Gary Williams
I'm really proud of our guys. Today was tough. We had
beaten State I'm not sure how many times in a row, but quite a
few, in a close game, they made a couple shots one of them was
pretty funny looking but it went in and we had two looks with
pretty good shooters. That's probably what I'm most proud of.
In the first half it looked like they were going to run away
from us and we got it back. In the second half we did the same
thing. I think a lot of the crowd thought it was over but we
got back to have a shot at tying the game up. I really like
our competitiveness and our ability to bounce back.
We got close. I thought we'd take it over the top, but we
didn't. State's on a roll. They're a good team and they've
shot the ball well the last couple games. Let's face it, we've
beaten State a lot lately, and in close games the law of
averages can haunt you a little bit if you let the game be
close, or if State plays well to make it close.
There's nothing that happened today that takes away from
what we've done already this year or what we could do in the
future.
Once you do that -- you're down 10 to Wake Forest at
halftime you come back from nine with 3:30 left at Virginia --
then you have a legitimate right in that huddle to think that
you could do it. I thought our guys thought we could do it. We
needed a couple steals, we got them, a couple shots. The thing
we didn't plan on was Hodge's jump shot going in.
Do you think you've earned a No. 1 seed in the
East?
I think we've earned a No. 1 seed, I'm not sure how that
works where they put teams. But we'll see.
Were you disappointed with the way your guys played
today?
It's disappointing when you lose, but I liked our heart
today. It's just like a pitcher. When he goes out to pitch, he
doesn't always have his good stuff. We didn't have our good
stuff today, but we gutted it out and found a way to get back
in the game twice and almost win the game. You've got to like
our team in that situation.
How would you rate your team's defense
today?
It looked like we were slow. The only thing I can look at
is we didn't react well to the ball today. when you play
against an offense like that, the key thing is the ball, in
other words, when the ball is in the air on the pass you've
got to be moving. You can't wait until he catches it, cause
you're dead by then. And we knew that, we just couldn't get it
done.
What will you do over the next 24 hours?
I'll go home, watch some tape of this game. Tomorrow, try
to stay busy. Go into the office, hang around there, and find
out what we're doing.
How would you rate the team's play over the 80
minutes?
We didn't play great but I think we did some things that
were positive, it wasn't all negative. You never like to lose,
but we've won a lot in a row. Over the last year or so, we
haven't lost many. Dealing with a loss sometimes, is a great
motivator to prepare for what's next. You look around the
country and I don't think you can say there's one concrete
favorite going into the NCAA tournament.
How well do you think you attacked their
zone?
We were O.K. I thought the big thing was not being able to
stop them. I don't think we played great defense. That was
critical that they got their confidence against us. When you
beat a team -- the mental games are being played too -- and
that allowed State to get some confidence against us where
they were able to score.
Do you think beating N.C. State twice in the regular
season made your team a little complacent?
Having beaten both Florida State and N.C. State both twice
in the year, we were able to turn it on in those four games
when we had to win those games. But our games against State
were really tough. So it wasn't like we blew by State, but
maybe our players saw the fact that we won twice against them.
We knew State was going to be competitive. A good team doesn't
like to get beat three times. So they came out and gave us our
best shot.
Your team hasn't lost since January
Yea I remember this feeling. It's funny, it doesn't take
long to remember. That's why I'm proud of this team. We took
everybody's shot during the season and we did what we had to
do win the regular season championship and we had to come down
here and play really well. It looked like we weren't as sharp
as we were last week. I think mentally, it's been a long haul
and hopefully we can get that edge back by Thursday or
Friday.
Juan Dixon
Julius Hodge made a big shot, and I give him a lot of
credit. He didn't talk no trash today he just went out and
played basketball. I give a lot of credit to those guys, they
played hard and they played well and they won the
game.
It seemed like they were tapping my elbow the whole game. I
was asking the officials to look out for it. They missed
calls, they're not perfect.
Was that the best shot you could have
gotten?
I probably could have gotten a better shot. I'm kind of
disappointed in myself.
I think we're going to be prepared to make a run for the
national championship. We've had a great year, hopefully we
can still get a Number one seed. I think we deserve it. We've
just got to keep working hard.
Drew's a pretty good three-point shooter, so he probably
thought that was a pretty good look for him. I thought I was
fouled when I got the rebound. Archie Miller was right under
me, but they missed calls. It was an aggressive game out
there. There were times where I thought I should have taken
the ball to the bucket more aggressively and maybe I could get
those calls.
We made two great comebacks. If Julius Hodge didn't make
that shot, it might be a different outcome.
We're definitely disappointed. Our goal was to win this
tournament. We came up short. We didn't play our best
basketball in the first half. We put ourselves in the hole,
and it's kind of hard to dig yourself out when a team is
playing as well as those guys.
We're going to keep our heads up and keep on working, and
hopefully we can win the national title in the next two
weeks.
I don't think we played well today at all. We missed some
easy looks to turn the ball over.
Maybe we need a loss like this. We ran so many off in a
row. Maybe we need to sit back and start all over again. It's
a new season for us.
They played great man-to-man defense and for some reason,
their cuts were a lot better today. They beat us like they've
never beat us before on those back-door
cuts.
If we make a shot, we win this game. I was hoping that we
could make it to overtime. I knew that we would win cause they
were panicking with the ball. They were panicking when we were
pressing. We just need to make adjustments for next time and
hopefully we'll get the win.
Drew Nicholas
Any time you fight back like that, it's tough. Maybe if it
was an 11-point loss and we recognized that they just beat us
and beat us ... maybe that wouldn't have hurt as much. The
fact that we had chances to win the game -- N.C. State gave us
chances. They were missing foul shots down the stretch;
Eventually they ended up making the one that they really
needed.
Many times you'll go back and think about how you could
have won the game and it hurts a little bit. Right now we are
focused toward the national ... championship.
Is this a game where you really look at what went wrong
or just shrug it off as something that happened and move
on?
I think we have to learn from the mistakes we made today.
It's a little bit of both. Hopefully we'll get the No. 1 seed
and this game won't have any effect on us.
N.C. State remained patient and consistent with their
offense. Herb Sendek put together a pretty good offense. The
got a lot of back door looks and got their guys open shots. I
think the main thing is they were just consistent throughout
the game.
Byron Mouton
The ACC tournament, that's all over with. We've got to
prepare for a national championship.
Was this team waiting for the big run?
We're always trying to make a big run. And we know, no
matter who we're playing, the other team's going to make a run
and we just got to make those runs short. They just made so
many big shots. Those shots like Hodge, leaning to the side,
fall away threes, that might have iced the game. If he missed
that shot we might have won the game, but it didn't fall our
way today.
We didn't panic at all. We knew we had an opportunity to
win the game. We were one stop away.
No it didn't. I think we need this. No matter how many runs
we make, or how many stops we make, we've got to play
basketball. Lately, we haven't been playing the first 10
minutes of games. We haven't been executing and it showed. We
can't do that next week. We've got to play for 40 minutes.
We've got to come in in the first five minutes and make a
statement that Maryland is here to play and you've got to play
for 40 minutes to beat us.
What did Gary say to the team after the game?
During the season, he didn't want to say it, because we
were just trying to win games, and now what he said right now
what it's all about right now is a national championship.
We've just got to come out and be prepared for that and
focused.
The main thing is, we haven't been playing for 40 minutes.
We've been playing in spurts and it had been carrying us.
The team had to be feeling pretty good about its chances
after closing the gap to ?? at halftime.
That's why I like this team. This team always feels like
we're capable of winning the game. That about maturity. Last
year, we'd be down by eight or nine points with like a minute
or two minutes left to go (we'd think) 'we lost we ain't got
no chance of winning the game.' But this year, we'd be down by
15 or 16 points with three minutes to go and we still had a
chance. When you have guys out there always talking positive,
you always have a chance to win the game.
Steve Blake
The loss is very disappointing. One of our goals was to win
the ACC Tournament and we didn't achieve that. But, we'll put
it aside as soon as we find out who we're playing in the NCAA
tournament and we'll get ready for that team.
We had to settle down and get into our positions on offense
and run our plays correctly. Sometimes guys were in the wrong
spots and were running cuts hard. We didn't execute some of
the game today.
