University of North Carolina Athletics
Postgame Quotes
February 20, 2002 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 20, 2002
UNC head coach Matt Doherty
"I stand here disappointed in our effort. We did not seem to be into it for the first 32 and a half minutes, for what reason I have no idea. You can theorize all you want, but only, I guess, the guys know why."
"Our defense stunk."
"We finally got into it, but we were too far back. This team cannot afford to come out that way. Again, maybe it was that our guys did not shoot it well and our guys got down. But, we had good looks."
"We had been shooting it well, I thought we would shoot it well. We shot real well in practice yesterday, shot well in shoot around. But, we still have to guard people, and we did not guard."
"Ohio is a good team. Tim does a good job. Hunter is a hell of a player. Everyone on their team did something to contribute. They fought real hard for 40 minutes and we did not."
"We knew they were going to [play zone], we worked on it. I would not do anything different, I thought we got good looks and did not knock them down."
"The shooting carried over to the rest of our game. We should be tough enough to handle that - but we were not."
"I thought Jackie made some great plays, especially in the first half to keep us in the game. Jawad made great plays in the second half. Melvin had 17 points, I do not know how many he had at halftime, but I thought he did some really good things."
"I have tried to put a positive spin on a lot of things this year, and I am glad we came back and fought back. But, I am pretty discouraged with 32 and a half minutes of our game."
Ohio coach Tim O'Shea
"Obviously, to people covering North Carolina this is not as typical North Carolina team. But from the perspective of an Ohio or a Mid-American Conference team, it doesn't matter what kind of year North Carolina has, a win over North Carolina is something special. I told the guys that this is something that probably, if not their fondest, then next to their fondest memory of playing basketball at Ohio will be to come to North Carolina and win a game."
"It was such an honor and a privilege just to be able to schedule the game. To actually come in here and win is such a great honor for our players."
(on UNC's run) "(Brandon) Hunter stepped up big. He is really the one who broke the run by just taking the ball and going and just dropping the ball to (Patrick) Flomo. That ended the break. We were teetering. The crowd was into it and I could just tell by out body language that our guys didn't like what was going on. Like a fighter who takes a punch, we were stunned. We were on the verge of collapse, but (Sonny) Johnson, who's a very good pressure player, and (Brandon) Hunter just stepped up big. There were no timeouts left so I was just hoping for the best and saying "please, please, please" and that's all I could do."
"We weren't communicating well enough. Coach talked about how we weren't emotionally into it. He's probably right. I don't know why."
"They're a good team. We should have been ready for them."
"You've got to give them credit. They have good players. Hunter is tough to stop."
"Some of the things we did weren't good."
"In the first half, our defense was better than in the first 13 minutes of the second half. We just didn't hit shots offensively. And then, for whatever reason, they came out harder than us. And you can't let that happen."
"We've had our share of losses this year. We have bounced back before from losses to get a win. And hopefully we can do that again. Fortunately this wasn't a league game, so we can still try to make some process in the league. We've just got to go back to work."
On the NC State game: "That would be a big one to get. I didn't feel like we played real well when we played them at home. We didn't have Jason, but still we didn't play well. And hopefully we can play well with `Cape in the lineup and have some good results."
"I just think we came out very sluggish. They were hitting big shots at the beginning. We were getting good looks but we weren't knocking our shots down. I just think that was really our downfall tonight. They built a great lead and time expired on us. We cracked in to it but there wasn't enough time to overcome the lead."
"We got after it, but it was too late. Coach was really disappointed because we were kind of lackadaisical at the beginning when they were just coming at us."
"Guys were motivated for the game. I think they were, maybe hungrier. Carolina's on our chest, they came at us real hard. We came out and played hard, but we were missing shots in the beginning and they were knocking theirs down."
"We were just energized. We wanted the game. I think that if we'd have played like that all game, we would have won the game."
"That's very frustrating because you give it your all at the end. We were playing well down the stretch, the last seven minutes we gave it our all."
"I think that was definitely our downfall. We didn't shoot the ball well at all in the first half, and they did, and I think that was definitely the difference in the outcome of the game."
"We just have to put this behind us. We have to go into the league and play again. We just have to come out and play in the beginning, from start to finish. I know coach is going to emphasize that in practice."
