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UNC-Wofford Quotes
November 19, 2015 | Men's Basketball
North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams
Opening Statement
“I think our team was better today than we were Sunday. I think we were more attentive. We gave better effort. Defensively, we talked more. We were more consistent with it. They're a hard team to guard. They do a great job with their motion, with a couple of big guys setting screens and handoffs, and it's hard to keep getting through that. Mike [Young] does a great job with his club. They're the kind of team that you like to watch play. If I were a fan, I would enjoy going to watch them play. We knew it was going to be a difficult game. Saw them last year in the NCAAs; [they] were playing Arkansas. I think it was a three-point game; with about four minutes to go I had clue who was going to win the game, and I had no clue who I'd rather play because I thought both teams were effective at that point. Again, they're a good group of kids I know. I'm so old, I had Mike [Young] in camp when I was working for Coach [Dean] Smith; he was in our Carolina basketball camp for a couple of years. For our team, I thought that Kennedy [Meeks] and Brice [Johnson] were better. I think we outscored them 50 to 18 in the paint. We didn't shoot it as well tonight as we have shot it from three. I think Nate [Britt] made our only three. We'd like to do better than one for nine; but we shoot 55 percent in the second half, and they shoot 35 [percent], and that's with our Blue Steel, or whatever their name is this year, missing and going 0 for three in about 15 seconds there at the end of the game. You want to get some shots up, but I'd like it to be a little better shot. Again, I feel a lot better about the game right now than I did after Sunday's game.”
On his team shooting more free throws in the second half
“Again, we have been trying to get Brice, Kennedy and Isaiah [Hicks], all those guys, to stop shooting jump shots. If you look in the first half, Joel [James] shot a jump shot, Isaiah shot a jump shot, Brice shot one from outside the free-throw line, Kennedy shot one out there. Those four outside shots were in about a six-minute period, and we had a size advantage. But what they were doing, they were doing a good job of denying us the low post, so instead of trying to move away and repost, we started settling for a 10 or 12-foot post-up. Second half, I thought we were better and took the ball to the basket area more.”
On any concerns about Justin Jackson's play
“You always have concerns, but again, if he is the biggest concern I have then I'm in pretty good position because he is going to be a good player. He's had a rough stretch here. At least he didn't get in foul trouble tonight. He played 27 minutes, and I told him he has four assists and zero turnovers, and that helps us; two for eight [shooting] doesn't help us. I've never been one to tell kids to go jump off a building. At the end of the season, if we'd played 40 games and he's shooting 25 percent from the floor and 20 percent from the free-throw line, then I'll be concerned about that.”
On Brice Johnson's rebounding
“Well his rebounding was big. The blocked shot shouldn't have had to happen because he should have played the previous play better and they wouldn't have gotten a shot off. But I think he was more active on the backboards tonight, probably his best rebounding game not just because of his numbers of 14, he was more active. But Brice and Kennedy, more than anyone, I challenge them for how inactive they were in Sunday's game, and I thought they were much better today.”
On Johnson not corralling the previous shot
“He had two of those today that he's got to get the basketball, and we've worked since his first practice his freshman year on rebounding the ball. We call it chin, you've got to tuck it, and always expect someone to be there. But he gave up two of them.”
On coaching Johnson and Meeks
“With Brice and Kennedy, all of them, you've got to coach them everyday. But those guys, I'm expecting a lot out of them. And I'm not going to settle for lackadaisical play.
On Nate Britt's steals
“Big plays for us. Steve [Kirschner] was telling me as we were coming down here that we had a three-point lead and then we outscored them 14-2 over the next period and five different guys scored for us. But I thought that Nate had two big steals and turned both of them into baskets on the break. It was good.”
On Justin Jackson's shooting
“I tell him, 'You're a good player. Shoot the ball in the basket. What you need to do is see it go in once.' We don't go, 'Woe is me.' Basketball is a long season. It goes up and down. He didn't start out very warm, hot, whatever you want to call it, to start the season last year. He's played well in practice, and he's shot it well in practice. It's going to go in the basket for him. Again, that's not a big concern of mine.”
On Joel Berry's comfort level
“As I said the other day, I think Joel had probably, other than Marcus [Paige], had the best preseason of any of our guys. And the crazy thing about it: I'd probably pick Justin Jackson probably third or Isaiah. But Joel had a good preseason, does some good things. Joel and Nate worked on their shot more than anybody else on their team in the offseason, and until tonight, it's really shown up. But give their team defense some credit, too, because Joel had one right in front of our bench, and their guy closed on him really well. Even the one Nate made, they closed on him and made it a tough shot. But Joel has done a nice job for us. I told him if he would stop turning the ball over, he had three [turnovers] tonight, he had four on Sunday. Point guards can't average three or four turnovers a game. I told him if he did a better job of that, I'd really like the way he is playing.”
On the team's penetration
“I think everybody was. Again, we shot nine threes the other day. We had eight in the first 10 minutes of the game.”
On managing Eric Garcia
“I think he got a little worn out there at the end, but I think he's good. Garcia's good. [Fletcher] Magee, against Missouri in the tape I watched, he scored 22. He and Garcia can shoot the ball. We tried to make sure that we didn't get more than one man removed on them on all the hands off and screens, but I thought those guards and [Spencer] Collins, he didn't have a great night for him, but he worried us to death. And then I guess [Justin] Gordon was the one that was tough to handle. I told them, 'Don't worry about him from outside.' And then he pulls up and shoots a three and makes it, so what do I know?”
North Carolina Player Quotes
On rebounding the ball
“It's very important because, like Coach [Williams] always says, we don't want to give them a second chance at an opportunity to score the ball. We're more effective when we give the other team one bad shot and then we get the ball and we run because we are a good running team. That's the one thing that we emphasize all year, is we need to rebound the ball a little bit better.”
On the three-point shooting from last game to this game
“They were knocking them down [against Fairfield], I can't really complain if they're knocking them down. They were open shots. Some of them didn't go in, and Nate [Britt] and Joel [Berry II] were shooting at like 70 percent together. That's really good for our guards. Of course if it's open and you make it, we're going to clap. Our offense is getting it inside and working its way back out, but like I said, if they go in, then nobody cares about it.”
On the play of the bigs
“The game plan was to go inside. We have two of the best big men in the nation, so we wanted to get the ball down to them, and that's what we did in the first half. They didn't shoot as well as they usually do, but just having that inside attack. We were able to get the ball inside and that's what we wanted to do. I don't think I had a three-point attempt, and Nate only had two. We were able to get the ball inside, and that was our focus.”
On focusing on turnovers
“I just think in general Coach [Williams] wants me to be smarter with the ball. We always wants to get a shot; we never want to come down and have a possession where we don't have a shot because that's a loss of a possession and a chance to score. So it's not necessarily that he gets mad at me, he just wants me to be a little smarter with it and just cut down a little bit on the turnovers so we can have that chance of being able to get a shot.”
Theo Pinson, G
Comparing last game to this game
“Big difference. We see from the Fairfield game that they're going to do everything they can to win. They're going to play their hardest, they're going to play their best game and try to play the best game of their lives. And we just have to understand that we've got to come out and push teams early. Trying to beat us or beating us is a marquee win for that program, and that helps in their recruiting and getting into the tournament, so we've just got to realize that every team's going to come in and try to beat us.”
