University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC-Guilford Quotes
November 7, 2015 | Men's Basketball
Head Coach Roy Williams
Opening Statement
“Well you guys have heard me use the terminology that an exhibition game is a glorified practice. I think it was. I think Guilford was excited and we were excited too because we took so many three's early in the game. I think Steve [Kirshner] told me 11 in the first 28 attempts were three's. I know we had eight in the first five of the game. We've got to have better balance. It's not just the guards. Kennedy [Meeks] and Brice [Johnson] were posting up about 14 feet from the basket. I feel pretty good to play and do some nice things without Justin, Marcus and Brice. He did come in the second half just the first half I don't know where he was. A lot of kids got a lot of minutes and I think it helped us. Getting in front of a crow helped us. Guilford was excited and did some good things. They were making a lot of shots. I looked at their stats at halftime and it was just 39 percent, but every time we left one open they made the shot. Those kids played hard and I enjoyed competing against them. We just had more big players that are more skilled. I think earlier we were shooting too many three's. We weren't taking advantage of our big guys at all. I love the way we shared the basketball. 33 assists and 42 baskets. At least four guys had five assists. There was a lot of things to like. Staff is going to stay here tonight and grade the tape and we'll come back in and practice tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. I don't want to practice after the football game since it's a 12 noon game. We'll practice at nine o'clock and then go over there and cheer those guys on and have a great day on the football field.”
On Kenny Williams and Luke Maye
“Well, they got a lot of minutes, but come on guys. We've got Marcus [Paige] and Justin [Jackson], and someone's got to play. Coach Davis doesn't have any more eligibility and my freaking knees hurt. Kenny and Luke, I like what they do. They're wonderful kids and I like some of the things they've done in practice. Again, we have five big guys and we played all of them. Luke had nine minutes but I wanted to say all five big guys had double digits in minutes. Kenny looked more comfortable than Luke did. Luke had two turnovers in nine minutes. We don't want our big guys to do that. Luke and Kenny I'm very, very impressed with.”
On the absence of Marcus Paige and Justin Jackson
“Everybody's got to play closer to their potential. We can't have any sloppiness. The team we play next weekend is a different level team. Everyone we talk to every day about picking their play up and doing a better job themselves. Whatever job it is. Regardless of how little they think it is and how unimportant they think it is, they've got to do a better job of that. Joel Berry, Nate [Britt], Theo [Pinson] and Kennedy [Meeks] I gave some good minutes tonight. I do want to get Justin [Jackson] back out there. Marcus [Paige] is going to be a little longer. If this was a regular season game, Justin could've played. He wasn't feeling well at the end of practice and still didn't feel well this morning. He said, 'I can play.' I said, 'I'd rather just not.' I'd like to have both of those guys back in there, but we'll get Justin [Jackson] back before we will Marcus [Paige]."
Guilford Head Coach Tom Palombo
Opening Statement
“I thought we competed, there were times where they kind of wore us down, just with the tempo. The way they play, how fast they get it in, how fast they get it up and down the court, especially when we turned it over, they turned it into some uncontested layups and a couple of dunks. But, when we got it into the halfcourt I thought we competed. We executed a lot of things that we wanted to and they still scored and we knew that was going to happen. They made it really difficult for us to get clean shots and clean looks because of their size, speed, and athleticism. It's different when you compete against that caliber of athlete than what you normally do, but the one thing we wanted to do was compete in every possession. That's what we talked about in our last timeout, we just wanted to compete to finish it off, compete, try and get one more stop and that's what we did.”
On lessons learned
“I thought we had some guys that really played with confidence. I think a couple guys were tentative early on but as they got more comfortable in the game, and I think that's the thing, you're not going to be on this stage, even if you went to the Final Four there's not going to as many at the Final Four as were at today's game. I think being in that atmosphere when we go to places like Randolph-Macon, Eastern Mennonite, Virginia Wesleyan, and all rivals and all the teams we play, we'll have been through that and I think we'll handle that in a more mature way. I thought we grew up a lot tonight. It was really good for us and I hope they (Carolina) got something out of it. I talked to Coach Williams before the game and we both hoped we could get something out of it. So, I hope they did, I know we got a lot out of it.”
