University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC-N.C. State Postgame Quotes
February 25, 2015 | Men's Basketball
North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams
Opening Statement
RW: “[I want to] congratulate Mark [Gottfried] and his club. They were dominating from the first get-go. Before I even get to that, I want to say something and make something really clear. Our crowd was great tonight, and we let them down. They were sensational. They were off the charts. The coach let them down and the players…early in the game they dominated everything. They intimidated us inside. Cat [Barber] controlled the game and they controlled the game inside with their blocked shots and their unwillingness to give us easy shots. We wanted easy shots and we didn't get easy shots. We made a nice run, but runs don't do you any good unless you're tough enough to withstand and keep going. We got [the deficit] to two but never got it to two with the ball. We got it to four and had a layup on the break, and we thought we got fouled but we didn't get fouled because they didn't call it. Then it goes back down and I think they make a three after that one. So all the sudden we have a chance to cut it to two and it goes back to seven. But you've got to congratulate those guys. Again, I thought Cat dominated the game early, and Trevor [Lacey] and Ralston [Turner] did a great job. We left them wide open three times in the first half just because we didn't get picked up. And then their big guys dominated things inside. BeeJay [Anya] had six blocked shots, seven for their team. We shoot 28 percent the first half and had pretty good looks, but they took those pretty good looks and they turned some of them into blocked shots and some of them into rushed shots and some of them into manufactured shots. I hate it for our crowd, too, because, god almighty, they were so loud. I challenged them last game and they came out and were fantastic. The basketball coach and the basketball team didn't stand up to our part.”
On if the poor late-game execution was due to a lack of poise
RW: “Yes. Silly poise…no poise is what it was. We've never had a play where our big guy shoots a three-point shot unless he can really shoot threes. Joe Wolf and Tyler Zeller and those guys could do it, but Kennedy [Meeks] didn't know what to do, so he shot it. We had a set play called twice in a row and didn't execute that, so that's the coach's fault.”
On the performance of N.C. State's post players
RW: “Defensively they were sensational. Offensively, you look down there and one of their post players shot two and the other one shot two shots. So they weren't doing a lot offensively. They had five offensive rebounds.
But in the first half they make two shots as the shot clock expires. Cat made a nice move on the baseline and dribbles all the way across, but he shouldn't get there. Got to have a defensive player stop that. Then he turns around and makes a turnaround 10 or 12-footer as the horn goes off. Then Trevor makes a three as the horn goes off. We did some good things at times, but the bottom line is North Carolina State kicked our rear ends.”
On the difference in hustle between the teams
RW: “I thought we tried in the second half. I thought we were sensational because early in the game we were sort of running in sand and they were getting all the loose balls. They out-rebounded us eight rebounds in the first half. 25-17. A lot of them were N.C. State's effort going after loose balls. Inside we kept going double pump, triple pump, and tried to shoot it over their guys. I don't think it was a matter of effort, particularly in the second half. It takes a great deal of effort to chase the ball down off the backboard and they out-rebounded us 25-17 in the first half. We were 7-25. There wasn't a lot that we did that was good.”
On how to play against a good shot-blocker
RW: “Pump fake and go at him strong. Don't pump fake 17 times and try and make the softest shot in the history of basketball. You've got to be tough. I mean it's a physical game and you've got to be strong. If you don't have a good shot throw it back out and re-post.”
On Marcus Paige only having one shot in the first half
RW: “Yes. It was awful. We had guys with six and seven shots shooting bad percentages. He was 1-1. He's got to be more aggressive and we have to look for him more often. Guys have to take shots that they can make.”
On whether Marcus Paige has any lingering injuries
RW: “I don't think so. I think he's feeling as good as he's felt the last few weeks.”
On Cat Barber guarding Marcus Paige
RW: “He's (Paige) an emphasis for the other team. We've got to do a better job getting him open. He's got to do a better job moving. Other guys have to step up and make a shot every now and then too. Our defense was good during that stretch there and we were running the break. We made some nice passes. The last three or four minutes we didn't look like a team that never had a practice.
N.C. State Head Coach Mark Gottfried
Opening Statement
“I don't know how many times, in my memory, how many times I've seen North Carolina get 46 points in this building. I'm really proud of our guys, and the other thing I'm really proud of and excited about is that we had a nice lead, they made a run, you kind of knew it was coming, the rafters were shaking, and then our guys settled in and answered it. We answered their run, which I thought was really important and was really something I was very proud of for our team, so it's a great win for us. Obviously, North Carolina is a terrific team. We're very fortunate, so I'm very proud of our guys.”
On holding North Carolina to the lowest total in the Dean Smith Center
“I didn't know that, but it makes us feel good about what we did. And again, I don't think it's going to happen very often, and some of that was us and some of that was them missing shots. But I'm very proud of our team.”
On the team's success tonight
“Our emphasis was their personnel more than anything else. In other words, we wanted to guard [J.P.] Tokoto, we wanted to guard [Justin] Jackson, we wanted to guard [Nate] Britt certain ways. I thought our guys locked in the last couple of days. Their preparation, I thought, was as good as it's been, really understanding and knowing their personnel. With [Marcus] Paige, any ball screens, we wanted to exaggerate our help and how we showed on the screens and try not to let him get loose. I thought Cat [Barber] did a phenomenal job. And then I thought our big guys, we did a nice job inside of not letting them get easy touches, easy baskets. And then I thought the biggest difference was Beejay [Anya]. Beejay changed the game inside, blocked shots, he was a presence, rebounded the ball really well in the first half, and so I thought his presence inside was really important for us.”
On the greatest part of the team's growth
“Sometimes, when you play a lot of young guys, they need time. Guys need time to get better and develop and grow. We rely on a lot of young players, the guys that don't have a lot of experience, and so I just think they're getting better. They're developing. You look at Cat Barber. You look at Kat from last year, finished the year playing pretty good, came in here this year was good, but now he's gone to another level. He's playing at another level. Trevor [Lacey], Ralston [Turner], Ralston made big shots by the way I thought for us tonight, huge baskets I thought was important, but I just think we're growing up, getting a little bit better, but we're not done. Obviously, we're going to go on the road Friday, and it's not going to be easy. There's no easy game, so we've got to be able to handle a good win and go and play the next game, and that's something a young team has to learn how to do better.”
UNC Players:
Brice Johnson, Junior Forward
On how BeeJay Anya was different in this game
“He was just being a space-eater. We've got to do a better job of getting him away from the basket so our guards can drive to the lane. He blocked about six shots out there so you've got to get him out from around the basket because he's a terrific shot blocker. Just got to be able to get him out of the lane, we're more effective when he's not in there.”
On the turnovers at the end of the game
“We can't do that. We can't, at the end of games, turn the ball over the way we did. We have to be able to hold onto it. Every possession is key for us, especially in a game like that because it was a grind out game. It could've come down to one or two possessions and we turned it over.”
Justin Jackson, Freshman Forward
On N.C. State's physicality
“Both games they were physical, that's just how they play. But the difference was we didn't come out ready for that physical play. Obviously we didn't shoot the ball well, especially in the first half. For us defensively, they killed us on the boards, which obviously that's all physical. Just playing harder than we do.”
On poor end of game execution
“For us we became stagnant. We had no movement, and then we just started settling for shots. I think for me I had some shots, probably some tough ones, where I could have easily rotated the ball. Everybody had some shots that they usually make that just didn't go in for us, but I think there were a lot of things as far as just becoming a stagnant on offense and not finishing the defense.”
On how off-court issues are affecting the team
“Obviously Coach Smith is an amazing man, and everything that he left behind everyone will remember, but we can't make that as an excuse. We just didn't come to play. We got beat by a team that wanted it more than we did, and we just didn't come out from the jump ball to match the intensity they came out with.”
Marcus Paige, Junior Guard
On poor game execution
“We have Joel and Justin, we have some freshmen in. The lineup doesn't get a whole lot of reps, so we had a couple bad mix-ups on what were going to run. We ran 'Quick' one time in the corner, and I was open. I thought JP [Tokoto] was looking at me because he was up under the basket too, but I probably still should have shot it, and that kind of started the whole thing. Just not sound execution on the stretch, but you can't dig yourself into a 12, 13-point hole.”
On N.C. State keeping UNC limited offensively
“I mean we shot 7 for 25. We got the ball inside around the basket. They are physical down low. We got the shots that we wanted, we didn't make very many of them, obviously. Sometime the ball just doesn't go in.”
On N.C. State's physical game throwing UNC off their game
“We were getting the ball five, six feet away from the basket, so I don't know. We just couldn't convert a lot of those, I don't know why. Usually our bigs do a great job of scoring inside. We just couldn't get the ball to go in. Justin had a couple of easy throws around the basket, but you know they are physical and obviously very good shot blockers. That might have had something to do with it.”
