University of North Carolina Athletics
Quotes
February 21, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 21, 2004
Coach Roy Williams Quotes
Opening Statement
"It was an interesting game. It wasn't a very pretty game. The first half we missed five out of six free throws in one stretch and were still up sixteen at the half. We had to do a better job of getting to Andrew Wilson at half. He was four for six at half. He was making open shots and I don't mind if guys make shots but he was making open shots and you can't have that happen. I think we had very good shots and missed some of them. We made a couple inside but we weren't making many from ten feet. We weren't making many threes that I thought were wide open but still had a sixteen-point lead at half. I reminded the guys what happened down at Tallahassee when we were up fourteen. They came out and were more aggressive down there. We had to be aggressive to start the second half."
"When the second half started they were the aggressor. We were too careless and too casual. The thing that bothered me when they made the great comeback was that they out-hustled us for loose balls. That made me about as frustrated as I've been all year because we can't do those things. I've said a lot of things this year that I've continued to say a lot more than anytime else in my career. But, I love the way that Raymond missed a free throw, Sean misses two, then Raymond makes one and Rashad makes a couple more to end the game with seven in a row. I think that shows some toughness for our guys to step up and make some free throws like that."
"Pickett is a load. He's a big time basketball player and he's going to make a lot of money at the next level and play for a long time. Andrew Wilson, who coach Robinson recruited, is getting to be a very good player. He showed that today with his savvy and ability to shoot the ball."
"Raymond was a big force. He had seven rebounds in the first half and ended up with ten. I think that he didn't shoot the ball very well but he did some other things that helped us. We got a little to careless at times but we made our free throws and won the game. It was probably the silliest I've ever looked in a game."
On his technical foul
"I don't think you should get a technical for getting mad at your players. I've had now ten technicals in sixteen years and I was not mad at the officials. I was not mad at the officials. I was mad at my player for stopping the fast break high. You should never stop the fast break high. You should sprint to the other end. There was a huge fly right on the scorer's table and I was trying to protect our society and keep dangerous away. So, I swatted the fly."
On Rashad McCants
"He didn't feel very good. He didn't feel very good at practice. But, I told him that some of the very best players, including Michael Jordan, focus even better under those circumstances. I think he got a little frustrated at the officials out there as well. But he hit some big time shots for us down the stretch. He's probably the most discussed player I've ever had and he's just getting better and better. That doesn't mean that he hasn't given me a lot of these grey hairs because he's responsible for a lot of them. In the old days I'd yell and say 'don't do this and don't do that' and there would be no response. Right now, not only does he look at me and say yes or shake his head yes, but he understands it before I yell at him. That's really pleasing"
Carolina Players Quotes
Coach Williams said that you hadn't been feeling well heading up to this game, are you feeling better now?
"No, flu symptoms and I didn't have as much energy. Coughing, sniffling and all that type of stuff throughout the week and I just had to fight through it."
Talk about the two consecutive plays where you hit the three and then get the turnover by calling a timeout:
"I think that as a team we needed to take a stand and stop their run because when Florida State gets hot, they really get hot. I just wanted to do a great job on Tim Pickett defensively, and I got fortunate and took the ball and called timeout."
How big of a weapon is it for this team being that you are not a 6'8" or 6'9" type of guy, but you are a guy that can really go in there and post up guys your size and even bigger?
"I wouldn't say that it was a big importance because if it was then we would do it more. I think that when the opportunity arises and I have a mismatch, Coach Williams recognizes it and we take advantage of it. I think that it plays a key part in some big spurts that we have."
Talk about confidence:
"Confidence comes from deep within and Coach Williams drills it in us that we can win on the road. When we went to Wake Forest and defeated them at home, it was like 'man we can win on the road.' Everybody just took that attitude and even though we lost at Georgia Tech, we all felt that we could have won that game."
Is it hard to defend a team, that seems so content on shooting three-point shots, for twenty-five seconds and then they throw one in?
"Yes, they have the type of guys that when they shoot it, they are fading back and they are still hitting it. Tim Pickett is a great shooter off the move, off the dribble, set, anything. So, when you play defense for twenty-five seconds and they throw one in like that, it is just like 'man what were we playing defense for.' At the same time it is milking the shot clock and they hit some tough shots tonight to bring them back into the game."
Talk about Raymond Felton's leadership now than in the beginning of the season:
"Earlier in the year we had a problem with bickering in the huddle, but now in the huddle it is just Raymond talking. It helps us out to do what we have to do on the court and it gives us that one person that everybody can turn to for support and for what we need to do on the court."
Talk about how the big lead always seems to melt away:
"I don't know what's our thinking when we come out in the second half. We really have to change it because it is getting down to the stretch where you can't afford to blow big leads like that. If you have a team down, you have to keep them down."
Talk about the consistency:
"I talked to one of the coaches yesterday and I told him that we have to grow up. We have guys on our team that are still learning. We have the freshman and the sophomores, who have only played one year, so we have to grow up. We have to find a way to be consistent."
With three of the four remaining games on the road, talk a little bit about how to attack the three road games:
"We have to win some games on the road. We can't think about the past or how we did on the road before. We have to put that out of our minds and go out there and play hard."
Coach Hamilton Quotes
Opening Statement
"You have to give North Carolina a lot of credit. They played with a lot more emotion than we did today. They found a way to get to the foul line, did a little bit more aggressive offensively; and the discrepancy on the boards just tells you that they were really a lot more active on the glass than we were, especially during the beginning of the game. We were very fortunate to even be in the game when we were outplayed so poorly. I thought this showed that they were a little more mentally ready than we were today; and I guess, as a team, as a coach, even if you lose, you always want to feel that you've done all the things mentally and emotionally to find a way to get your team to play their very very best, because even though for whatever reason for the first time it's obvious to me that we have to grow and mature to understand the mental approach that you have to have on the road to play against teams of this caliber. We played a game of it so that in reality, the final score does not indicate how well North Carolina outplayed us today. And you have to give them credit because I thought they did a very good job in their preparation, taking some things away from us. We found a way to get close but as poorly as we played, I'm not really sure had we won the game that would have been the right thing - as well as they played I guess I might say."
On mental preparation:
"I think part of growing and developing a team is probably just as much mental and emotional as lifting weights and learning how to shoot freethrows and run plays; and even though we have matured to the point where we feel confident enough at home that we can play with the type of emotion, I think that the foundation you've got to lay when you're building a program is to having a clear understanding of how important games can be to certain teams and be able to match that mental approach that teams have. In the ACC the teams are so close that it appears the team with the best mental edge in that particular game sometimes will be the one that will be able to have that little something extra to put them over the edge, and I thought North Carolina had that today, and we didn't. And sometimes you hate to admit that as a coach, but I just thought that psychologically you could see it in their eyes and their body language. We wanted to win, and we wanted to play well, but a lot of times when you haven't been there and done that you have to be put in these positions where at least you are competitive to the point where you've got a chance to see what it's like and to feel the disappointment when you don't go out and get it done and then maybe that allows you to grow from the start so to speak. There's a book called The University of Hard Knocks, and I guess that's kind of what we're going through right now. We have to kind of learn as we go through. For us right now with where we are in terms of development with our program, we're kind of in virgin territory. Most of the time, we go on the road and people haven't given us this kind of respect. In many ways the fact that they were ready, and they were playing sound and doing the things that they had in the game plan is a compliment to our kids to how much progress we've made, but on the other hand if you want to be competitive and have some opportunities at the end of the year, you have to master that focus, and I don't think we did that today.
On Andrew Wilson:
"I think Andrew recognized the fact that we were struggling a little bit in different areas, and he's been working. He's had such a tough time at Florida State. He's had two years of injuries, and even though he's been playing he has not been in a condition enough to play an unlimited number of minutes. Today he played 27 minutes, and that's an awful lot for him, for a guy who's still struggling to get his condition. He hasn't been able to run, half the time he can't be in practice, and for him to be able to contribute I think is good for us. We just need to get all our guys hitting on the same cylinder at the same time."
What did you say to guys at halftime about rebounding in first half:
"We weren't rebounding at all. What can you say? It was clear."
On defensive adjustments at halftime:
"Let's just say this - we had the same game plan at the beginning of the game that we had at the end. We just didn't get the job done, and they did a better job of executing their game plan than we did ours. But most of it was I thought they were so much more mentally prepared than we were, not that our players didn't want to, don't get me wrong. It's just that for whatever reason we allowed them to have that edge that we didn't match."
On expectations/disappointment:
"Fortunately for me I've been through this enough that I have a clear understanding of where we are and what we have to do to get there. So I'm not frustrated because I understand. If I'm disappointed in anything, it's just that I want these youngsters to experience the success that I know is available to us if we can find a way to grasp those intangible things that we're struggling to get right. I know we're going to get there. I don't have any doubt in my mind. We're going to be a good basketball team. We're going to be a team of significance in the ACC."
