University of North Carolina Athletics
Postgame Quotes
February 24, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 24, 2004
Postgame Quotes
NORTH CAROLINA COACH Roy Williams
If I wasn't the coach at North Carolina, I would be very happy for (Todd) illet. To have what's happened to him at the end of his senior year is fantastic. You look at the youngster and you know he got to be the player he is because he put in a lot of time and effort.
The bottom line is we have to rebound. At the half, Virginia had nine offensive rebounds to our four and at the end of the game Virginia had 18 offensive boards to our 11. We can't give them those opportunitites.
We hurt ourselves halfway through the second half. We had a seven-or-eight point lead and we had guys not playing intelligently. We had three guys in one defense and two guys in another defense. We didn't play with much savvy tonight.
illet made a great shot at the end of the game. He's in a magical moment right now. He has big-time guts and is willing to make the big-time plays.
On the play of Rashad McCants:
The box-and-one against Rashad McCants affected him, he wasn't patient with
that. Then he got into foul trouble in the second half. McCants can't be all of
our offense, we have to be able to play and rebound the ball.
We had options on the last possession, they had fouls to give and we wanted Raymond Felton to penetrate, but they made good defensive plays; Raymond made a great steal, but there was no time left.
VIRGINIA COACH PETE GILLEN
That was a tremendous college basketball game. Both teams played well and very hard. We are very fortunate to have won this game. I'm very proud of this team.
I can't believe the play of Devin Smith-he gets 20 points in 23 minutes. He's not practiced in six weeks, as he's in too much pain to practice. Somehow he gets ready for the games, mentally, blocks out the pain and then he plays. He may shoot for a few minutes one day, but he doesn't practice.
Todd (Billet) made a great shot at the end. We wanted to get the ball inbounds, which we were worried about. We had different options where Todd could shoot it, or swing it out to Elton (Brown), but Todd had it in his mind that he was going to shoot it.
Our offensive rebounding was a matter of will and determination tonight. We are getting more confidence and more desire to get the ball. We wanted the ball a little more tonight. It has nothing to do with drills, but it has everything to do with heart and desire.
Comment about Virginia's final possession that resulted in Todd Billet's
game-winning three-pointer:
I don't think Devin (Smith) knew that Todd's shot didn't hit the rim to reset
the shot clock. It was a chaotic time-we weren't in a flow. He made the
unselfish play, but he didn't know that there was not enough time.
We had three fouls to give. We fouled once and tried to foul again, but I guess Todd didn't foul him hard enough. We were trying to foul him twice, Todd was going after Felton, but it's a fine line-you don't want to tackle him and get the intentional, but go for the ball. Todd went for the ball, but I guess he didn't foul him hard enough. Todd was probably afraid that if he missed Felton, he would go by and drain a three.
