UNC-Clemson Postgame Quotes

North Carolina 76, Clemson 79 • January 11, 2020
Postgame Quotes
North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams

Opening Statement
"I'd like to get two things said and get them straight before. I told Brad [Brownell] that I was not upset or disappointed, anything, with them jumping around, and I thought they should be that excited. Some people get disappointed or mad, other people do that, but he should be excited and happy that it is over. He had not been there this whole, every time, he has had to listen to it. So first of all, I was not disappointed at all. I understand other people have desires and dreams too. The second thing, and the most important thing, is that loss is my fault. No question, no doubt in my mind. My first year at Kansas we allowed Kansas State to make a three at the end of regulation, and we were up three. I turned to my bench and Coach Robinson was there, and I said you should fire me today. Ever since then, every time I have had a chance I have fouled. We did not have a timeout I wanted, because I did not think my team was settled before Brandon Robinson went to the free throw line. I did not know that we had the right person going in and so I used that time out there, I would have loved to have that other one we called when there was a loose ball on the floor, but the player did what he was supposed to do. So, we have the time out and I talked to him and told Brandon Robinson, because I wanted to give him confidence, and that was the number one thing I wanted to talk about was to give him confidence to make his shot. I told him you've got this, this is your time, you are going to make these free throws and after you make these free throws, we are going to play 20-2, we are going to switch any screen on the ball, and that was it. They are dribbling the ball across the 10-second line and I said, you did not remind them to foul. We do it in practice, I believe in it. I have had some great moments as a coach and I would say that right now this is my lowest one because losing this game was my fault. I told them if I die tomorrow, 20 years from now this will be the biggest regret I have in 32 years as a coach, because these kids really need to win, and their coach let them down today. I will be happy to answer any questions."

On what went wrong in the last few seconds
"People did not get to the right positions and people did not come to get the ball. The last thing we did in practice yesterday was press-offense work. Still in excitement and toughness of the game we didn't, we didn't get where we were supposed to. You are not supposed to throw all those long passes. One that Leaky [Black] threw, tried to throw it over the guy's head to Garrison [Brooks] and he made a nice play on it, but that one was not press-offense."

On how the streak affected the players
"I don't think so. You would have to ask them but I don't think so. I think our inability to handle the second-half against Pitt probably had more to do it with it than the streak against Clemson. But, you know we just found out, and I am not blaming Leaky [Black], make sure you understand this, we basically found out today that Jeremiah [Francis] was not going to play and that is the second time this year we found out within 24 hours that the point guard was not going to play. So, Leaky [Black] was in that position that he not been in that much, even though one man that is not supposed to take the ball out of bounds on the side, it is usually the three man, so I said Leaky [Black] you are used to this, and Leaky [Black] is our best passer in size, and so it is a reason I got him to do that. At that point, I was probably thinking more clearly than I… guys I did not remind them. I tell Bubba [Cunningham] you should probably fire me. Probably would not be a bad idea. A coach is supposed to help his kids and I didn't help them very much."

On something changing in the last few minutes
"I think the first turnover leads to another one, leads to another one. I think it does that. And again, with the big guy those points are supposed to go to the middle floor and twice in a row we didn't do that. You know, some mistakes, and again it was the last thing we worked on yesterday. The very last thing. Ten-men press-offense, in fact we did press-offense, defense game, which means the teams alternate. But, I decided that I didn't want to work on our press, I just wanted to work on our press-offense. So, we didn't work on any press-defense, it was just press-offense."

On going back door in overtime
"The thing is they hadn't gotten one of those the whole game, and we know that that is part of their offense, and one of the clips we showed on tape was Sam throwing that back door pass off the dribble. But, those kids they made a mistake, but not as bad as the mistake I made because I did not remind them to foul."

On the upcoming week off and status of injured players
"We are going to do some more, maybe an MRI, maybe some x-rays, they are going to do some of those, some examinations, maybe even tonight. We won't know until we get the results of those on Jeremiah [Francis]. The week off, I would like to play tonight. I have told you guys before I would like to be a football coach where you have to wait a week. I don't have any idea how it will be. We are going to give them some rest and then we will get together and practice again. We won't know on the injuries until we get the information."

On Brandon Robinson's performance
"You know he has been beating himself up because he had one of the three turnovers, but I thought he did some really great things. He is a senior and wants things to be better. I told him before, things in life don't always work out and you have to face some adversity and you have to come back and keep coming back. I am very hopeful, in fact, I strongly believe my team will keep coming back and keep coming back. And the injuries, it is more than we have ever had. Nobody is going to feel sorry for North Carolina and that is okay."

On what he said to the players at the end of regulation
"You know they missed two free throws that were big. I said but now they are fired up, we are just going to play five more minutes and let's play even better. Let's be stronger than them, they are really happy right now, and let's be really strong and go out and play well. I think two of the first three were up the back-door cuts and you know that hurt. No, I was very positive with them. You know, that is a good sound. I am happy for Brad [Brownell] and his team. My team would have had a better chance at doing that if I had reminded them."

Coach Brad Brownell

Opening Statement
"Obviously a terrific win for our players. I couldn't be more proud of the way that we competed. I didn't think we played very well in the first half. I thought we were a little nervous. Really, we started the game, I thought we were getting a lot of good shots, but we didn't make any. Like one-for-seven, maybe, to start. I just tried to keep convincing our players to hang in there. If we can make a couple shots and try to bring the game a little closer, then I thought we'd have a chance at the end. North Carolina did a good job, they played well for 38 minutes. They really kept us at bay. We made a couple good runs in the second half, and they put it back up to 8 or 10. And then all of the sudden, we obviously got hot and made a couple shots. They turned it over a couple times. I thought our kids really executed down the stretch. I thought the last five or six minutes of regulation and overtime we executed our offense really well and got good shots. We got some layups. It was a fantastic comeback, and certainly a terrific win for us."

On how to remedy poor shooting to start the game
"When you're playing with a lead, you're not going to shoot as quickly, you're just naturally going to be a little more passive and the team who's behind is playing just the other way…"

On ending the losings streak in the Smith Center
"It's probably not as big a mountain down in Clemson every day as people think it is. We're certainly glad to have it past us and not be asked about it anymore, and we can move on to other things that we need to accomplish in our program. It's just nice for former players, and fans and everybody that we can put that to bed. "

On postgame celebration on floor and what win means to team
"To come back and keep fighting for 40 minutes when you don't have your best stuff for a while, and it doesn't look like you're going to win… In overtime, you've to go win again. You have to go win the next five minutes in Chapel Hill with the streak on the line and the pressure and everything with it. Our guys didn't buckle. We played great in the last five minutes."

North Carolina Player Quotes
Brandon Robinson, Senior Guard
On takeaways from the last three games at home
"If we go back and watch the film of this game and the Pittsburgh game, we have played great in the first half and made a lot of mistakes and been up. So I think we got to cut down on our mental lapses and cut down on mistakes. If we do that we can win these ball games. We are up in two ball games going into halftime. We just keep letting them slip away from us."

On locker room atmosphere after the game
"We were hurt. We are hurt after every loss. I would say games like these are more than others because we are a couple points away."

On if the team is in a tough mental spot or if the team still has the belief
"It is crazy that you asked that. After the game I was devastated. I had my head down in my locker and Christian [Keeling] was the first person to come up and say something to me. He said pick your head up, you have to keep believing that we can turn this things around. I think that is the main thing of believing that we can do something."

On takeaways from individual performance
"If I get going outside, it takes pressure off them inside so my guy can't go double down on them. I feel like in the last couple of games they have been doubling down on Garrison [Brooks] and Armando [Bacot]. So if I get going, guys can't help off me which allows them to go to work one on one."

Armando Bacot, Freshman Forward
On the last 2 minutes
"We made a lot of mistakes. I think I missed the front end of a 1-and-1, which could have been two points. Also, it was just tough because my man hit the game-time three, which was actually a good play. I wasn't expecting my man to get an elevator, double screen, five man, so he just had an open look in the corner. It just kind of hurt though."

On whether or not it occurred in the last play that they should foul
"No. I wasn't really sure. I guess I'm not as experienced as everybody else, so I didn't want to do anything without coach saying anything. I mean, I don't think the game came down to that though. There were a lot of different plays that I could have made and that the rest of the team could have made in order to win the game. It's just tough losing in that way."

On Roy's attitude after the game
"Coach was really apologetic. I mean, it's not his fault. Coach really believes that it was his fault, but I don't think so."

On trouble getting the ball in-bounds at the end of the game
"We were struggling with pressure, just not really having a point guard. Jeremiah was out, Cole was out, so it was just kind of tough trying to get the ball in, but it is what it is."

On the difference between earlier in the game and overtime
"In overtime, they started hitting gutsy shots, and I guess we didn't make as many. And we lost."

On the team's attitude
"Everybody was sad, really emotional, because we thought we played a good game, but we didn't play good enough."

On positive takeaways
"With it being such a huge game for B-Rob, I hope this moment can carry over for the rest of the season. Me and G having another person who can shoot the ball and score like that is definitely a lot easier on us and will help the offense out a lot."

On getting back into his groove after being out of it the past few games
"Like I said the other day, those were just a few bad games. That's not me, though. This is me."

On how to mentally get back on track
"Just keep trusting in Coach and just going out every day and playing harder. Taking the things that made us lose last game and trying to not make those same mistakes."

On having the week off
"I think that's probably the part that's going to hurt the most, having to sit on that loss for 8 days. It's definitely tough having to sit on it, but I guess it will give us some time to regroup and refresh our minds."

On what they need in order to regroup
"Just staying positive. Not getting down and getting better every day. Working hard, and seeing what we can do to take away from our loss and what we can do better."

Garrison Brooks, Junior Forward
On the turnovers in the last 2 minutes
"We just gave it to them."

On Roy Williams's comments about this being the lowest point of his career and whether or not the game will weigh that heavily on the team
"No. We are going to come in and work the next day, just like we have before to get better."

On Wililiams taking the blame
"I mean, I respect it. I understand what he meant, but we didn't make plays. The players didn't make plays at the end, we turned the ball over a lot. That's it. He wasn't out there to turn the ball over."

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

Garrison Brooks

Brandon Robinson

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