University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC-BC Postgame Quotes
January 31, 2016 | Men's Basketball
North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams
Opening Statement
“Just to get it straight about Kennedy [Meeks], he was late to shootaround today, and so when you're late you have to run some for however many minutes you were late and you don't play your first run during the game. If you're a starter, you don't start. If you're a substitute, you miss your first time going in the game. I've been a head coach 28 years. We've had four guys that were late in 28 years, so that's all it was. It's no big deal, except I'm going to enjoy watching him run the next few days. Michael Jordan got caught in traffic in New Your City in a holiday festival or some tournament, so we set Michael down, and I set everybody down and said, we've only had four in 28 years so it's no big deal. So he's got to understand what the price to pay is to be the best team: be there everyday and not let other things get in the way… Other than that, I thought Joel Berry was really good. Look at his stats: five for ten, 13 points, six assists, no turnovers, three steals. I thought he was extremely important to us during the course of the game. We did some good things. You know, we started out zero for eight from the free throw line. I've been joking with some of you guys, every time you guys say how great we are at shooting the ball, we stink it up. So we talked about it again this week, but we were 11 of the last 14 [free throws]. Look at the stats, biggest thing is points after turnovers: we had 30 points in that way and they only had five. We caught them when they were undermanned with the two guys that were hurt. Our defense did force some turnovers, and they just had more turnovers than they usually have.”
On the key to Joel Berry II's progression
“He's really just played good basketball. He worked harder in the offseason, worked on his shot in the offseason. He's really stepped up and done some good things for us on both ends. He's been very consistent on the defensive end. But when you have a guard that handles the ball and doesn't turn it over like that, it's really important to you.”
On having tougher games in the second half of the season
“It's what it is. We've said it all year long, you don't know what the schedule is until you get into it. You don't know who's going to be great. I think Clemson has really done some good things early and beat a lot of ranked teams. But now we are in the process of going into not just the second half, I think we have ten more games. Six of them are on the road, and a bunch of the games are against those teams in the top half of the league. If we play the way we played the last four games, it will be very, very, very difficult to win any of those games. So we've got to play better, and we talked about that. Even before the game today, instead of putting up some X's and O's up on the board, I said let's play to get better on defense, let's play to get better on offense and let's give the grade A effort and see if we are mature enough to handle this.”
Boston College Head Coach Jim Christian
On starting strong in the first half
“We played hard. I thought defensively we played hard, just obviously, offensively, we just turned the ball over. We're really shorthanded not having Jerome [Robinson] of Darryl [Hicks]. That's two guards down for us and that was the root of a lot of turnovers. A lot of them were on-ball turnovers, a lot of ball-handling turnovers. That was the difference in the game obviously.”
On Garland Owens and A.J. Turner
“I just told Garland and A.J. that was as hard as I've seen them paly. They made more toughness plays. That's two good games in a row for Garland. Hopefully, he can keep it right there. I was proud of those two guys. They really played hard.”
On Eli Carter cleaning up turnover percentage
“You're going to have to. I mean that's 13 in two games, and they're all a similar turnover. Just careless with the ball. Obviously, he has to do a lot right now, especially with Jerome out for three weeks. It's hard to run things. It's hard to run things on them; they overplay a lot, but it's hard for us to run. We get so many guys out of position, and we did an awful job passing today.”
On how to improve in Jerome Robinson's absence
“It's two guards. It's hard. I don't know. We've got to keep emphasizing different things. We tried to run some things, get the ball out of his hands early and run things through Dennis [Clifford] a little bit. We weren't very affective at that either, so we've just got to keep working.”
Marcus Paige, G
On a sense of improvement before this stretch of road games
“Yeah we really wanted to get better as a team today. That was kind of the message going in. Regardless of our opponent, or how Boston College has been struggling, they also had a couple of guys get hurt in the last game, but we just wanted to improve our game because of this tough stretch we have coming up with three straight road games. I think we played okay. We shot the ball a little better. I think we were 50 percent for a couple of halves, so that was an improvement on the way we've been playing offensively. We did some things that I hope can help us moving forward.”
On today's shooting performance
“It felt good. I was one for four from the free throw line, which is inexcusable on my part, and I kind of started the trend today of bad free throw shooting, but it felt good for me. I got some really good looks, and all of the good looks I got I felt great. I took a couple of bad threes, but you take those away, and I was three for six.”
On slow start to game
“We just didn't execute the way we should have. We just have to pay a little more attention to detail and go out there and execute the way we know how to. We were prepared for it; we were hype for it. Still another game here, and my time here is starting to wind down. We were prepared, we just didn't come out and execute and that really hit us at one point.”
On Monday's game against Louisville
“We are going to be ready for them. We just have to go to practice tomorrow and prepare the way we know how to and be ready to play and come out and give them our best shot.”
On his 13-point, six assist, no turnover night
“I'm just trying to make the simple play. There were a couple of passes I could have made, but I didn't feel comfortable with them, so I waited for the next play. It's not always best to try to make the homerun play. You have to value the ball.”
On starting games and having more playing time
“I just try to do what I can to help our team out. It's not necessarily trying to make a play but just playing offense and defense. Being confident, being out there – that's one thing I feel I have this year is confidence and that's a big thing for me. I'm just trying to play my game and do what Coach [Williams] asks me to do and it's working.”
