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UNC-Clemson Postgame Quotes
December 31, 2015 | Men's Basketball
North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams
Opening Statement
“Theo Pinson, Isaiah Hicks were huge for us coming off the bench. Didn't get much out of Brice [Johnson] tonight; he's been off the charts. I think he started reading his pub and thinking he was all-world and forgot the work part of it, but we got by with Brice having one of the worst games that I've ever seen him, but he has been sensational recently. He really has, but everybody's trying to come up with reasons. The reason he's been really good is because he's worked hard. He's played harder. He's worked harder during the course of the game. His defensive grade's been better. He's got better low-post position. It was not because Kennedy [Meeks] was not in there, because the guy who replaced Kennedy was Joel [James], he's a big dude too in case you haven't looked. But Brice has just worked so much harder and gotten better, and gotten better at low position. Tonight, they fought him and got him off the block a little farther, and he missed some open eight and ten-footers right in front of the goal. And on the lob that he missed it was because he wasn't going hard, he didn't think they were going to throw it, and then all of a sudden they threw it and he didn't have the balance to jump up there and get it the way he usually does. So it was a tough night for Brice, but again look at Theo and Isaiah, what they did for us off the bench. You know, we shoot 50 percent against a very good defensive team, we turn it over 12 times against a very good defensive team, but we were fortunate we made some shots. Again I look at [Theo Pinson and Isaiah Hicks], five-for-five and five-for-six; that was huge for us to say the least. Five guys in double figures again, and two of the guys who started did not get double figures.”
On Isaiah Hicks' consistency
“He's really been pretty consistent the entire year. You look at his field goal percentage – he's shooting close to 70 percent. I don't think he had a bad game the other night – he was five for eight. So he's been consistent since the first game of the year, shooting the ball well and defensive grades have been good. Last year, he really took giant strides defensively, and I think he has continued that. Needs to rebound the basketball more. I kept telling him how many rebounds he had; he had six rebounds tonight. But he has been in fact one of our most consistent players since day 1, since the first day we started practice.”
On how this team compares to his best offensive teams in the past
“I think we have some good parts. We haven't shot the ball well, we really haven't. I still think Justin Jackson, the last ten games I think his stats have been much better. If I'm not mistaken, his stats against the ACC were better than the non-conference, and that's hard to do because the competition is so much better. We've got the parts, we haven't shot the ball as well…When we start shooting the ball and still get the offensive rebound, we will be really good offensively.”
Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell
Opening Statement
“Proud of our guys' effort tonight. I thought we did a lot of the things we wanted to do to give ourselves a chance. North Carolina is just very talented, can score in a lot of different positions. They wore us down really at the end. We had some guys that were probably playing on fumes, and as a result we couldn't get back in transition some, gave up some rebounds, and had some turnovers for points that were really poor in the game, and that proves to be the difference. I thought offensively we did about as much as we could do. Defensively, we were pretty good in some ways, and they still scored 80. I thought we did a great job on Marcus Paige, and he still had 18 points. They just have a lot of weapons, and you don't see North Carolina downsize very much, and they downsized against us. When Theo Pinson makes three 3's, it's tough. We gave him a couple in situations, and he knocked them in, and those are big baskets. It gave them a lift.”
The effect of UNC's downsizing
“You know we don't have as many guards as everybody else right now. We're a little light on the perimeter with a couple guys sitting out right now, and I think there was a wearing effect on our guys because they just move a little bit more. Brice [Johnson] didn't have one of his better games, which I like to think we had something to do with that, but that probably helped them in their decision-making to do it because normally he's going to play really well. All those guys though, Joel Berry has improved. Justin Jackson has improved. They just have a lot of quality players that can score in a lot of different ways. There's just so many of them coming at you that it's hard to stop them. There's so many weapons. There's going to be two or three that play well every night because there's six or seven of them that could get 18 points every night, and that puts a lot of pressure on you.”
How to slow Johnson's momentum
“We wanted to attack him too. We wanted to attack their big guys on offense and make them play defense. I don't want it to be easy for them. They're talented guys, and we just wanted to make sure they had to play both ends, they don't get to just rest a little bit. Some games, big guys just rest. There's not a lot going on; guards are dominating the ball, and they get to rest. We wanted to obviously put them in ball screens and throw the ball inside some. We were hurt by [Landry] Nnoko being in foul trouble. Nnoko's our best interior scorer, and he only played fifteen minutes. So that was probably another thing that hurt us a little bit, but I give Carolina credit they played well.”
On turnovers
“Well a lot of theirs, where they threw them away, were out of bounds. A lot of ours were pick-6's. Some of that is their defense. Obviously, that is part of what they do. There are things where that helps them, and there are things you can do to exploit that if you execute. Certainly the points off turnovers was a factor for them.”
North Carolina Player Quotes
Isaiah Hicks, F
On Marcus Paige's Dunk
“Yeah, especially before, with his foot problem, yea, little dude can get up. Just from seeing him dunk out there, you see me jumping up and down because I was surprised he did it. He said he was going to get one, and he surprised me. “
On the 58 game winning streak against Clemson
“Honestly, nobody brought it up. We were just out there like first ACC game; we were just excited to play. We just knew Clemson was going to be a great defensive team and be physical and just go at us so we were just concerned about that stuff.”
On consistency
“I guess I'm just doing the same thing, staying aggressive, doing anything I can to help the team out. It's just me being aggressive opening up so many opportunities out there for everybody.”
On improvement from this year to last season offensively
“Just playing together. Honestly, I mean, three-point shot we are doing a whole lot better than we did last year, but I think we just play together so much which helps the bigs. It helps everybody, so I think we just play really well together, move really well together, which really helps us.”
On quality of shots
“We are all getting way better shots. Last year, there were a lot of times where we kind of had to force things; and even this year sometimes we've had times where we've just not moved the ball as well. So I think whenever we move the ball and hit guys where they want the ball it is so much easier for them to score. So today we did that and we came out with the win.”
Theo Pinson, F
On small line-up
“I think it helped us with our spacing, I mean, just having everybody on the floor able to take their guy and make a play. It helped out the spacing on the floor, and we got a whole lot of guys that can make shots.”
On shooting 5-5 from the floor and 3-3 beyond the arc
“I don't think I've ever had a game where I made every shot, so that's a first.”
On rebounding
“With us having Joel [Berry], Marcus [Paige], me and Justin [Jackson], I have to rebound, or we are not going to get them. That was just big on my part.”
