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University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC-Georgia Tech Quotes
February 28, 2009 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 28, 2009
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UNC Head Coach Roy Williams
Opening statement
"We feel good, I thought for a huge portion of the game we played pretty well. The last eight to ten minutes of the first half I thought defensively were good, I didn't think we were early but the last eight to ten minutes I thought we were good defensively and somebody said they made two of their last 11 shots and I think that gave us a little margin at halftime. I wasn't real pleased with the last possession that they made but that's being a coach. In the second half I thought that except for a stretch of about four or five minutes when we had two (turnovers by) Deon (Thompson), one (turnover by) Tyler Hansbrough, one (turnover by) Larry (Drew) and one (turnover by) Danny (Green) stepping on the baseline, I thought we lost our concentration and were too casual at that point, but other than that we were pretty doggone good for the second half. It's a tough year for Georgia Tech, but not only in this game but in every game they've played, they've played all the way to the final buzzer. Paul (Hewitt) doesn't need me to critique his team by any means, but I think it's hard from the way their season has gone to continue doing that, and I think you need to congratulate them. Ty Lawson, I told him in the locker room that may be as good as I've ever seen a point guard play when he didn't score a field goal. I think that 11 assists and (on) three or four of (Ty's passes) I know we missed a layup and (on) two or three of (Ty's passes) we got fouled, so their could have been more assists for him, but I thought he was exceptional and I thought that Tyler Hansbrough, particularly in the first half, was a load for them inside and got them in foul trouble, and they do have the three big guys, and after that they have to keep changing the lineups. I do believe that Tyler Hansbrough and Ty Lawson, and then Danny (Green) in the second half, he did some really good things in the second half. We didn't shoot the ball very well, you look down and we're four for 14 from the three-point line and we've had some nights when we've shot it really, really well, but we didn't do that. I was disappointed in the second-chance opportunities we gave them in the second half. I think at the half they had zero points from offensive rebounds, I don't know what they finished up with...(asks question to Steve Kirschner)...so they got 13 points on second shots in the second half, we talked to the guys in the huddle about it so at least that makes them feel like I know a little bit about what I'm talking about. It was a good day for us, congratulations to Tyler Hansbrough, I told the guys in the locker room that's not a North Carolina record, that's not an ACC record, that's a national record and that's pretty doggone impressive."
On team's assists
Well we didn't emphasize just the assists, we emphasized sharing the basketball, and we emphasized the 16 really, really, really bad shots that we took up at Maryland, but we emphasized the whole ballgame, and we had very complete practices, I didn't try to kill anybody, I didn't put anyone on the end line and say you've got to run until three people puke or anything like that, we tried to get better as a basketball team and they were full practices and I think it helped us a lot.
Georgia Tech Head Coach Paul Hewitt Postgame Quotes
On Carolina's scoring
"In the first half they had 13 second chance points, which is something we felt coming into the game, I think Wes [Durham] might have said we were the two best rebounding teams in the conference, and that was something we felt like we had to establish. And I think that 13 point lead at the half gave them some momentum and then they came out and shot it really well in the second half."
On the foul situation and giving up loose balls
"Nothing I can think about it...I was upset because we gave up 13 second chance points. I thought there were a lot of loose balls that we allowed them to beat us to. One time we wanted to press them, Drew was in the game, and we created a loose ball in the middle of the floor. And when we don't come up with it, it goes from an obvious turnover to an and-one. So, those are the plays that had me upset."
On Tyler Hansbrough
"He's a great player. I wish we could have denied him the ball a little bit more. But he's a great player."
UNC Player Quotes
On earning the NCAA record for free throws made
"It means a lot. Those are some great players up there, and for me to be at that top spot, it's an honor. But also it's a lot of hard work. There's a lot of fouls involved, and it also shows you have a good free throw percentage, so I'm happy to be there."
On getting past the Maryland loss
"I think this whole team was kind of miserable for a week following the Maryland game. It was frustrating; we didn't do the things we wanted to defensively or play smart towards the end of the game, and we worked on that in practice."
On tough practices this past week
"It was probably in the top three hardest practices of all time since I've been here. Coach emphasized the things we didn't do as well as we wanted to in the game, so we worked on that, and we tried making some better decisions down the stretch. We looked at the film, and we went from there."
On executing in the game
"There were a couple of things that we definitely wanted to emphasize, especially throughout the week that we had off. Some things that we wanted to do today that we didn't do; we wanted to get better at finishing the defense. We played better defense, of course, than last game, but we didn't do a good job of finishing it like we wanted to and boxing out and limiting them to one bad shot."
On improvements over the Maryland game
"We just didn't play our game last week. We didn't have a lot of assists, but that's also due to the fact that we weren't hitting many shots either. Today we were hitting some more shots. Guys were sharing the ball, passing the ball around. If we play like that, I feel like we have a good chance of being a good team."
On the upcoming schedule
"We're taking it one game at a time, and we're not looking ahead. We know we have two big games ahead of us, and one big game next week. We're looking forward to that and focusing on that first, but as the season comes to an end, we're just focusing on getting stronger as a team and making sure our chemistry is there at the right time and just doing the little things right. I feel like if we do the little things, everything else will take care of itself."
