University of North Carolina Athletics
Roy Williams Quotes
January 18, 2007 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 18, 2007
By Lauren Brownlow
Opening statement:
I think it would be an understatement to say it was a much better effort, much better intensity and much better execution than it was on Saturday. Freshmen on the road, we had three times where we dribbled it down the court and they came up behind us and stole it, and all three were freshmen. I told them that now their freshman year is over with, they can't do that anymore.
But we did bring some intensity today. We did attack today. Clemson is a pressing team, and I always feel that if you attack a pressing team, you've got a chance to gain an advantage yourself. If you are just conservative and getting it across the ten-second line and say `whew' once you've got it, now you allow them to set up their defense. We did want to attack; it was the key to the game for us. Take the ball to the basket, get the ball inside, move the ball, move yourself, to be much more aggressive than we were on Saturday.
Then the other thing was to guard people. I think we did a much better job of guarding people. If you look at the stats at halftime, I think they had 31 points and they had 18 points off turnovers, and so many were out front where they were just running down the court laying it up. I challenged them that if they can stop turning the ball over around the ten-second line or throwing it from the post out where they could go out and steal it, we've got a better chance of being in the basketball game of doing what we want to do if we make them score against our defense. We still had a lot of turnovers in the second half, but at least they weren't all for lay-ups on the other end for them.
It was a good performance. I'm very proud of our kids. It's been a very tough 3-4 days since Saturday, because it's one of the few times I can ever say that I didn't think we competed or played hard or played intelligently, but I think we did those things much, much better tonight. Let's be honest about it, we caught Clemson on a night where the ball wasn't going in the hole for him. I'm not trying to make excuses; I'm not even counting the free throws, it's just they had some open shots and the ball didn't go in and that always makes your defense look a heck of a lot better.
Saturday every time we felt like we were trying to guard somebody, Virginia Tech just drilled us and shot 54% for the game. Up until that time, teams had been shooting about 40% against us for 16 games. So we feel better to say the least. I'm very proud of Tyler. Monday afternoon at practice, he took as hard a fall as I've ever seen any guy take. He did not practice Tuesday. In fact, if we'd played the game last night he would not have been able to play. So it's been a tough last couple of days for him. I thought he played very well, rebounded the ball well. I like Clemson's club. Mays is really playing great. It's a load for anybody to try to guard him. Hammonds and Hamilton, I've always liked their guards. But it was a good night for us.
On the run at the end of the first half:
A lot of people would say the last four minutes or the first four minutes - I think the whole game's important, so we try to play the whole time. I do think that right before the half, we were a little fresher. I want to guess that we had played 12 people in the first half. We had taken Ty Lawson out because he had two fouls, so we had fresh point guard legs in there too. I like to make a run right before the half, right after the half, in the middle of the half and late in the game, too.
On Clemson's 18 offensive rebounds and Carolina having 22 turnovers:
I still think we should always give credit to the other team. They were 17-0 for a reason. Think about it this way - they lost up at Maryland by five on the road, and the other team shot 63%. That's amazing, that they lose by five on the road, especially when the home team shoots 63%. That tells me more about their club than probably the first 17 wins, and I think that they rare extremely athletic. They have great quickness. Reyshawn coming down and pulled up shooting a jump shot on the fast break, I was glad Booker blocked it. Hell, I wanted to run out and block it. Take a dumb shot like that, you should have it blocked. If we'd had a timeout, I would have run out there and hugged Booker's neck, just to try to teach Reyshawn a lesson. They are athletic. Booker and Mays, they get after the ball - 12 blocks, eight for Booker. He's pretty good. He's going to be really good.
On whether or not they expected Clemson to come back in the second half:
In one of the timeouts, I said last game we played like - bad. We were down 20 with 3:38 or 3:58 to play, and we got it to three. We didn't quit and I didn't expect Clemson to quit. So we had to keep scoring. That's the way you put pressure on people is you keep scoring. That's what we did. But we brought that up during one of the timeouts, yes.
On what he has seen from the team the last 3-4 days:
Fear. They thought I was half crazy, I told them it was just half. If they wanted to see the other half, keep playing like they did Saturday against Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech was great, but we didn't compete, we didn't guard, we didn't shoot the ball, we didn't do a lot of things, and I think we did all of them better tonight. We had a great practice on Monday, except for the fall at the end for Tyler, it was a big-time practice. Guys were competing. Yesterday's practice, we had guys mad at each other, barking at each other because they lost a scrimmage at the end, and they lost and I ran the crap out of them. I want guys who compete. I want guys on my team to compete. I want my golfing buddies to compete if they're on my team; if they're on the other team I want them to lay down. But I think we've competed much harder the last two days in practice.
On following Maryland's example in attacking the basket as a formula to beat Clemson:
I think so, but we didn't necessarily get that from Maryland. I liked what Maryland did. They played very well themselves. Maryland shot 63%; we shot 52% and had 12 shots blocked. So when we got it more than three feet in the air, we made a bunch of them. I've always felt like that we're an aggressive team. I love running the ball. I love attacking. I love scoring points. We just had a break on the weekend where we didn't do that and needed to get back to doing that. This is just one game. I told our kids, Saturday was just one game, and tonight before I let them out at the Smith Center when we get back there I'm going to tell them that's just one game.
On Quentin Thomas's play:
He made some plays. He had three turnovers, so you can't do that, but Ty had seven turnovers. Ty's had 11 the last two games. It's called the ACC. It's a big-time league.
On Clemson possibly being too anxious coming into this game:
You could be. I think that we were hyped up. It was a better scenario for us, only for this reason, because we lost Saturday. We were really hungry. We were really alert. We were really attacking. If we had won, maybe we would have come in fat and happy and it would have been a different scenario. But with Hammonds and Hamilton in the back court, they are very experienced. I just think it was a case of their shots didn't go in and we had some that went in more than they did.
On 11 turnovers in the first half but still having the lead:
I watched our women play Connecticut this week, and we were up six and we had 20 turnovers at half, so we're as good or bad as they were. They were up 6-8 too. I don't mind turnovers if it's the right kind of turnovers. If you saw the game Saturday, Ty's busting down the court, he tries to throw it cross court, Jamon Gordon ran and made a great steal. But when you turn it over dribbling the ball from behind, you're dribbling the ball and the guy comes in and steals the ball from behind, hell, there are only five guys. If you count: 1, 2, 3, 4, hell he's not at the popcorn stand, he's coming in behind you. So those turnovers are stupid. I don't want to call my players stupid, but I said they're stupid. You can't do those kinds of things. I don't mind turnovers as long as we're getting something accomplished. At half, we had shot 52% and we had outrebounded them, but we had turnovers. If you ever see us guys walking a ball down the court and playing a 2-3 zone and making twenty passes, have it checked into. My wife has had me killed, and there's an alien crawled up in my body.
