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University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC-Florida State Quotes
February 6, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 6, 2011
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Postgame quotes
UNC Head Coach: Roy Williams
Opening Statement:
"I think that, needless to say, it was a very, very good outing for us. I think our guys were emotionally, mentally, and physically ready to play and really play well. We had to [play well] against what I think is a really, really good Florida State team. In the first half we got some things going for us and made a couple shots. Defensively, we gave them three layups. But other than that we did a pretty nice job of guarding them in the first half.
But [it's nice] when you look at it just from the ability to shoot the ball in the basket in the second half and balanced scoring--having two guys in double figures. And then I just thought Kendall [Marshall] was sensational. He had 16 assists and three turnovers. I think he stepped up and we needed to. It's a little bit of difficult time that we've gone through in the last 48 hours. And usually when that happens, you'd like to play a game so you can put all that stuff behind you. We talked a great deal about some of what had happened and that it was over and behind us, we had to go forward. And I think we did that today. But it was a great outing for us, to say the least. I thought early [in the game], we were more or less, settling for too many outside shots instead of getting the basketball inside."
On the overall tempo of the game:
"I've said for a hundred years we like to score in the 90s, but we also realize that you've got to be able to win games in the 50s and 60s. And it's the way we practice every day. We try to work in situations and we try to work on our half court offense. But yes, we got out-ran several times in the first half. I think we had eight points on the break to their two and we screwed up a couple of other situations. And so we still want to try and run the break but down at the end of the game, you've got two opponents: you've got to play the other team and the clock as well."
On Marshall logging 36 minutes over the course of the game:
"Hopefully I can get it down a little bit. In '05, Raymond Felton averaged 34 minutes a game. But Raymond was a different animal than what Kendall is right now. I think we'd probably try to get it down a little bit. And the biggest change for somebody is Dexter [Strickland], who all of a sudden having to spend two days of practice trying to work on the one spot and the things that he has to do there. So we've got to give him some more time at the one and try to let him be a little more comfortable."
Florida State Head Coach Leonard Hamilton's Opening Statement:
"Obviously we didn't have much of an answer for [Kendall] Marshall today. He did a tremendous job of controlling the tempo of the game, creating easy opportunities for his teammates. We had a difficult time keeping him in front of us. He seemed to be extremely clever with the ball. He has his head up, which is almost a throwback to those guys who seem to always know where his teammates are. Even when we thought we had him under control he had an awareness of who's the drop off guy and who the kick out guy was, and he found them with ease.
"Sometimes you just got to give a team credit. They've made tremendous improvement. I watched them early in the year and they're playing with a lot more confidence. When you have [John] Henson knocking down jumpers and [Tyler] Zeller playing solid fundamentally, and guys coming off the bench giving them that energy, it makes it very difficult. And today we had very little answer for their execution and you have to contribute that to Marshall's ability adjusting the play of the tempo that he wanted to play with. We could not speed him up. We had a hard time with that. We cut it to seven there in the second half and we went to our zone and we don't play very much zone, but we had to go to zone to try to keep them out of the paint.
"But you can't give a team that shoots the ball that well from the perimeter, you cant give them that many good looks. We knew we couldn't stick with them very long, but then they hit that shot at the buzzer and put it back up ten, that was kind of like a dagger. And at that point during the game if we could have held on to that and came down and scored maybe we could have created a little more of a stressful situation for them, but that gave them that breathing room and then they can just kind of be a lot more patient. That's a team that is playing with a tremendous amount of poise and we just got beat by a team today that was a little more efficient in a lot of different areas. We didn't shoot particularly bad, 46 percent, but I also think that we missed a lot of open threes. But the story in this game is our inability to handle Marshall and his ability to create easy opportunities for his teammates."
UNC Player Quotes
Dexter Strickland
On last 48 hrs:
"Absolutely - like you said, it drew everyone together and made everyone play, you know, even better. And, you know, we had a team meeting and we basically just talked about how unfortunate [it was] that he (Larry Drew II) had to leave. But it should motivate us to play even better. And that's what it did tonight. Everybody played to their potential and we got a big win."
Kendall Marshall's playing:
"I mean, he's a great player. You know he knows where everyone is supposed to be and 16 assists is, I think they said, the first time [that's happened] in an ACC game. So it's a big game for him and if he keeps this up there's no telling where we can go."
John Henson
"We've got to celebrate this one until 12 o'clock tonight and then we've got to focus on Duke. Hopefully we can keep it going."
Advice to Marshall for playing Duke:
"Just play hard. It's just like any other game."
Marshall's assist record:
"I saw it on the board -- I mean, they said freshman assist record so I thought that was big for him confidence-wise."
On team cohesiveness:
"I think over the last two weeks we've just moved the ball so well in practice and we just trust each other. And it's carried over to the games. And the passes we might not have made in the first 10 games we make now. And we have Reggie and Leslie on the wings, always a threat if you leave them open. You know they're gonna hit that shot and then Z (Tyler Zeller) down low. And Kendall (Marshall). We, we have threats all over the place and when we're clicking as a unit we're really hard to beat."
What the game says about the team's character:
"Just my character and our team's character that we can play through adversity. That obviously losing Larry hurt our team a little bit but we realized that this is who we are now and we have to adjust."
Did you play with a chip on your shoulder?
"We did, we played with a chip on our shoulder. We wanted to show that even with the loss of a player that we could still be a dominant team and we could still go out there and execute everything that Coach wants."
Did you know you broke the record during the game?
"Actually Harrison told me that after the game. He looked up at the scoreboard and looked at me and told me I just set the record. And I'm like, "wow," I was thinking about all the great point guards that have come through here. It's a good feeling.
Difference without Drew II:
"The biggest difference has just been with the rotation, knowing that everybody is going to be getting extra minutes.
What does this win say about the Tar Heels?
"It says a lot about us. You know we're in the middle of the ACC play and to play like that, it is really going to test your character and show what you're about. And I wanted to say we played just the way we came out - heated. And we got it done."
