University of North Carolina Athletics
Postgame Quotes
January 28, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 28, 2006
Roy Williams
UNC Head Coach
Opening Statement:
"I think it goes without saying we're extremely happy. The first twelve minutes of the second half is about as good as we've played all year. It's a tough afternoon for us in a lot of ways, but the kids really pull together. Reyshawn [Terry] had his sternum bruised. He had to leave the bench area and let the doctors check him out. He was really in pain. You saw the splint on Bobby [Frasor]'s right hand ring finger. He dislocated his finger on Thursday. Needless to say I want him to dislocate the other finger if he has nine assists to zero turnovers. He's going to have a dislocated finger every week now.
"But I thought his defense on Hassan Adams was Bobby's best defensive game of the year. I think he really tried to focus a great deal. And then Marcus [Ginyard] came down sick. I think he played like he was sick the first time he got in there. He had zero assists and four turnovers at halftime. But he got in and defended better in the second half. Michael Copeland didn't dress because he's been sick and I think Marcus has got what Michael has. Couple times I couldn't figure who to have guarding who out there. I loved our competitiveness. But let's be honest -- we made some shots. When you make shots the whole game looks a lot prettier. We made some shots. Arizona missed some shots they don't normally miss. They scared me to death until the final forty-five seconds. I have such respect for Lute [Olson] and his staff.
"But we feel great. Danny Green came off the bench and needless to say gave us a big lift. If you told me we were going to go 9 for 17 every day from three [point range], we're going to beat a lot of people."
On how well Wes Miller is playing:
"Well I think it's important. We do try to get him good shots. When he went in there one time and threw that one up, I was about to choke him. But somebody got an offensive rebound and we ended up scoring then. He's doing some nice things. He's epitomized by that dive on the floor when he picked up the loose ball and called a timeout. He's a kid who's worked his tail off. God blessed him with a tremendous amount of desire. He may not have blessed him with size, but he blessed him with a tremendous amount of desire. His play is hard work and his teammates realize how he can shoot it and they try to make sure they get him shots."
On Wes Miller's defense:
"I don't think it was his best defensive game, but he does do a good job. Go look at the defensive players of the game, and he's won several of them recently. If I had to pick a defensive star of today's game, I'd pick Bobby. I think Bobby was sensational defensively."
On the Tar Heel's offensive movement:
"We've really been working hard on some spacing and trying to get Tyler the ball inside. We've really been working hard on teams that double-team him. Arizona tried to double with the other post player. Let's see, he had one turnover. That's impressive for a big fella who's being double-teamed inside. That's the biggest thing we've been working on - the fact that they're doubling Tyler so much and trying to find some holes in it after they double us."
On getting to the line:
"It was a great game in the first half if you like to watch basketball, because there was not a lot of pushing, shoving and holding. I like the game where you don't spend all game parading to the free throw line. I think we shot four or five and they shot three or four. But we've got to get the basketball inside and we've got to attack the basket."
Lute Olson
Arizona Head Coach
Opening Statement:
"There's no question that the team that played the hardest and played the smartest won. I think Carolina did a tremendous job in terms of the effort they put in. They put it in right from the start and they kept it going.
"They create a lot of problems inside with [Tyler] Hansbrough because you can't handle him by yourself, and they did a nice job of perimeter people moving to open spots. They hurt us there. They hurt us on baseline drives which we had said going in that that's their drive of preference, and it was and they did it and continued to do it.
"I thought from our end of it, we got really hard play out of Fendi Onobun coming off the bench. I thought that Kirk Walters did a good job when we could get him the ball. The weakest part of our game right now is the inside presence. We have a few more games in our league play that I hope we can develop that.
"Marcus Williams, I think for his physical condition did a good job. He was very ill last night and did not take part in our shoot around this morning with a stomach virus, but I thought he hung in there really pretty well. Mustafa Shakur always plays hard, but I just though we needed to get more consistency from some of our other players. I think a lot of that credit goes to Carolina. It seemed like ever pass that we made was being challenged, and that's usually one of our strengths. It was like we came out and basically let them run what they wanted to run, and if you let a team that shoots the ball that well run what they want to run you're going to be on the backside of the score."
On the 8-0 Carolina run to end the first half:
"It probably started with a really ill advised pass from one of our guards to the other guards - a 30-foot angle pass - and they picked that off. That was followed by a dunk on another play, and we just lost that momentum completely. To their credit, we ended up with Hassan Adams getting a wide open look with about three seconds to go so we want that shot taken at four seconds or less. Mustafa drove it and kicked it back and we had the wide open look. Unfortunately we missed it and it got tapped out of bounds. That shot they made at the end - that kid can really shot it. That sent them in with momentum, but that momentum had been taken away from us with a couple mistakes. I think they scored on maybe 10 of the last 15 possessions before halftime and that was a killer."
On the play of North Carolina guard Bobby Frasor:
"I thought Frasor did a really good job. Probably his defensive effort was lost in the shuffle. He did a great job on defense. He pressured every pass. He made it difficult for us to get over screens and get open. Anytime you look at a score sheet and you see nine assists and no turnovers that's a great, great job by the point guard, but he's a real factor on the defensive end of the court too. He's a very smart player. He plays within his limitations on offense. He's not somebody that's a great shooter, but I think he knows he's a great creator. How those points get up on the board, it doesn't make any difference if it's you scoring them or someone else, but I think he's a very, very good point guard."
UNC PLAYERS
Bobby Frasor
On his big shot to end the first half:
"It's big. We get momentum heading into halftime. I was happy until someone jumped on my finger and hurt that some more. But, yeah, that was big for us as far as getting some momentum. Then, we came out in the second half and in the first ten minutes we really got on them.
"Coach drew the play up just like it came off. Wes was the second option for me to hit there. But, [Mustafa] Shakur was over calling shooter out and Wes was almost a decoy. Then, I just faked to him, got one dribble, and took the shot."
On guarding Hassan Adams:
"I found out I was going to have to guard him yesterday. I was really concerned. He's probably the best athlete we've played. So, I was really concerned to just try and stay in front of him and kind of play him as a driver first. I think that's what it did. I had some help from other guys and we did a good job on him tonight."
On coach Williams' comment that his defensive play was one of his best efforts:
"That's huge because in the past couple games, the Virginia game in particular, I had one of the poorest defensive games of my career, I thought. So, ever since that day, in practice I've just wanted to play tough defense and stay in front of the ball. I just wanted to play head-up defense and I think I really did that today."
On whether this was his best game in a North Carolina uniform:
"Defense wins games. When coach Williams says I played great defense, that means this was one of my greatest games."
Wes Miller
On what the team did well to get the win:
"I think we really competed well. That's the main thing. We competed for 40 minutes. We played strong on the defensive end of the floor. You've got to give Arizona credit because they're a great basketball team and for us to play defense for 40 minutes like that and be able to stop them and hold them in the 60s was the key to our victory tonight."
On Arizona's Mustafa Shakur:
"I guarded Mustafa Shakur for a good part of the game and I've got to say it was as hard to stay in front of him as it was for me to ever stay in front of anybody. He's got the ball on a string and he's super quick and he's long. He had me tired at the end of the game. But, hopefully we had them tired too, which I think was the case. That's what we want to do, is compete. If we're worn out, we better have the other team worn out too."
On Tyler Hansbrough's play:
"I mean, Tyler's play speaks for itself. He's a monster down there. When we give him the ball, he scores. When we shoot it, he goes and gets the rebound and scores. Everybody pays so much attention to him that it really opens some things up on the perimeter. I've been able to knock a couple shots down. Danny Green has been able to knock some down. Bobby is going to start getting it going, he knocked a couple down tonight. Everything in our offense is based around Tyler and it's helped out the whole team."
David Noel
On whether this was the team's most complete game:
"Yeah, I think so. I mean, we came out first half and second half with an agenda and we executed the best that we could. I think we took it to them in both halves."
On what he did right tonight:
"We competed both halves. We rebounded the ball. We got steals. We were able to get out in transition. We did all of the things that we need to do in order to play Carolina basketball in order to be able to get big wins."
On Bobby Frasor's play:
"He did a great job, especially because we asked him to guard Hassan Adams and that's a tough job to do. But, he did a great job of it today. He also took care of the ball and distributed it very well. That's something that we're going to need out of Bobby night in and night out and he's the type of player that's capable of doing that."
Tyler Hansbrough
On the physical pounding that he takes every game:
"It's physical. It's very physical down there at times and it's part of the game. It's just something I'm not going to shy away from. I'm just going to keep playing my game and I'm not going to loose my mind or anything like that. The hammering is mutual down there. It's back and forth."
On what he's improved:
"At the beginning of the season I was struggling with slow moves and I keep on getting quicker. As a team, I think we keep on getting better and keep on improving."
On the guys on the perimeter:
"It's going to be a lot tougher for people to double down on me knowing that I can kick it out to Wes or Bobby or Reyshawn or some of our guards and hit some shots."
ARIZONA PLAYER QUOTES
MARCUS WILLIAMS
On his thoughts of the game:
"We need to force them out of their comfort zone. They did the same thing over and over, and we just didn't hit shots. And we needed more intensity on the defensive end. If we would have done that we may have had a different outcome."
On entering the second half of conference play:
"We need to pick up where we left off in the conference. We had a nice three game win streak. This team is not going to lose any confidence. We know we're still a good team."
FENDI ONUBUN
On his thoughts of the game:
"We just need to get some work done, look at some film, and see what we did wrong. We lost the game but we need to bounce back and do what we can in league play. I just wanted to rebound in the game and contribute in some way. They had the momentum the whole time, and we couldn't get any shots to fall. They had the momentum the whole time."
MUSTAFA SHAKUR
On his thoughts of the game:
"We just need to play harder. We need to keep playing and play tough within the conference. We need to keep playing like we did in the conference, despite today's loss. They just played tougher than we did today. We can't take anything away from them."
HASSAN ADAMS
On what the team will take from this game:
"Just like any other game, we need to put this behind us and look at some film. We wanted to `W' but we have to learn from it either way. We'll bounce back from this."
