University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC-UNC Asheville Quotes
November 24, 2010 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 23, 2010
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UNC vs. UNC Asheville
11/23/10
Post-game Quotes
Head Coach: Roy Williams
Opening Statement:
"It's a "W" and we feel very pleased with that part to say the least with the two losses we had down in Puerto Rico. I thought at times we did some nice things. Other times I thought UNC Asheville was more aggressive than we were. They made shots and did things that usually help you win big-time games.
"I was very concerned about them. I watched the tape of their win at Auburn. They were down 12 with about four and a half minutes to play and they kept coming and kept making plays. So I knew it wasn't going to be a team that would give up. We tried to hit them and all of a sudden it got at 17 and the last 45 seconds of the first half we played about as dumb as we could play. I tell them all our teams always play great right at the end of the half and made shots and made stops. So we didn't do that, and we came out early in the second half and did some good things for a while. Then all of a sudden we started missing shots. We had 13 turnovers in the first half and when you miss that many shots as we did in the second half it will usually hurt you a lot worse than it did tonight.
"This team, I think we're going to be a heck of a lot better at the end of the year. There is a big question if I'm going to live through it. Think goodness [Zeller] was here tonight. I thought he really did some good things. Then I was mad at him. He lets his guy take the ball at the foul line...drives in and lays it up. So we've got to get a little tougher and mentally tougher on the defensive end of the floor. I thought [Zeller] and Justin Knox were both really, really big for us. I thought Justin gave us a lot and John Henson again [had] 10 points, 11 rebounds, five blocks.
"We've got to get better with the basketball. We can't have Dexter [Strickland] with five turnovers, Harrison [Barnes] with four and Larry [Drew II] with three. But again, we're happy with a "W."
On team's improvement:
"We learned things tonight. We had a great number of opportunities to learn by our mistakes. Now, if we learned from them, then I'll say [we improved]. But that is their responsibility. We can show it to them and we will and then they've got to make some adjustments.
"Again you can't have two assists and five turnovers as a guard, and that's Dexter [Strickland], and Harrison [Barnes] having four turnovers and two assists. We've got to do a better job with that. We're going to get better offensively, and I really believe that. They've got to make the decision we're going to get better defensively as well. "I'm frustrated as all get-out with our rebounding. We had 51 to their 32 and I don't know how many second shot points off offensive rebounds. That's the problem. We have all those offensive rebounds and don't finish them up."
UNC Asheville Head Coach Eddie Biedenbach Quotes
Opening Statement:
"I really appreciate that Roy Williams has played us four times over the past six years. Its nice he's from Asheville and we can get a chance to come in here and see how we fare against the ACC teams particularly a team with the prestige of North Carolina. We had a nice win down in Auburn but they are not the same class of North Carolina. Then we came back and got beat by a Furman team, beat by 2, we played well but they are a senior team and they got a lead on us because we relaxed a little on defense and that's where we wanted to make our biggest improvements this year--on defense and rebounding.
"I told them that we have to be consistent, that we can't have letdowns, we can't do this, we have to execute better on the offensive and defensive ends. So coming into here and watching North Carolina on TV a little bit, our guys felt that we could play with them. North Carolina is a better team than we are but I am pleased with the game we played tonight."
"This game is good for us from the standpoint that if we are fortunate to win our league, which is one of our goals, than we will have to play a team like North Carolina, like Georgetown, like Ohio State in the NCAA. So this is really good experience. Our guys were not overly excited before the game or I don't want to use terminology like scared because we're not. We play these games every year. Our guys are good players, they respond to the challenges and we came in here wanting to win this game.
"The biggest thing I told them is that we have to get back on defense, they run the ball hard at you and they play hard defense. They are going to come at us both ways, the offensive and defensive ends. They shot too many layups in the first half and got too many offensive rebounds and defensive rebounds. We weren't on the offensive boards at all. In the second half I thought we were much better at limiting their fast breaks.
"Overall, I thought we made good adjustments and if we had made a couple free throws, make a couple shots we might have had fun at the end but it didn't turn out that way."
Tyler Zeller
On strong performances in Puerto Rico and tonight:
"Yeah, I'm just doing whatever I can to be able to win. There's times I got the ball and they were double-teamed me and I had to pass it out. Other times I got lucky and got to go one-on-one. I'm just kind of doing whatever I can."
On allowing UNC Asheville to cut the lead to single digits after leading by more than 20 points:
"For one, they just hit a lot of shots. They're a very good shooting team and our defense wasn't great at times and we let them step up and hit shots and get confidence. And then at the end of the game, I think we made some plays finally and were able to pull it out."
Dexter Strickland
On what the team learned in Puerto Rico:
"We learned a lot. I think it woke up some guys. Especially with the season last year, we don't want to have the same season [again]. So yesterday we got after it in practice. Everybody was intense. And today we had to bring it, also. And there were times in the game where we made mental mistakes, like I think I had four turnovers in the first half. And my offensive game wasn't going so well, so I had to turn it up on defense that's what we did."
On individuals learning their role on the team:
"I think everybody knows their role. We just got to play together more. It's like I said, it starts on defense. You know, our shots weren't falling as well as they're supposed to be but we've got to turn it up on defense and it leads to offense."
