Saturday 01/02/2016
Opening statement:
“Outstanding win for us; I thought our guys have really been focused since Christmas. We have done a really good job in preparation for both games; North Carolina and Florida State are both really talented teams. Florida State is probably an NCAA Tournament team, and I just really thought our guys were locked in. We had a quick turnaround, short preparation time and I thought our focus and energy level were both really great. Certainly, Jordan (Roper) making seven three-pointers was big, especially for our team. I thought we did a lot of things effectively, the zone was good for us today, we knew this was a game where we were going to play zone, quite a lot of zone actuall. We thought we might would have played more against North Carolina but we didn’t. Just a really good performance. We only turned it over nine times and had 15 assists and made our free throws. We played very, very well today.”
On the run right after being tied at 54:
“Yea, we just had to convince our guys to keep playing, stay aggressive, we didn’t want them to tighten up at all. Florida State made a couple of good adjustments offensively and started getting the ball in the high post a little more against our zone, and that started to become a little more of a problem. We just told our guys to stay with it, we liked the way the game was going, the rhythm and pace of the game, we liked the shots we were getting even when we weren’t scoring. We just wanted to try to outlast them. They are a very talented group, a couple of their guys didn’t play as well, certainly we knew (Devon) Bookert was a very good player. When you play some of these teams they just have so many guys that is hard to count for all of them. Sidy Djitte was outstanding, his energy level and toughness, his toughness to win 50-50 balls and get on the floor, to protect the paint that was really good. Also, his ability to make free throws was significant, so in all it was just a very a good performance by our team.”
On what the win means for the Tigers going forward:
“It just hopefully gives the guys a little bit of confidence. The Alabama game hurt us a little in the confidence department, because we probably played a little better in some ways, some aspects of the game, then it showed. We just had a tough night shooting the ball and we were still in a position to win it there at the end, and I think that took a little wind out of our sails to be honest. So it was just good to gut one out in a tight game, one or two possession game, especially when they tied it as you mentioned. It could have gone either way, momentum was shifting towards them a little bit, and we still bounced back and made plays on both ends to win the game.”
“I think you have to give Clemson a lot of credit this afternoon, because I thought they played with a lot more energy than we did. The disparity on the offensive boards, 15 offensive rebounds and 21 points on second chance opportunities shows you that they were a lot more energized. And they shot the ball extremely well. In the ACC, if you don’t contest shots and make people miss, then they shot the ball like all ACC teams are going to shoot the ball. I thought the zone defense that they started with created a lot of indecision by our young guys, I thought it was a smart move on their part, we didn’t execute very well against it like we have against some other teams. I think at the start of the ACC season, hopefully this will be a lesson for our guys to be a little more attentive and understand a little more of how you need to play at this level. I looked out there one time, and I think I saw four freshman out on the court and that is not a good formula in the ACC. On the other hand I thought we fought, but I just never thought that we executed with the level of energy that it takes to go on the road and beat a team that is very hungry for a victory, and very prepared and following their coaches’ directions. That is what causes you to go on the road and not be successful.”
On if a faster start was one of the lessons for his young team to learn:
“The interesting thing is that we have played against a lot of 2-3 zones, but we reverted back to not cutting hard, not ball faking, not penetrating and that happens a lot sometimes when you are dealing with as many new players as we are dealing with. That is what disappointed me the most, our lack of execution against their zone. We shot the ball fairly well, our cuts were just too slow and execution, lack of penetration, lack of shot fakes and ball fakes that we normally have when you are playing against the zone were not there. I thought they were more physical than we were inside. We were not posting up strong enough to occupy anybody, you have to give them credit, sometimes when you lose a game it is easy to say what you didn’t do. But sometimes you just have to give the opposing team credit for doing a good job, and I think that is what happened today.”
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