University of North Carolina Athletics
Post Game Quotes
November 13, 2002 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 13, 2002
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UNC Head Coach Matt Doherty:
"Our field goal percentage defense isn't very good. We can't give up 50 percent from the field. I'd like to think that our defense is better than that, but it wasn't."
"We've got some things to work out; I'm not panicked. There's going to be days like this with this young team, and we are going to be all right."
"We'll just work through it and see what shows up on the tape and go through it on Friday and have three great days of practice before we play Penn State."
On whether this loss can be a positive for Carolina:
"These [exhibition] teams are better than when I as playing or even ten years ago. You are playing against some pretty good guys who might be last cuts in the NBA or playing overseas or whatever."
"It is better experience for our guys than going out and beating a team by 30 [points]. I wanted to beat them by 30, but we didn't and I think it was good for our team to be in those situations you can't simulate in practice so easily."
"For a young team, Saturday our guys were real excited and on top of the world and Sunday everyone was telling them how good they were. Now, we lose a game and maybe tomorrow when they're going to class there will be people maybe saying otherwise."
"That's the reality of college basketball, and the only opinion they should care about is the opinion of the coaching staff and their teammates. So, I think they'll focus on that and, hopefully, we'll come out prepared to win a basketball game on Monday night."
On whether Jackie Manuel and Rashad McCants will be ready to play versus Penn State on Monday night's season opener:
"That is the main reason I held them out. They could've played tonight, but I want to make sure that they're as close to 100 percent as possible for the game that matters."
"You want to win every game; don't get me wrong. I am as competitive as the next guy. But, a couple of months from now, no one's going to care about this game, they are going to care about whether we beat Penn State or not."
Player Quotes:
"We're a young team, and that showed tonight near the end. We took a couple of quick shots and I think it cost us a victory."
On his teammates:
"Sean may played great today. He rebounded the ball, he did what he had to do today. We lost Jackie Manuel and Rashad McCants. We lose a lot of defense, rebounding and scoring. Rashad and Jackie are both great scorers."
On the upcoming game opener:
"There you go. It's time to go now. Time to strap it on and get ready to go on Monday."
On the end of the game:
"I think it was a lack of concentration. I think we're in great shape in terms of conditioning."
On the loss:
"We've got our losses out of the way now. I think we realize that we're not invincible and we do have things we need to work on. We felt pretty good - I think some of us might have had a big head, but that's going to happen with a young team."
On the loss:
"Saturday we were up here. Now we lost and we're down here. It's just a reality check and we're going to bounce right back - I'm confident in that."
On Raymond Felton in the first half:
"He had some good shots - he's controlling the tempo and things like that. He's outrageous all the time. It's nothing new to me. You just never know when it's going to come - a lay-up or he'll find someone - it's just waiting to happen. You have to be watching for it to happen."
On defense:
"We're not that far away. We all have the guts inside to really defend. We just need to learn to keep pounding guys when we have them down - I think that will come real easy now."
On David Noel:
"He's one of the hardest workers out there on the floor. He hustles, he takes instructions well from the coach, he takes constructive criticism well. He could have played football - but he's out there giving us all he has. We're very appreciative of that."
On the seniors teaching the young guys:
"Because we have been through so much, the Final Four and being a number one ranked team and then going through last year - I think we just have a lot of experience on this side. This being our fourth year, I think we can teach these guys and give them some of our wisdom: how to handle losses, how to handle wins. We need to maintain our level of confidence and keep everybody up - no matter if it's a win or a loss."
On not scoring a field goal in the last five minutes:
"It's hard for me to put my finger on it. We're going to have to watch the film to see what happened and go back and fix the mistakes. We were out there working hard - it just seemed like we couldn't buy a bucket. We made some tough shots and some good plays down the stretch."
