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University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC-Virginia Tech Postgame Quotes
January 14, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 14, 2011
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UNC Head Coach Roy Williams
Opening Statement:
"We're ecstatic with the win. It was a heck of a second-half comeback for us. You're supposedly only going to age one year in one year's calendar time, but between Saturday's game and tonight's game I aged about three of four years. They were so much more aggressive than we were in the first half and we were just so careless with the basketball. It's just awful. We got a little run right before the half to cut it from, I think Steve Kirschner said the biggest lead was 16, and I think we cut it to seven at the half. And I felt great because I thought we could have been much, much worse than that to say the least. And we didn't get it done early in the second half by any means. But we kept just chipping away a little bit.
"And needless to say, Harrison [Barnes] was big. I think he had three outside shots, or maybe even four in the last seven or eight minutes of the game. And he needed to because he wasn't very good up until that point. I told him, I said `Your game stunk, but God almighty were you good in about a six minute stretch there. And that was big for us, Harrison made two threes. Kendall [Marshall] was big, he made a three. And you look at that line: nine assists and zero turnovers. That's pretty impressive right there. Larry [Drew II] was doing a good job defensively and when he wasn't in there it was harder for Kendall to guard Malcom [Delaney]. But it's hard for anybody to guard Malcom, he's really good. He made a tough three and Dexter [Strickland] thought he got pushed off and didn't [continue to] play. But you've still got to keep playing until the referee stops you."
On defending Virginia Tech at the end of the game:
"They didn't have a timeout left, so we didn't want to call a timeout to give them time to set something up. And we just wanted to make sure they caught the ball in front of us and not catch it going toward their basket or over our head. But what can you say, you just feel as lucky as you can."
On Kendall's poise throughout the game and at the end of the game:
"Well he's a quarterback. I mean he's a thinking man's point guard and he did some really nice things."
On playing more aggressively and experiencing more success in final fifteen minutes of second half:
"Well we talked about it for Saturday's game and even in practice yesterday. You've got to keep playing and you've got to keep plugging along. And you know it wasn't pretty ... But the kids are maturing and I think that's important for us."
Virginia Tech Head Coach Seth Greenburg Quotes:
"Three of our guys cramped up, really limiting our options out there. I thought we did a really good job in defensive transition, especially post ups. We need to still do a little better job guarding the ball in the zone and getting out to shooters but we knew it was going to be hard rebounding the basketball and it was. I'm pretty pleased with our effort, we had good energy, good focus, we weren't as efficient in transition as I'd like us to be--we ran hard but I'm not sure how efficient we were. I thought we had opportunities down the stretch, we had options taken away from us, we had one last chance we just couldn't finish. I'm pleased with our effort and now 48 hours from now we have to get ready to play again and heal.
"I thought it was a pretty good play, we wanted to run a quick which is a ball screen in transition. It was a little later than I would have liked, I would have liked for it to be up the floor a little more so we could maybe turn the corner but I cant complain about the shot. He came off the screen hard and they did the smart thing and stayed with the basketball and forced him to take the hard shot."
On Zeller's drawn charge:
"They obviously saw that invisible line, why we have a rule without a line is the most asinine thing. If we have a rule, put the line out. That's common sense. It distinguishes block and charges. They are a terrific officiating crew and they judged that Zeller was outside the imaginary line"
On Fatigue:
"We cramped up but I don't think we ran out of steam, we played hard. I wish we could have gotten that free throw back, if we had gotten that rebound down one with a chance to take the lead. Barnes made some big shots; you have to give him some credit. He turned it over six times, we were active, got some hands on balls in the zone but when he had to he made three big shots.
On Kendall Marshall:
"Marshall has got good vision. He is very, very good passer. I thought first half he kinda kept them alive, he got some penetration and shot those two runners."
On Erick Green:
"Our kid played hurt, I said next time you have to put some air on that and throw it over the defense and at least give ourselves a chance. You can't throw it short. He played his tail off and I'm proud of all of them."
On preparing for Wake Forest:
"The most important thing right now is rest, hopefully we will have the castle rocking and people will appreciate how hard this group is playing and staying together and competing. There is a lot of basketball left to play and I think that if nothing else that in the last 80 minutes that we can play pretty hard."
