University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC-NC Central Postgame Quotes
November 15, 2014 | Men's Basketball
North Carolina 76, NC Central 60
Postgame Quotes • Nov. 14, 2014
Head Coach Roy Williams
Opening Statement
“It was a W. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but give credit to LeVelle [Moton]'s bunch. I think they're a good basketball team. We did some nice things early. We got off to a 9-0 [start]. At that point they started running the clock for 15 to 20 seconds before they started actually running it and trying to be aggressive. They did take us out of the tempo that we wanted. We went to a lot of different lineups tonight, played a lot of people. We didn't shoot the ball exceptionally well, didn't handle the ball exceptionally well. We had 14 turnovers, they had 14 turnovers and they were playing zone most of the game and we were playing pressure man-to-man and full-court man-to-man. We didn't exactly get them to turn the ball over. Look at the freshmen – that's pretty good. Justin Jackson 3:1, Theo [Pinson] was 4:2, and Joel [Berry] was 2:0, so the freshman's assist to turnover ratio was a lot better than everyone else. I think we tried to hit too many homeruns on the offense end of the floor. A thing I was curious about was trying to get our guys to understand that Marcus [Paige] is a pretty doggone good player. If the other team's playing a box and one sometimes, it'd probably be good to have some guys go set some screens for him and help him out a little bit. That wouldn't be the dumbest thing I'd ever seen. We've got to work on that a little more, at the same time we did share the ball around quite a bit. We just didn't make two to three footers or 3-pointers, either one. We've got to shoot the basketball better, we've got to get more out of our defense, but in the first half I was really disappointed in rebounding. They had seven points off offensive rebounds to our three. It ended up 16 to 13 so it was 13 to six in the second half.”
On J.P. Tokoto not starting
“J.P. made a mistake in practice. He did something I didn't like, so I didn't start him. It's over with now. He came in the first substitution and he started the second half, so it's no big deal. He's had a great preseason, he really has. He's done some nice things for us. He's been one of our better players and had as good a preseason – not the best preseason practice – here compared to anyone on our team.”
On the team's pressure defense
“We got some baskets out of it, but we also gave up some. We actually did increase the tempo a little bit, so I like that part of it. A couple years ago we started against Oakland and we shot 75 percent in the first half and we felt like world beaters and then didn't shoot the ball the rest of the season worth a darn. I like the fact that you play a pretty doggone good team and you have some struggles because everybody's got to look at themselves and the things we've made mistakes and learn from it and change it. I think the pressure is OK but not great. We've been trying to work on our foundation. At North Carolina, as long as I've been here, is a system where we coach our foundation as our running game, our half-court pressure defense and our freelance. And that's what we've spent the majority of our time on.”
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UNC Players Brice Johnson & Justin Jackson
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NCCU Head Coach LeVelle Moton
Opening Statement
“Overall, it was obviously not our best effort. We have a lot of new guys, and you saw that. It was a very unique perspective as a coach to have 14 guys on the roster. And the injury report on Thursday said that 12 people were injured. That's not to make excuses—we are a no-excuse basketball team. I didn't know who was going to play. I think four or five of the guys got cleared at the last minute. So I just told them to go out there and fight and compete. We were raggedly executing, and we just didn't know what we were doing. We did have a game plan to put a box one on one with Marcus [Paige]; I knew what he was capable of. But I just wanted the other guys to beat us. I thought our first shot defense was pretty good, it was just the second one, that's what killed us. I thought we were playing volleyball a couple of times. We've got to go back to work. We've got to make layups, and we've got to make our free throws. Overall, we have a long ways to go. We'll get much better come January. Believe it or not, this was our first practice as a team, so it's a tough practice to have when you're playing the number four or five team in the nation.”
On tonight's game plan
“It was just to beat UNC. That's the thing about these guarantee games—you want to play a particular way. You have to be a realist. So we like the guy to run, but we can't do that with these guys, so we had to slow it up. The initial plan was to take a shot with 15 seconds or less, just make them play defense. They've got some new guys, they've got some freshmen, and hopefully, they would have a breakdown. For the most part, I thought it worked. They jumped out in the passing lanes really early, but once we got our nerves, we were just nervous in the first half—the look on my kids' faces, I know that look—but we just needed to settle down. We made a couple of shots and things were better.”
On rhythm
“It was difficult because we hadn't practiced. I didn't even know if I was going to have a point guard tonight. My point guard just got cleared today. He hasn't even been at practice. It's not good when I bring my sneakers to practice. I like to think I'm a pretty good player, but I'm 40, so I can't do that anymore, so we just had to play a lot of three on three in practice, and then a lot of two on two and just do a lot of drills. Our [luck with] injuries is unlike anything I've ever seen. We had a guy get his tooth knocked out. We have yet to practice, so we're looking forward to these open days so we can go get some work together as a team.”
