UNC-Cal Postgame Quotes

POSTGAME QUOTES
UNC 79, CALIFORNIA 53
JANUARY 15, 2025
DEAN E. SMITH CENTER, CHAPEL HILL, N.C.

UNC Head Coach Hubert Davis
Carolina's keys to victory…
"I thought the key in the second half in particular was Seth, J-Wit, J-Wash and Ven. I felt like Seth was off the chart with his energy, effort and attention to detail. He was all over the place getting rebounds, deflections, steals, running in transition, scoring at the basket, passing and just his overall activity on both ends of the floor. He just made winning plays everywhere. Those three that I mentioned and Seth, I felt like were the key to the game."

On the team's defensive performance…
"This is the first time in a long time where we played defense in the second half. I think the last five games teams were shooting 51% against us. We said, are we going to be able to put two halves together? Or what kind of team are we going to be in the second half? And so to be able to put two halves together defensively, rebounding the basketball we out rebounded them by 12. Cal is one of the best rebounding teams in our conference, and particularly from, you know, getting second chance opportunities. I thought we did a much better job of that in the second half.

On rebounding improvement and not fouling…
"Probably the only box that we didn't check was we had more turnovers and assists, but we only had 10 turnovers and I just thought our job defensively was being able to defend and not put them on the free throw line. That's been a problem for us. It was a problem for us against Notre Dame, against Louisville. I mean, this leads, I think, in the ACC in terms of free throws made, or free throw attempted, and they only went to the free throw line five times. That's absolutely huge."

On holding Andrej Stojakovic to single digits…
"Just trying to win our individual one on one matchups. He's gifted, he can score on three levels, and he has really good size for a wing player and is athletic. I thought we did a good job when he was trying to get his posts ups, we doubled and got the ball out of his hands. We didn't give him any open looks from three and we defended him without fouling. We also attacked him on the offensive end."

On if UNC is "there" yet…
"I think they're getting better everyday. You're never there. The only time you can say that is when you're 54 like me and it's over. You can always get better, you can always improve, you can always strive to get better.

California Head Coach Mark Madsen
On the game…
"We battled in the first half. We cut it to six at one point in the second half and then North Carolina broke it open. They did a good job getting out in transition, making some open threes. And you know our effort this year from the first game and parts of this game, it has been one of our strengths. Our effort was lacking in the second half. I don't know if it is coming back out east on these road trips. I don't know if it is something I need to tweak in practice. But our energy and effort in the second half was lacking. I told the team that in the locker room after the game and I have to address that immediately. It's on me. We have to improve that because that second half, that cannot happen the way it happened. Give Carolina the credit, they played with tremendous pace and speed, but we have to have more effort and fight. Some point midway between that second half our effort and our fight dropped dramatically and that's not acceptable."

Elliot Cadeau
On tonight's scoring aggressiveness…
"Yeah, I felt like I was being more aggressive out there. Putting up 15 shots, that might be the most I've put up out here. They were playing the pass, the bigs were kind of playing the pass so it was just forcing me to just put up more shots. I felt comfortable doing it."

On his athletic dunk attempt…
"That's definitely in my bag. I know I haven't shown it out here, but that's definitely in my bag. I was kind of waiting on it, just waiting to get in that situation so I could dunk on him, but unfortunately I missed."

On the team's performance against California…
"I just think we were great for 40 minutes. Usually, in most games, we will be good for the first half or maybe just good for the second half. I felt like we finally put together a full 40 minutes together and we were playing good the whole time… It was a big emphasis for us at halftime. Coach says that he pushes us. He says that statistically, our defense is a lot worse in the second half for most of our games. He brought that up, and it just pushed us harder in the second half."

On his increase in confidence after Notre Dame…
"I definitely feel like I'm getting back to how I started the season off. I just feel a lot more confident now. I feel like, starting now, starting these past couple weeks I feel like myself again. It feels great. I feel great."

Seth Trimble
On getting back to form…
"Absolutely, today was a huge step in the right direction. I felt completely like myself, but I'm always nitpicking at myself, so one thing I got to do again is get back on from three and give the team a boost from the three point line behind the arc. So we're getting there, very close."

On the team's halftime adjustment to control the glass…
"What HD said, he said we were soft on the glass. We were soft in the first half, and we needed to step it up if we wanted to get the good win that we wanted to get. So we all took the took the challenge, took pride in, you know, getting our rebounds in and it showed"

On staying focused despite criticism…
"I mean, yeah, sure. I mean, we don't care. At the end of the day, they can say what they want. We know we didn't capitalize on some of the non conference games, but we're just focused on the next game. As you know, it's a one game mentality for us."

Ian Jackson
On the team's effort for the entire game…
"I think we put a whole 40 together on the defensive end. That was of emphasis when we came out of the locker room at halftime. A lot of games we played one half defensively, so [to] come out here and play two halves defensively was huge for us."

On development on the defensive end…
"At this level, you've gotta be able to guard. Scoring isn't enough. You gotta be able to play both sides of the basketball. At every level you have to play both sides of the basketball ball. So we talked, I feel like I'm making huge strides on the defensive end, on a rebounding end, and I just keep on looking to do the same thing. I take pride in it and being in the right spot to get stops and helping my team get stops."

On scoring efficiently without forcing the points…
"My teammates. Yeah, my teammates just do a good job of finding me. And I'm hoping I make shots. Yeah, it's really them… they helped me out for sure."

Jalen Washington
On the team's resilience after a big win…
"We're resilient and we're looking for more, we're not satisfied with, you know, just some regular season wins. We got bigger goals in mind. We just want to keep building to be able to best team, we we could be"

On the team's sense of urgency to win now compared to when they played Louisville…
"We just got more of a central urgency to win, no matter what it is we're doing. It's the little things, little things. We've been in tight situations 100 times this season already. You know, we've had a lot of– we had a few losses. It's really just, you know, just listening to the coaching, watching the film and making the right adjustments, just having the urgency to make those adjustments and win."

On focusing on the little things…
"It just starts in practice. You know, just being free and playing confident. He definitely just said in the game too, [we] missed a couple opportunities to get it up. But, you know, just gonna look at the film, look at more opportunities. Keep, keep playing and practice and get shots up, getting the feel for it."

Players Mentioned

Elliot Cadeau

Ian Jackson

Seth Trimble

Jalen Washington

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