for us. These guys
came up big at the end, Joe (Forte) with those foul shots and Brendan
with his defense."
"Against Georgia Tech, against a Maryland, against a Virginia, if you're 15 up or 15 down, that doesn't mean much because of the style of play that they play. They shoot a lot of threes, they run, they press. So you can be 15 up and that lead will be gone quickly or you can be down 15 and get back in the game. We expected them to make a run. I thought we answered the run and then they came back at us. I thought we showed some character. It wasn't pretty but I thought we showed some character down the stretch in the ballgame."
North Carolina center Brendan Haywood:
[On matchup with Alvin Jones] "First of all, he's a very good player. He
gave us a little bit of problems in the first, but we decided to play
behind him and really try to make him score over me and we're waiting
for him to make a couple of baskets. That never happened so we stayed
behind him and I think my height really bothered him."
North Carolina guard Joseph Forte:
"It was an up and down game, a fast tempo game. I think that's the way I
play better. I had a better second half as the game got closer. I think
everybody focused and stepped up so that we could win."
[On playing in foul trouble] "I think the main thing Coach Doherty stressed to me was to go out hard. Just play hard and don't worry about the fouls. As long as you play hard you'll come out ahead."
Georgia Tech head coach Paul Hewitt:
"We played very hard. This team did everything they were asked to do in
order to win, they just didn't. We played with a lot of heart."
"With 33 seconds left, they were up three, the idea was to take the first good shot. It just missed. Those things happen. But we gave ourselves a chance to win tonight."
"I told the team that I couldn't have gotten more from a group of guys than we've gotten.. They put themselves in a position to win this game."
"UNC played with a lot of heart. Once again, Forte carried his team. He [Doherty] has had a tougher job than I have. TO convince a group of guys who have enjoyed success to change what they're doing is a tough job."
[On Shooting] "Shots falling is something I don't worry about as long as we keep taking good shots. You can't get caught up in whether they're falling or not. There were very few times when I thought our shots weren't good. As long as you're doing the right things in terms of offensive basketball, you can't worry.. As long as you're taking good shots, you can't get caught up in the end results."
[On Scoring Drought] "We tried to continue to take good shots. We've had droughts all year. We played well in both games against them [UNC}, but they took advantage of our scoring droughts.
[On NCAA Tournament Chances] "This is a good basketball team. I wasn't being falsely optimistic. We have the best center in the league one of the best point guards in the league and a corps of good shooters. It is not coaching. It is not coaching. This is a group of young men that plays hard, plays unselfishly and plays together. It's a group of good players who know how to play the game and play together - not coaching. I think our chances are good, but I'm not making the decision."
