University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC-Rutgers Postgame Quotes
December 29, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 29, 2006
Coach Roy Williams, UNC vs. Rutgers
Opening comments:
"I know I've been saying this for the rest of my life, especially recently, think we need to improve defensively. In the first half, they were 8-for-28 and I think we had 9 turnovers or 8 turnovers. I thought we did a nice job, the only thing is we did not come up with the loose balls and I think there were several times where there were loose balls and they came up with them. One time Reyshawn [Terry] let it go out of bounds thinking it was our ball and he should've taken it and don't let the referee make a decision because sometimes they make mistakes. If you grab it then you don't have to put it in their hands. I was pleased with our defense. In the first half if we came up with the loose balls, if we had not allowed them second shot opportunities, but those we were being very picky probably and then in the second half, I liked what we did offensively too because we're not selfish and we try to go on and we move the ball well. Wayne [Ellington] made three big three's in a row, and that was huge for us and Wes [Miller] made a big three and that opened that up a little bit and a lot of the things behind the scenes were really good. I challenged Brandon [Wright], told him in the huddle that they were freshman and they were taking it to the basket and dunking it and after that, he came back in the next time and he was really impressive to say the least. I'll tell you something else, Wayne [Ellington] made three straight three's, but he had been in the entire half and it got inside the 14 minute mark and Marcus [Ginyard] had not been in the game so usually when the guy gets a hot hand I have him stay in there, but same time everyone sees what Marcus [Ginyard] does and knows that deserves to play as well so I put Marcus [Ginyard] in, took Wayne [Ellington] and I said to him, 'You have to understand normally I would leave you in there, but Marcus has been sitting here for six minutes and you have played for six straight minutes and its been hard work on the defensive end and I need to get him there, just have faith that when you go back out you will get more opportunities,' and so when I went down the line to get him, I held out to shake his hand and I said, `yeah the hand is still warm.' He went in and missed the first one, but then the second one went in and having that kind of attitude about it is Marcus [Ginyard] and Wayne [Ellington] is something that's important and Brandan [Wright] being able to step up and Reyshawn [Terry] struggle a bit with the five turnovers, but at the same time he didn't put his head down and Danny [Green] did some good things and had good moments again to build on what he did in St. Louis. Ty Lawson with 9 assists and zero turnovers is impressive, but there's a lot of stuff to be happy about and congratulated them I thought we did some very nice things against a team that was trying to control the tempo and run-down the shot clock so its not easy to try to defend that, but yet, to be honest that they and the one game suspension and those two, I think their team would have been much better without them and its hard to go on the road and play at Carolina without two of your starters."
On the assists during the game:
"I knew it was better in the second half. We talked in the first half, Wayne [Ellington] had two turnovers, Reyshawn [Terry] had one when they just tried to go on their own, instead of us moving the ball and I don't think we had any of those possessions in the second half."
RUTGERS HEAD COACH FRED HILL
On being worn down:
"I thought we came out and executed our game plan in the first half about as well as you can. We had two starters who weren't available for us tonight and we knew we had to control the tempo. We came up with a way that gave us the best chance to win the game. I thought our kids executed extremely well in the first half, especially on the defensive end. They (North Carolina) can get up and down the floor and can hang 100 on anybody. In the second half they wore us down, they have great depth. They sped the game up and trapped us. They make you play fast. We don't have the offensive firepower to be able to score at that pace. Roy got his kids to get after us a little bit and certainly they did wear us down."
On playing without Farmer and Inman:
"It is not a fun thing, but we are trying to build a program. We try to emulate the best programs in the country. Two young men, who are great young men, made a mistake and violated an academic team policy. It is a simple one-game suspension and you move forward. You don't pick and choose when those things happen. Carolina happened to be on the schedule and you have to come down here and play the game and I think our kids did a great job. It is tough to ask a backup who hasn't gotten a ton of playing time to play the whole game.
"It was hard to make moves but I thought we played hard even when we got a little tired in the second half. I thought our kids never quit and we just asked them to keep playing hard and keep playing the right way. We went zone to try to save some energy and slow the game down and Wayne Ellington stepped up and made five threes. And when you do that, the game gets out of hand.
"I know Wayne very well from my days at Villanova and I told him, `Did you really have to make all those threes?' And he just laughed and said, `Sorry coach, I had to."
On getting better by playing Carolina:
"One of the reasons we scheduled a five year deal with North Carolina is that I wanted to come down here. The Big East and the ACC in my opinion are the two best conferences in the country. We are going to have tough road games in the Big East. We will certainly grow from this experience."
On giving Rutgers head football coach Greg Schiano words of advice:
"Just win, baby, win."
