UNC-Duke Postgame Quotes

UNC vs. Duke 2-6-21
Postgame Quotes

Q: You got 39 points from the trio of Garrison [Brooks], Armando [Bacot], and Day'Ron [Sharpe], 21 rebounds. How important were those guys continuing to establish themselves. How big was that tonight?

Roy Williams: Well, it's always an emphasis for us because I think that's where the strength of our team is. There's no question that Caleb [Love] was big with his shooting the ball in the basket, four for five from the three-point line. Seven assists, we've got to stop from having five turnovers. [We had a] 20 to 16 assist-turnover ratio. At halftime, I think it was 9 to 9. So we did a much better job at taking care of the basketball. At half they had 11 points on second chance points and we had four. At the end of the game it was 15-15, so we just turned that around on them. But our big guys are the strength of our team. I think the rebounds were big for us in the second half, second chance points, and we made shots. I mean, guys, 10 for 15 from three point line is something we'd like to do every night.

Q: Even before Matthew Hurt got into foul trouble, he wasn't getting touches and the looks that he usually gets. What did you guys do to keep him from getting those looks and how huge was that for you guys tonight?

RW: Well, I think you look at their leading scorer and that's Matthew Hurt. You've heard me talk forever about how it's important to get the other guy's best players in foul trouble. We wanted to try to attack him. Again, he's their leading scorer. We did a decent job defensively, made a couple in a row in the second half but other than that, we did a decent defensive job on him. But it's a lot easier to cover him when he spends 19 minutes sitting over there on their bench because of foul trouble.

Q: I wanted to ask about Garrison setting the tone early in the game. Do you feel like just kind of his senior leadership is what helped you guys get off to such a quick start?

RW: [W]hat Garrison does on the court and off the court is extremely important for us ... We wanted to get our big guys involved offensively. We had to win the paint area. We had to win the game inside the 10 feet around the basket, rebounding-wise, defensively, and also scoring the ball there.

Q: Is this the game that you were kind of waiting for from Caleb and the performance you kind of expected from him when he arrived at UNC as a five-star?

RW: I don't care if their five-star or three moons, that doesn't make one bit a difference to me. Everybody thought that I was crazy when I said how good Marcus Paige was going to be. But Caleb did some really good things tonight. I said, if you take away his five turnovers, it would be his best game. But a point guard cannot have five turnovers. Now you say, 'Oh well, he had 25 points. That's pretty doggone good.' That's his career high so that's pretty doggone good. I think I kept him on the floor, he played almost 31 minutes. He did some really good things, made some big shots for us, made a couple of big free throws down the stretch as well.

Q: I know you've played plenty of games without fans at this point but what was it like to be in that arena, where you're so used to all of the Crazies and all that? What was it like to be involved in this one?

RW: It was no difference for me. Timeout was the same thing because the music was so loud, I still couldn't talk to my team at timeouts. I could hear them better and they could hear me better during the course of the game. I'm really, really trying to focus a great deal on keeping my mask on. I've got such a big mouth they can hear me at any point. But, you know, we've played 18 games without fans, so we're sort of used to it by now.

Q: On the subject of Caleb, is it almost a coach's dream in some ways? Because he's superb with the scoring and the assists but you have those turnovers. Especially with the shaky ones late, where you can go back and I guess use them as teaching points. I mean it's always queued up to where you can say look at all this great stuff and also we still got to correct this, from a coaching stand point.

RW: Oh yeah, and he's going to hear about five turnovers, there's no question. He's also going to hear about not getting back on defense in our defensive balance and giving up two layups on the other side. And he's sitting right over there. You guys, I'm looking at you, but he knows I'm talking to his rear end. No, I don't think Caleb played the best game he could play by any means. He played the best game that he's played since he got to North Carolina. But I think he can be a great player and I think he was a big force tonight. You cannot have those kind of mistakes though. Two times, we didn't get back defensive balance. It was like a seven or eight point lead. And we gave two layups because we don't get back. So, not just the turnovers, he'll see those plays as well.

Q: What was the message at halftime to maintain the lead and come out with a victory?

RW: I think the biggest thing was that we didn't play great. We hurt ourselves so much with the turnovers in the first half. We hurt ourselves so much with their 11 points on offensive rebounds to our four. So, the biggest message was let's clean up those two areas. Let's do a better job. And, you know, we had nine turnovers at half. We ended up with seven in the second half, still too many. But we made three of them there late in the game which you can't have those. But then I also thought we did a much better job of boxing out and taking care of the boards.

Q: How big was it getting six guys in double figures tonight?

RW: I think it's always extremely important for us. Again, another thing we talked about is we didn't do as well as their bench kicked our bench's rear end in the first half, points wise. But it ended up still being 36 to 14. So our bench has got to do a better job with providing not just points, but better defense, rebounding, those kind of things that we need. But it's about North Carolina not just about one or two individual players.

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