University of North Carolina Athletics
Postgame Quotes - Duke 93, North Carolina 57
February 28, 2016 | Women's Basketball
NORTH CAROLINA POSTGAME QUOTES
North Carolina 57, Duke 93 • February 28, 2016
North Carolina Head Coach Sylvia Hatchell
Opening Statement
“Regular season is over. Time to get ready for tournament time. I understand we play Pittsburgh at 1PM on Wednesday. We need to learn a lot from tonight. The rebounding has been our Achilles heel all year and it definitely was tonight too. But these kids right here (Stephanie Watts and Hillary Summers), really battled hard. Both of them are warriors, they're tough in there. Duke played really well and they shot the ball really good. I am so impressed with Rebecca Greenwell because she just took them on her back, such a tough player. They just played really well. Their 3-2 zone just gave us a lot of trouble trying to get the ball inside. We've done pretty good against it in the past, but we didn't have anybody that could make that jump shot and get the read up there because the high post is open all the time. But we just didn't have anybody that could make that shot and then get the dump downs inside. Our defense in the first half was basically non-existent because they just scored at will. But, it's over. ACC Tournament time is here. I just talked to the team downstairs about what the ACC Tournament means and how well we've always played. I told them, I think 15 of the last 22 years we've played for the Championship, we've been in the Championship game many times. We've done that with some teams that were not seeded that high, so we've got a tough battle but I want to go over there and make some noise. I want the team to show up at the ACC Tournament like the team that beat Syracuse. Duke played well, shot the ball good, got rebounds, basically we didn't defend them very well.”
On the second quarter
“We just fell apart. I was thinking I was going to have to use all my timeouts before halftime. But, we didn't make some good decisions. We got the ball inside and had some good shots but didn't capitalize on them. We were getting one shot and no rebounds, not getting second chance points has been our weakness all year.”
On the ACC Tournament
“I know it's tough. This team always makes runs in the Tournament and we're a good enough team, whether our record shows it or not, to make a run in this tournament and that's what we're going to do.”
On her career high in rebounds
“I was trying to make sure I was focusing on boxing out because Duke is a long tall team. So you can't really jump with them, you have to make sure you're boxing out. I feel like we just got behind because our defense, we have to do better with that. We can score all day but if you're not stopping the other team you can't win.”
