.png&width=36&height=36&type=webp)
University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC-Nicholls Postgame Quotes
December 19, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 19, 2011
Recap |
Box Score |
Notes |
Photo Gallery 1 
|
Photo Gallery 2
North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams
Opening Statement
"Well, I was really mad at the first group as you could probably tell. I let them sit there, and I really thought our second group got more active. For us to be the team we want to be, we have to be willing to invest. We have to do it on game night and not just talk about it. I did not get this team ready to play this game, and that was just bad coaching on my part. We weren't focused, we weren't ready to play and it is my job to make sure that those guys don't do that. It's a difficult three games in a five-day period when the third game [against Texas] is the big game that everyone is talking about. I didn't do a very good job of getting our kids to focus on Nicholls, but we dominated the boards because we are bigger and more gifted."
"We had a tremendous number of offensive rebounds because we missed so many shots. That's a bad thing right there. I would just as soon have us have no offensive rebounds and make every shot that we take. That was not the way that it was, but it was good for Reggie [Bullock] to have a double-double in nineteen minutes. We talked a great deal about him doing things other than shooting it. He didn't shoot the ball very well tonight: 2-8 from behind the three-point line, but 10 rebounds was good for him, and four from the offensive end. I was happy for Stewart [Cooper]. Those were his first points as a Tar Heel. So again, there were some good things. I wanted to get minutes for a lot of different guys, but I wanted to do it in different ways, not just because I was mad at the first group."
On if the players got his message to step up their level of play:
"I think we've got very bright kids, and if they didn't get that message, then they are never going to get it. Now let's see how they respond."
On what the team gained from this game:
"Well, we are more gifted than Nicholls and the outcome of the game should not have been a question. Again, I did not get them to focus well in order to get better today. We did some things in the second half. I think the five guys that were in there, I think they gained from it. We are going to have games this year when James Michael [McAdoo], Reggie, P.J. [Hairston] and those guys have got to do some things for us. So, we gained something with that group. Again, I think the starters gained something when they came back in, so I do think we learned in a lot of different ways tonight. Today I really made a mistake, I told them to come in early and get some extra free throws in. You won't be hearing me say that anymore."
Nicholls Head Coach J.P. Piper
On his team's rebounding performance:
"Twenty-two offensive rebounds (for UNC) in the first half. I didn't think that we necessarily competed as hard as we needed to early for some of those rebounds. There were times; however, when I felt like we put a body on a guy, and we had good position. They were just superior. They were just bigger, stronger, taller and there are going to be 50-50 balls, and they got all of those tonight. You look up and you see our guy's hand at the rim or maybe barely above it, and you see their guy's elbow next to my guy's hand. Well, we're not getting those rebounds. It's hard to get on my guys for that. You just tip your hat to a superior opponent."
On the team's improvement:
"I like the way we came out in the second half early, before we fatigued, and competed on the boards. That was a challenge in the locker room at halftime. If you look at the rebounding by half, we did a better job in the second half. I understand the game got sloppy and all, but I thought that early in the second half we did a better job of claiming the ball after the first shot than we did to open in the first half, so there was a little bit of progress for there as a team."
UNC Player Quotes
On attitude at halftime- "I think everyone was even more hungry to get back in. We knew that we were going to beat this team, and we can't have that mindset. We have to go out there like we're playing Texas and keep our focus."
Reggie Bullock: "I thought we were going to come out with a little more fire than we did, getting prepared for Texas. We can't look ahead to other teams next time. We've just got to come out and take that opponent and play hard from the beginning."
On halftime- "Coach said we played great. When we walked out on the court I just told everybody to hold their own down and just get out in the defensive lanes, get steals, and just play with enthusiasm and find each other - and that's what we did. We built a lead and the starters came back and held it."
P.J. Hairston: on replacing the starters- "Just play harder. When he called time out, he said 7 o'clock practice, so in my mind, I said we've got to go out and play harder. We went out and got steals, got our hands in the lane, got big offensive rebounds, Reggie hit a big shot, and got transition layups back and forth."
Tyler Zeller: on Coach Williams's comments post-game- "I love coach, but I think some of this is on us also. We're the players, we go out and play. He gives us everything he can; he prepares us, he gives us all the information on the scouting reports, so we have to be able to take that and play every night."
