Sunday 01/04/2015
Opening statement:
“First of all, I want to congratulate North Carolina. I thought they played very well tonight. We struggled. We guarded them okay for the first 10 minutes, but we had some breakdowns with things that we obviously have to be better at. Overall, I think our offense was a problem. They guarded our ball screens very well and we didn’t make any shots early. That puts a lot of pressure on you, as a team. Their shot blockers around the rim are really a factor. We had trouble getting the ball inside, because they did a good job pressuring our passers and getting deflections early, which caused us to keep the ball out of the post when we were trying to find Landry (Nnoko). Our motion was a little better in the second half. We ran some more motion and less ball screens to try to get more movement, but by that point, North Carolina was just playing too well. I’m disappointed. I thought we would play much better than we did tonight.”
On slow first-half start:
“I’m sure there were some nerves involved, but North Carolina’s defense is very good. They’re long and their close-outs are quick. We had some open shots, but we just haven’t shot the ball very well this year. I think we’re a better shooting team than our stats show. We have multiple guys making shots. There are open shots there that you have to make. When you don’t make any baskets for a long period of time, it really becomes deflating to your defense. Your defense wears down. It’s like having five-straight three-and-outs in football. If your offense is three-and-out five times in a row, the defense isn’t too excited about going back out there. I think that happens to our team this year, on several occasions. We’ve struggled and then it just becomes a snowball and rolls downhill on us.”
On next four games:
“I’m not worried about it. We have to get better. I don’t care who or where or when we play next. We have to play better. We have to be more tough-minded and we have to be tougher physically. We didn’t rotate or rebound very well. We have a lot of things we need to do better, before we worry about who or where or when we’re playing next.”
On second-half positives:
“I thought we were okay in the second half. The one positive you can take away from this whole game is that we only turned the ball over eight times against a team that’s long and athletic and pressures you a lot. We only turned the ball over eight times, even though it felt like more than that, which is what happens when you never make a basket. That’s a reasonable positive in this game.”
“We played well in the last part of the first half. We shared the ball and didn’t turn it over. We played perhaps the best basketball we’ve played all season. Saying all that, I will say that Clemson missed shots tonight that they’d normally make. I even told Coach (Brad) Brownell that it was the best half we’d put together all season.”
On the second half of play:
“We have to give credit to Clemson’s defense around the rim later in the game. We didn’t shoot it very well ourselves in the second half. Clemson’s a team that won’t give you a lot of second chance opportunities.”
On opening ACC play with a win:
“We’d lost our opening conference game two years in a row, and our team remained focused throughout and made sure that it didn’t happen this time.”
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