UNC-Northeastern Postgame Quotes

UNC-Northeastern Postgame Quotes

Roy Williams
UNC vs. Northeastern 2-17-21

Opening Statement: "I just heard that our Men's Golf team finished tied for first in their tournament out on the west coast so, I'm ecstatic about that. I think that is really good. The reason I went to this towel at the end is because Big John [John Thompson Jr., former Georgetown head coach] was a great influence on me. He was great friends with Coach Smith. In fact, he called me last year and left me a message. He didn't like what I was saying after the game and jumped all over me. But the funniest thing he's ever said to me is, I told him one time, I said, "Big fella, I'm going to start wearing a big old towel on my shoulder like you do", and he started laughing. He said a few words that we won't repeat, but he basically told me, he said, "If you wear a big little towel like mine, it'll be like you're wearing a big blanket, boy!" But honoring John Thompson is something that, the only bad thing was it was hard to keep that thing on my shoulder, I kept putting it there and somebody kept taking it off or somehow it kept sliding off.

"We're happy about the win. Having four guys in double figures, two guys close to that as well. It was good. I think that trying to do a better job on [Tyson] Walker in the second half was huge for us. After the first half I said, 'I've never been outscored by one guy,' but it looked like that he was going to do that. He's really a gifted player and made it tough for us, 7 for 8, 4 or 5 from the three-point line in the first half. I thought we were better in the second half.

"Shooting percentage...we missed so many easy ones right around the basket. The big guys didn't have a great day of finishing up there. I like the fact that Garrison [Brooks] and Armando [Bacot] did some good things. But I really liked that Day'Ron [Sharpe] and Walker [Kessler] both came off the bench and had double figures for us as well. Caleb Love, nine assists, two turnovers, and I think he had two turnovers in the first four minutes of the game or something.

"We're glad we got to play a game. It was a tough week. We've lost games, and now there's talk about other games being lost. You guys may have heard the story, I'll make it official: when we knew we were not going to have Virginia Tech, we reached out first to those people who were on our schedule originally. Most of them in the state that we had to cancel early. Some of their protocols weren't what we needed them to be, one of them was even a pause themselves. We had discussions with two other schools and that didn't work out. ... Northeastern, they were one of the schools that reached out, and Clint Gwaltney, our Assistant AD in charge of basketball, called them and I thought it was a good thing for us.

"I didn't realize how good [Tyson] Walker was, he reminds me of [Chris] Lykes at Miami, and that he's always been really difficult for us. But, I hope that Billy [Coen] thinks that his team got something out of it and we did. When I was in little league, if we had 15 games, I wanted to play 15. If one of them got rained out, I wanted it to be rescheduled. When I was a high school coach, we had 20 regular season games. If one got snowed out, I wanted it to be rescheduled. What we were trying to do is get some more games and get some more home games. They were only our seventh game at home and somebody showed me a stat before the game today. We had the lowest percentage of home games of anybody in the 353 teams in the Division 1. That's all the monologue I've got."

Q: 25 of y'all's first 38 points tonight came from bench players. What kind of lift did you think that those guys gave you, particularly in that first half?

Roy Williams: "Well, I think that they've been playing better the last eight or 10 games. We challenged them because, I think I'm right on this, Virginia's bench last year in two games outscored us 42 to 10. And so we made that a point before the Virginia game that we needed to get more out of them scoring wise but also the defense and rebounding and those kinds of things. I think also, Day'Ron plays a lot. Andrew [Platek] plays a lot. Walker Kessler had two good games, back to back now, I think that'll help him. So, we need to keep going with our bench because I think at the end of the season, people will just get more tired. You've got to have somebody that can come in and your level of play cannot go down."

Q: What did you see as the major benefits of making sure you had another home game as opposed to just taking a game in the ACC if you had to go on the road or something like that and instead playing this non-conference game at home?

RW: "Well, we needed to play a game at home. Period. We had six home games before today, out of 19. And that's not equitable, it's not fair. I've always tried to play a difficult non-conference schedule and this year, our ACC-Big 10 fell on the road. Guys like to play at home. I mean, that was a pretty easy one to answer. Again guys, up until about the last week or so, teams have won 70% of their home games. Some might say, the crowd is not there so the home court is not a factor, that's BS. You're used to shooting in your gym. You're used to sleeping in your bed. You're eating the meals that you always eat, and not what somebody else prepared. Again, I'm willing to stop playing the ACC-Big 10 challenge. I'm willing to stop everything, play a 20-game schedule and play the rest of our games at home. We play 14, 15, or 16 home games normally in our schedule. And some teams in our league play 19, 20, 21. This whole thing that's going on right now, I feel heck of a lot safer coming here and playing than I do getting on a plane going somewhere else and playing. And again, we didn't try to find number 353 in the country. We found a team that had a higher RPI, net, whatever it is, than three teams in our league. Yes, if we have to go on Twitter again, I'm going to try to find another home game. Bottom line."

Q: [Tyson] Walker had a great game but what did you guys do to limit him? He only had one field goal in the last 33 minutes.

RW: "Well, I think we tried to guard him better. Maybe he was just tired from scoring all those points and wore himself out from making so many baskets. I do think that we tried to double-team him in the second half and he made good plays, he made good decisions. He had #15, I think it was [Coleman] Stucke, that made three threes in the second half when we doubled him. But we got the ball out of his hands. So we did some things, but again, maybe he was just tired of making baskets."

Q: Louisville couldn't play tonight because of their COVID situation. BC is already off for next week for you guys. I mean, do you sort of leave out of here holding your breath for the rest of some of these games. What're your thoughts on that?

RW: "You know Adam, I've been doing that for the last six weeks. You're so hesitant and you're so cautious with what you're doing yourself but you're also afraid of what may happen to your team and somebody else's team. Now let's get it straight that one of the games that we lost was more our fault than anybody else's by far. We felt like we'd satisfied the protocols but Jimmy's [Larrañaga] team didn't feel comfortable, that was the bottom line. But that one was our fault. We've got to play the games that they put on our schedule. We were told we could play 27 games. That's what I'd like to play. Play 20 conference games and one ACC-Big 10, I'd like to play all of those. But if we don't, our kids like to play games, they get tired of listening to me and running sprints and things in practice all the time."

Q: Along those lines, how important was it to get this game scheduled and played, just to try to maintain some type of rhythm for the players?

RW: "I think it was important and I'll give you this example. When Clint walks in at the end of our practice and comes over and talks to me, my guys are over there dying. I mean, one day we talked, and we talked about the price of cheese in China. And I walked away from him and all my guys are there staring at me and I said, 'Guys, everything's okay.' And one of them said, 'Coach, when we see you talking to somebody else, we think we're losing a game.' That's the mental health issue of 20 other mental health issues that we've got to worry about with our guys. They want to play a season. We all do, but we want to be as safe as we possibly can. But no, I don't mind telling anybody. People cannot come and play. And BC we were going there. But a few weeks back, it looked like our schedule was going to be 10 road games and seven home games. And since that time, we've lost two more home games. So come on now. We're going to try to play people and we don't have any idea what's going to come from it but we'll wait and see. Clint's earning his money this year. He's never earned it in his life, but he's earning it this year."

Q: You mentioned [Day'Ron] Sharpe and [Walker] Kessler's high quality play tonight. How have you seen them grow at this point in the season and what are some things you're really still on them about and improving?

RW: "Making the simple play on the offensive end. Scoring around the basket. Defending the basket. I think I've always said that our big guys, that I thought we could be much better this year than we were last year, is defending around the basket. Now I think that's the biggest thing for us. We only had two blocks, but I think we do make it difficult, more difficult, for guys to score around the basket. We have four big guys that have been shooting a much higher percentage than our perimeter players. So I mean, it wasn't a great shooting day for our big guys today, but over the course of the season they've shot a much higher percentage. For us, it's the smartest thing to get them the shots. I think all four of our guys are big time college players who are going to be big time players and play basketball for a living. It's not going to come at the same speed for everybody, and it's not as easy for everybody. But I asked Sean May a question today and I knew the answer which is the way most coaches do. I asked him how many threes he shot in his career for me. He said zero. But he was first team All-ACC. He was the 13th player drafted in the draft. Led us to the National Championship. Played basketball for a living and did okay. But Walker Kessler, especially I put some pressure on him, he just walked in the back of the room. He does have a chance to be one of those guys who can make a lot of shots and make shots from the outside. He hadn't shot it great so far this year, but I think he's going to be one of those guys that'll be able to do it. I'll tell you the same thing I told him, he laughed too. I said, 'I know you're going to start making up them, but I want it to be in my lifetime.' Thanks guys."

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Walker Kessler

Caleb Love

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