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Anthony Harris
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Roy Williams Postgame Quotes
February 13, 2021 | Men's Basketball
Roy Williams Postgame Quotes
at Virginia, Feb. 13, 2021
Q: You had said on Friday that you needed to chase their bigs outside the arc. What did you think of the effort that Virginia's bigs did in finding open threes?
Roy Williams: Not a very good job, Kip. A lot of them came on screens on the ball, and we didn't communicate the way we'd like to communicate. So, either a big guy or the point guard is guarding them out there instead of one guy chasing the point guard and the other guy guarding nobody, being caught in between. So, we did a very poor job of that. It's hard to simulate that in practice. We don't have a four and five man on the Blue team that can go out there and make all those shots like they did, 4 for 6 and 3 for 5. You know, your big guys are 7 for 11 from the 3-point line and 6 for 9 from the free throw line. It was not a good job for us. We didn't do what we wanted to do defensively. They are hard to guard, and those kind of things we've got to do better.
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Q: How much did the first 10 minutes of the game, not being able to knock down shots. How much of that had to do with Virginia defensively? You know your guys just kind of getting acclimated to playing against how they play that pack line.
RW: Well, I think their defense is always good but Garrison [Brooks] is 0 for 3 the first couple of minutes and they're all three shots we see him make. Leaky [Black] missed a wide open three when nobody was within 10 feet of him, and Leaky missed about a 15-footer. Armando [Bacot] went in, I think he missed his first shot inside there too. So, we needed to make some of those to make us feel like we were still going to be in the game. And they missed their first three, then their next two shots were both threes and the only field goals we had were Caleb [Love] had the dunk after the turnover down there. Yeah, we needed to make some of those [shots] early. That would've helped us, to say the least.
Q: Obviously you got a really productive second half performance from Walker Kessler. What did you like about what he did tonight and did he see more action in the second half because of the way he was playing or was that more just maybe some lack of production from the other bigs or a little bit of both?
RW: A little bit of both. You know, Garrison was really struggling, he's 2 for 7 for the night. Didn't box out one time just plain as day so I took him out at that point. Walker [Kessler] did some nice things. He's got to finish those lob plays for dunks, we need him to finish those. That would help us and help his confidence as well. He didn't call out the screen on the time that Anthony Harris got clobbered and was down on the floor and that's something we try to emphasize a lot. But no, I was just trying to find something to see if something would work. And Walker's been doing a nice job, trying hard in practice and so, got to try something.
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Q: What is it about Virginia that gives you guys such a hard time?
RW: You know I can't speak on all our teams in the past. Last year, we have a lead and they make one with eight-tenths of a second to go. The year before we played them in the Smith Center and they had to go to video to decide that Coby's [White] three-pointer was not good. And then they laid it up and had to go to another video to see if it was good for them and both those calls went their way.
Tonight, their big guys were tough for us to handle out on the perimeter. Tony [Bennett] does a great job. They guard you. I don't think we've beaten them since, I think we beat them in 2016 in the finals of the ACC tournament, lost to them probably in 2018, beat them at home in 2017, and lost to them in 2018 I guess it was in the finals of the ACC tournament. But Tony does a great job. They've got good players. I mean guys they had three guys, well they won the national championship in that time period too, and they had three guys, [Ty] Jerome and [Kyle] Guy and [De'Andre] Hunter that were all three number one draft choices. They're a good basketball team and Tony does a great job with them.
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Q: How difficult is their defense to figure out?
RW: It's not hard to figure out, you've just got to be able to handle it because they're very aggressive on the ball without fouling. They sag in away from the ball, you're going to get some open shots but you got to make open shots. You've got to be able to make shots to have some success against them. If you're not making shots, it's a long, long night. You know, we were 0 for 9 at half, 2 for 16 from three and that's going to make it a long, long night.
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Q: You guys were 10 for 25 on layups. How much of it was stuff that they were doing and how much of it was just the fact that you guys missed a lot of chippies and how frustrating is it to have that kind of lack of efficacy?
RW: It's extremely frustrating. We work on our post moves every single, blessed day—hard, trying to get them to concentrate on the rim, and not see the defensive players come. But, you have to give Virginia credit as well. They had five blocked shots. They try to defend the basket area really well. You know, Armando is 3 for 7, Garrison is 2 for 7, so it's 5 for 14. Walker is 3 for 5 so that's 8 for 19 and I've lost Day'Ron [Sharpe], 3 for 8. Four of our five big guys shot less than 50% and you've got to give credit to Virginia's defense and our lack of attention to detail I guess.
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Q: Really this game kind of started as an anomaly for the team as of late as you all have scored 75 points in six of your last seven games. So I wanted to ask, and of course you've chopped it up to Virginia's defense but I wanted to ask what do you think your team could learn from this game specifically and kind of trying to regain that scoring momentum that you all had started?
RW: Well, the other teams that we play have something to do with the number of points scored because if they were a team that likes to play fast, and we do, so both teams are going to score more. Virginia's pace on offense is way down towards the bottom if you want to count the top being how fast. But I'm not saying how fast should be the top, I'm just saying that I think there are six teams that average more time of possession than Virginia so they work the clock, work the lock, they pass it until they get the shot that their coaching staff wants them to take. Part of it is that. We had 91 against Duke, well they had 87 so it was the pace of the game. But we've got to take their attention to detail, and I think this could be one of the ways I would answer your question. Their attention to detail on the defensive end of the floor is extremely important to them. We've got to make the attention to detail on the defensive end of the floor more important to us. And, you can't just hit a screen to stop, their guys do not want to be screened. We hit the screens to stop, their guys do not want to be screened and that's part of it too.
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Q: Andrew asked pretty much what I was going to ask you about some of the difficulties just around the rim with making some of those point-blank shots. I guess, you know, I think it was 11 of your first 12, you missed. Is one of the things that when you're playing Virginia especially, do you have to fight just trying not to feel like you're further behind than you are? Just because of the way they shrink the game and just the pressure they put on you.
RW: Yeah, I think it's not a bad question there. I don't know if I'd go quite as far as that, but I do think that teams know it's going to be a lower possession game. Each shot means more. If you get 100 shots in a game, three of those can be bad and it's not going to be a bad deal. But if you only get 10, three of them is 30% and that's a big deal. I think that's part of it. I mean we did. Garrison's couple of shots early, were I thought good shots. Leaky was wide open from three and was definitely wide open from 15. When you're missing them, I think it perhaps messes with your mind a little bit because you understand that you missed a golden opportunity and you might not get that. And then again when we take it to the rim and they challenge everything at the rim. I think that that's pretty important too. We've got to do a better job at that ourselves.
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at Virginia, Feb. 13, 2021
Q: You had said on Friday that you needed to chase their bigs outside the arc. What did you think of the effort that Virginia's bigs did in finding open threes?
Roy Williams: Not a very good job, Kip. A lot of them came on screens on the ball, and we didn't communicate the way we'd like to communicate. So, either a big guy or the point guard is guarding them out there instead of one guy chasing the point guard and the other guy guarding nobody, being caught in between. So, we did a very poor job of that. It's hard to simulate that in practice. We don't have a four and five man on the Blue team that can go out there and make all those shots like they did, 4 for 6 and 3 for 5. You know, your big guys are 7 for 11 from the 3-point line and 6 for 9 from the free throw line. It was not a good job for us. We didn't do what we wanted to do defensively. They are hard to guard, and those kind of things we've got to do better.
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Q: How much did the first 10 minutes of the game, not being able to knock down shots. How much of that had to do with Virginia defensively? You know your guys just kind of getting acclimated to playing against how they play that pack line.
RW: Well, I think their defense is always good but Garrison [Brooks] is 0 for 3 the first couple of minutes and they're all three shots we see him make. Leaky [Black] missed a wide open three when nobody was within 10 feet of him, and Leaky missed about a 15-footer. Armando [Bacot] went in, I think he missed his first shot inside there too. So, we needed to make some of those to make us feel like we were still going to be in the game. And they missed their first three, then their next two shots were both threes and the only field goals we had were Caleb [Love] had the dunk after the turnover down there. Yeah, we needed to make some of those [shots] early. That would've helped us, to say the least.
Q: Obviously you got a really productive second half performance from Walker Kessler. What did you like about what he did tonight and did he see more action in the second half because of the way he was playing or was that more just maybe some lack of production from the other bigs or a little bit of both?
RW: A little bit of both. You know, Garrison was really struggling, he's 2 for 7 for the night. Didn't box out one time just plain as day so I took him out at that point. Walker [Kessler] did some nice things. He's got to finish those lob plays for dunks, we need him to finish those. That would help us and help his confidence as well. He didn't call out the screen on the time that Anthony Harris got clobbered and was down on the floor and that's something we try to emphasize a lot. But no, I was just trying to find something to see if something would work. And Walker's been doing a nice job, trying hard in practice and so, got to try something.
Â
Q: What is it about Virginia that gives you guys such a hard time?
RW: You know I can't speak on all our teams in the past. Last year, we have a lead and they make one with eight-tenths of a second to go. The year before we played them in the Smith Center and they had to go to video to decide that Coby's [White] three-pointer was not good. And then they laid it up and had to go to another video to see if it was good for them and both those calls went their way.
Tonight, their big guys were tough for us to handle out on the perimeter. Tony [Bennett] does a great job. They guard you. I don't think we've beaten them since, I think we beat them in 2016 in the finals of the ACC tournament, lost to them probably in 2018, beat them at home in 2017, and lost to them in 2018 I guess it was in the finals of the ACC tournament. But Tony does a great job. They've got good players. I mean guys they had three guys, well they won the national championship in that time period too, and they had three guys, [Ty] Jerome and [Kyle] Guy and [De'Andre] Hunter that were all three number one draft choices. They're a good basketball team and Tony does a great job with them.
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Q: How difficult is their defense to figure out?
RW: It's not hard to figure out, you've just got to be able to handle it because they're very aggressive on the ball without fouling. They sag in away from the ball, you're going to get some open shots but you got to make open shots. You've got to be able to make shots to have some success against them. If you're not making shots, it's a long, long night. You know, we were 0 for 9 at half, 2 for 16 from three and that's going to make it a long, long night.
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Q: You guys were 10 for 25 on layups. How much of it was stuff that they were doing and how much of it was just the fact that you guys missed a lot of chippies and how frustrating is it to have that kind of lack of efficacy?
RW: It's extremely frustrating. We work on our post moves every single, blessed day—hard, trying to get them to concentrate on the rim, and not see the defensive players come. But, you have to give Virginia credit as well. They had five blocked shots. They try to defend the basket area really well. You know, Armando is 3 for 7, Garrison is 2 for 7, so it's 5 for 14. Walker is 3 for 5 so that's 8 for 19 and I've lost Day'Ron [Sharpe], 3 for 8. Four of our five big guys shot less than 50% and you've got to give credit to Virginia's defense and our lack of attention to detail I guess.
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Q: Really this game kind of started as an anomaly for the team as of late as you all have scored 75 points in six of your last seven games. So I wanted to ask, and of course you've chopped it up to Virginia's defense but I wanted to ask what do you think your team could learn from this game specifically and kind of trying to regain that scoring momentum that you all had started?
RW: Well, the other teams that we play have something to do with the number of points scored because if they were a team that likes to play fast, and we do, so both teams are going to score more. Virginia's pace on offense is way down towards the bottom if you want to count the top being how fast. But I'm not saying how fast should be the top, I'm just saying that I think there are six teams that average more time of possession than Virginia so they work the clock, work the lock, they pass it until they get the shot that their coaching staff wants them to take. Part of it is that. We had 91 against Duke, well they had 87 so it was the pace of the game. But we've got to take their attention to detail, and I think this could be one of the ways I would answer your question. Their attention to detail on the defensive end of the floor is extremely important to them. We've got to make the attention to detail on the defensive end of the floor more important to us. And, you can't just hit a screen to stop, their guys do not want to be screened. We hit the screens to stop, their guys do not want to be screened and that's part of it too.
Â
Q: Andrew asked pretty much what I was going to ask you about some of the difficulties just around the rim with making some of those point-blank shots. I guess, you know, I think it was 11 of your first 12, you missed. Is one of the things that when you're playing Virginia especially, do you have to fight just trying not to feel like you're further behind than you are? Just because of the way they shrink the game and just the pressure they put on you.
RW: Yeah, I think it's not a bad question there. I don't know if I'd go quite as far as that, but I do think that teams know it's going to be a lower possession game. Each shot means more. If you get 100 shots in a game, three of those can be bad and it's not going to be a bad deal. But if you only get 10, three of them is 30% and that's a big deal. I think that's part of it. I mean we did. Garrison's couple of shots early, were I thought good shots. Leaky was wide open from three and was definitely wide open from 15. When you're missing them, I think it perhaps messes with your mind a little bit because you understand that you missed a golden opportunity and you might not get that. And then again when we take it to the rim and they challenge everything at the rim. I think that that's pretty important too. We've got to do a better job at that ourselves.
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Players Mentioned
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