University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC-Virginia Quotes
February 3, 2015 | Men's Basketball
UNC Head Coach Roy Williams
“We played a very good basketball team that dominated us in the second half of the game today. We came out in the first five or six minutes and I thought we were very active defensively, but they were very efficient. They had four guys in double figures, shot over 50 percent in both halves, didn't turn the ball over. I'm disappointed in our sense of urgency at some points during the game. I'm disappointed that we gave in. I'm sitting here thinking that we need some practice time. Bottom line is I admire what Tony [Bennett's] team has done. He does a great job coaching and his kids have bought into it completely. They share the basketball, they don't turn it over. They take shots that they can make and guard you like crazy. We lost to a very good basketball team that was coming off the Duke loss and they were very focused. They really outplayed us in the second half. First half we had some things that could have been more than one point. We gave up at some points. You can't have a guy just go lay the ball up and have a big man just looking at him. You better get involved. Again, I go back to the four big things in the past years, and the one big one is the sense of urgency. Virginia's sense of urgency was so much greater than ours. All I've got to say is they kicked our butts, and it will help us to get some practice time. Get some guys healthy. Kennedy [Meeks] didn't have a lot in the tank today. His temperature was 101 [degrees] and we didn't know until warm-up whether he was going to be able to start the game and how much he'd be able to play. Nate [Britt] was removed from a possible concussion list yesterday. Marcus [Paige] sprained his ankle. I can tell you guys all of that, but the bottom line is that Carolina lost to Virginia. That's the bottom line. I can give you all kinds of reasons, we haven't practiced, but the bottom line is that North Carolina lost to Virginia. Give Virginia credit. Even at the end of the game when we were trying to press. Had Wade Moody at practice, had Denzel Robinson (Coach Robinson's son) coming to practice, had Spenser Dalton practicing with us. We didn't get a lot done because we couldn't do anything. But we were trying to press and we couldn't because we hadn't practiced that in three weeks, and that's bad coaching. I don't have anything else to say. They kicked our rear ends. That's the bottom line.”
On the 9-0 run in the 2nd half
“They had two offensive rebounds for baskets and I'm getting so sick of that. You guys have been around here a long time – 12 years at Carolina and 27 years as a head coach, I've talked about rebounding, and maybe that's because I wasn't a great rebounder. You got to do a better job of boxing out. Defensive rebounding you only give them one shot. But they made some good decisions. We had a turnover, didn't have the best spacing, but they're a good defensive team. We need to post-up better, get to the post-up area a lot quicker. We didn't have very good timing today. We had run one set play out of bounds. Brice was wide open, but Nate had already looked away because the timing wasn't very good. Then he was looking at Marcus and Brice was wide open under the basket. But again, I think you said it was a 9-0 stretch, but two of them were offensive rebounds and I despise that more than I despise anything."
On the 30 minutes between Marcus Paige's baskets:
“Well I screwed him up probably too because he was hurt one time, and I should have taken him out. When I finally realized what everyone was saying I asked him, “Are you alright?” and he said, “I'm fine.” But you guys know a little bit of basketball yourself. If you were guarding us, who would you guard? Who would you emphasize guarding? It's pretty damn easy to figure it out. And they are good defensively. We don't do a very good job helping him at times by getting better space and getting someone scoring side or setting screens for him. So we got to do a better job.”
On a common thread between tonight's second half and Saturdays second half:
“Well I've said sense of urgency, since they kicked our rear ends on the backboards again. Saturday for sure, they had 17 points on the second shot opportunity on the second half and they had those couple of big ones today. I don't know how it ended up, [points off offensive rebounds] we had 11, they had 8. We are supposed to be my best rebounding team, I told you guys that earlier that I thought we could be the best rebounding team I've ever coached, and we haven't done it yet. We have to get more rebounding from the perimeter. J.P.'s got one rebound, we out rebounded them 34-27, but we've got to do better than that.”
On the post to post doubles and luring out risky passes:
“If you are strong with the ball, tough minded, you don't want to throw the damn thing away. Stick it under your shirt, and the referee at least call a five-seconds call. You get to set your defense, but there is no reason to turn the ball over just because you are giving in to the pressure and giving into the aggressiveness. They do a better job of that than anybody, and yet I believe we got some good baskets on that too. You know if you were to count them all and say, Kennedy [Meeks] had two assists, Brice [Johnson] had one, Joel [James] had one, I think every one of those assists were on doubles, big on big. But we had some turnovers too. You know the game, [we] gave Kennedy Meeks fluids I think all day, he didn't even come to pregame meal, so that's a lot to ask for him to be able to do, but he is our best passer so I felt like he would be able to handle it better than anybody else.
Virginia Head Coach Tony Bennett
On back-to-back games in 48 hours
“They fought. I think we got back to the mentality that we needed to. I said in the postgame interview after that our way is a blue-collar way. It's a fighting way. Our guys, I think, responded well and really rallied. We were better in transition. We were really on the edge and got exploited against Duke, and we said first things first, we've got to do that. They only had two transition points, so it started with that. And then we were pretty good on the offensive glass. I thought early on, we were a little shaky, but when it got to the guts of the game in the middle of the first and the second half, we really clamped down defensively and then got good looks and played for each other at a high level today, and I thought that was the difference maybe than in the setting of 48 hours ago or however long ago it was.”
On London Perrantes, G offense
“We talked about that. You're too good of a player. You're never going to force, and I don't worry about him forcing, but you need to look for the shots, step and take them. When you look at that stat sheet and the balance of those 17, 16, 15, 13, our perimeter guys and Anthony [Gill], that's really significant. But London, to answer your question, him taking 10 shots and just aggressive in the lane with his six assists, that just adds another dimension to us. And we needed all of it for sure, and I liked his approach, it was good.”
On the missed layups in the first half
“It was because a couple of times, we trapped the post and our rotations were slow, our guys were losing vision and trying to chase a screen, and then the ball went in the post. We're supposed to be in position, and our trap was soft a couple of times, and I just said, 'Listen, we're trapping it like we tried to trap Jahlil [Okafor] when we played Duke, you've got to pin your ears back and go, and you've got to be there quick.' And then we took it off some and we used it on and off, but overall, it helped us, and I thought we got a lot more alert and aggressive with it. And we said at halftime, if you can really play the lane and make them play over the top all game long and rebound, you're going to get some stuff on the offensive end. We felt like we had good rhythm because of how we were playing for each other, and they really buckled down and made it hard for Carolina to get quality looks. That's what we try to do, contest the shots on that end and get the good rhythm shots on our end.”
On containing Brice Johnson, F
“We probably trapped the post a little more, and Darion [Atkins] did a good job, and we just tried to bother him. Guys at this level are so talented, and the best you can do is make them earn it and stop giving them the easy ones, whether it's offensive rebounds. It was just make them earn, all those guys, nothing easy. And I thought our guys with the resolve, you could just see it, that they realized, “All right, we can do this.' We had a pretty challenging practice on Sunday. Having coached in the Pac-10, you have a lot of Thursday-Saturday games, and we've got to get back to some good old-fashioned blue-collar basketball, and I thought that's what we did. And the guys, when they do that and they're right, they can play.”
North Carolina Players
Nate Britt, Sophomore Guard
On why they couldn't stop them when it turned sour: “I felt like when they went on that run, we just kind of broke down and that was the same thing that happened at the Louisville game, we broke down and had so many turnovers. We were making a lot of defensive mistakes. I felt like that's what did it tonight.”
Over-passing the ball: “We were kind of expecting that, and we knew we would be able to get some shooters open on the three-point line, that was something we were looking for. We always want to try to move the ball and coach always says we want to use five extra seconds to get a better shot. I guess you could contribute that to us trying to looking to get a better shot and use our possession. “
On what they've learned the past two games: “I think we learned a lot. We haven't had as much time to prepare for the last two games because we've had quick turnarounds. I feel like this week we're going to go over a lot of stuff, touch a lot of things that we did wrong in the Louisville and Virginia games and just get prepared for the next two games. They are a threat from every spot on the court. Like you said, they got guys who can hit the three ball from the outside. Their post guys are a huge presence for them, and they're able to score inside the paint. They're definitely offensively balanced.”
Marcus Paige, Junior Guard
On what Virginia did in the second half to take control of the game: “They were tough enough to execute their plays down the stretch. They didn't fall under pressure. They got the shots that they wanted, and we didn't. We turned the ball over. They got 18 points off of our turnovers. Really they're a good team because they execute, and they can absorb runs. Teams can go on a run against them and they don't falter. They run their stuff, they trust their stuff, and they buy into what their coach is telling them and that's why they're successful. They're not the most talented team in our league, top to bottom. They buy into what Coach Bennett preaches to them, and it works when you really do that. “
On where the team is right now compared to UVa: “We're trying to figure out how to do that. Like I said, we have talent, we have pieces. But if you don't have five guys buying in, playing every possession the way coach preaches. It sounds cliché, and that's boring talk for media, it's not anything juicy for you guys, but it's the truth. When you have five guys committed to helping each other on the floor, working together, setting good screens to get the right guys the ball. That's success, and when you have talent it elevates it to another level. We're still somewhere trying to figure out how to get to that point.”
Brice Johnson, Junior Forward
On recent struggles in the second half: “We have to play harder. [Virginia] played a lot harder than us in the second half. They forced some turnovers and were able to capitalize on turnovers.”
On the inability to execute in the second half : “We kept turning the ball over. [Virginia] scored 18 points off our turnovers and that was the biggest issue. We have to stop turning the ball over.”
On what it's going to take to buy into the system: “We all have to look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we are really working as hard as we should. If we aren't, then we have to change that, myself included. I'm not working as hard as I possibly can and I can definitely change that.”
