University of North Carolina Athletics
Postgame Quotes - FSU 90, North Carolina 77
January 6, 2017 | Women's Basketball
NORTH CAROLINA POSTGAME QUOTES
North Carolina 77, Florida State 90 • January 5, 2017
Head Coach Sylvia Hatchell, Player Stephanie Watts
Opening Statement
“Thank y'all for being here. Florida State is a very good team, ranked sixth in the country I believe. Early on they had a chance to beat UConn, so they're an outstanding team. I thought my guards played well. We had good balance there with Paris [Kea]'s 15, Destinee [Walker]'s 16, Stephanie [Watts]'s 19, and Jamie [Cherry]'s 15. We shot the ball pretty good from three-point range – nine for 20, so that was good. Foul shooting was pretty good. It's just our post presence in there. We don't have that much size, and the other ones are very young. Emily [Sullivan] is out with a separated shoulder, and the other ones are just very young. And we gave up way too many second chance points and points in the paint, but I think our perimeter game is excellent, and they did a great job. We're just going to keep working and getting better and better. You know, the young players will keep developing and everything like that, but we had some bright moments. We fought back twice, got it down to seven or something like that, but Florida State's a great team. We'll just keep working and get ready for Virginia on Sunday.
On having a younger, perimeter-focused squad
We've got a post player coming next year, 6'5” – going to be a McDonald's All-American, and then the other ones will have more experience. Alyssa [Okoene] has played well at times for us, and Emily's played well for us, too but of course, she got hurt at the beach, so she can't play. That's the thing right now, but our guards are outstanding, and they're going to continue to get better and better. The good thing is we're going to have this team, and we're adding. If Jocelyn [Jones] who tore her Achilles, could play, she would help us too because she would play the forward position some, and she's a ferocious rebounder, grabbing second chance points and stuff like that. But she'll be in that class next year. We were expecting to have a couple other kids that didn't qualify, so they may be here in a couple of years. We're thin in the post and in our size, but we fight hard and we did okay out there. I'm proud of our guards, and they're just going to continue to get better and better. The size is a factor and the rebounding even though we out rebounded Virginia Tech the other night, and we're doing a lot better on the boards. It's the points in the paint is the biggest thing, and so we've just got to do a better job of boxing out. We tried several different defenses and different things like that, but that was really the difference in the game. I think they had 44 points in the paint; we had 24.
On running against a team with size
“You do have to give FSU some credit too because while they're big, they are mobile, so they were getting up and down the court. I think we were able to fast-break some, but on the plus side for them, they are big and can move pretty well so we were not able to just run them completely.”
