A few of UNC's players discuss their 78-58 win over Wofford on Wednesday night.
Kennedy Meeks
On Coach Williams walking out of a film session
That he’s sick and tired of me and Brice being mediocre, he said that to us. It kind of hurt. But the type of guys me and Brice are, we’re going to use it as a challenge. I think we showed today we gave the effort, whether it was sprinting back, occasional screens, switching off on the late clock, whatever it may be, me and him just talked before the game about giving that extra effort for coach and our teammates because they need it. We both can be big time players for this program, so we’re just trying our hardest to be that.
On at what point Williams walked out
At the beginning. He didn’t even want – Coach McGrath took us through the rest of it.
On if there was a particular play that prompted it
We watched the Fairfield tape first, he saw how terrible me an Brice were playing, so he told that we’re mediocre and we’re going to be one-armed swingers.
One-Armed swingers?
Trash men. Trash men if we don’t get ourselves together. So that’s our main focus right now, being big-time players for this program because we can do it.
On them having a good practice after that
Oh it was great. Coach said before practice he didn’t want to see any smiles and nobody smiled the entire practice… It was pretty tense.
On Williams saying he was more pleased with tonight’s effort and if he told the team that
You could see him when he walked in, he was smiling because he knows we got the job done, he knows we did a great job. The tape is never promising. You might see some plays where we lapsed a little bit on the tape, but I think we’re satisfied with this win because we did a great job on the defensive end.
Brice Johnson
On how he is playing personally
Uh, the first couple of games it took me a while to get it going. In the first halves I got two quick ones (fouls) in both of those games, so it was alright, I wasn’t playing that well. And then in those games I started to turn it up a little bit. On the film of the Fairfield game I really didn’t play well at all even though the stats didn’t say it. On the defensive end I wasn’t running back, I was not playing defense like I know I can. And me having double doubles in all those games I guess is just talent.
On last year saying he was “Jonathan” when playing soft and Brice when playing harder, if Johnathan has crept back in some in these three games
Oh yeah, definitely in the Fairfield game when I didn’t run back. There were two times when my man was maybe 20 feet ahead of me and I was just trotting back and coach just got on me. He showed it to us on film and it was really disappointing to watch. I even asked C.B., I was like ‘Hey, did they slow down the clips or turn the timing down or something?’ But it wasn’t, it was in real time and I was like ‘I can’t do that. I’ve got to be able to play defense and score the ball, I’ve got to be able to do both.’
On rebounding the ball
“It’s very important because, like Coach [Williams] always says, we don’t want to give them a second chance at an opportunity to score the ball. We’re more effective when we give the other team one bad shot and then we get the ball and we run because we are a good running team. That’s the one thing that we emphasize all year, is we need to rebound the ball a little bit better.”
On the three-point shooting from last game to this game
“They were knocking them down [against Fairfield], I can’t really complain if they’re knocking them down. They were open shots. Some of them didn’t go in, and Nate [Britt] and Joel [Berry II] were shooting at like 70 percent together. That’s really good for our guards. Of course if it’s open and you make it, we’re going to clap. Our offense is getting it inside and working its way back out, but like I said, if they go in, then nobody cares about it.”
Joel Berry
On him seeming to penetrate and create more opportunities in this game
They play it’s called a 21 defense, which is like a sagging man-to-man, so I just tried to get my points in transition and tried to push it as fast as possible and it just so happened that I was able to get all the way to the rim. That’s what we want to do, and as a point guard that’s what you have to do to put a little pressure on the defense, so that’s what did.
On the play of the bigs
“The game plan was to go inside. We have two of the best big men in the nation, so we wanted to get the ball down to them, and that’s what we did in the first half. They didn’t shoot as well as they usually do, but just having that inside attack. We were able to get the ball inside and that’s what we wanted to do. I don’t think I had a three-point attempt, and Nate only had two. We were able to get the ball inside, and that was our focus.”
On focusing on turnovers
“I just think in general Coach [Williams] wants me to be smarter with the ball. We always wants to get a shot; we never want to come down and have a possession where we don’t have a shot because that’s a loss of a possession and a chance to score. So it’s not necessarily that he gets mad at me, he just wants me to be a little smarter with it and just cut down a little bit on the turnovers so we can have that chance of being able to get a shot.”
Kennedy Meeks
On Coach Williams walking out of a film session
That he’s sick and tired of me and Brice being mediocre, he said that to us. It kind of hurt. But the type of guys me and Brice are, we’re going to use it as a challenge. I think we showed today we gave the effort, whether it was sprinting back, occasional screens, switching off on the late clock, whatever it may be, me and him just talked before the game about giving that extra effort for coach and our teammates because they need it. We both can be big time players for this program, so we’re just trying our hardest to be that.
On at what point Williams walked out
At the beginning. He didn’t even want – Coach McGrath took us through the rest of it.
On if there was a particular play that prompted it
We watched the Fairfield tape first, he saw how terrible me an Brice were playing, so he told that we’re mediocre and we’re going to be one-armed swingers.
One-Armed swingers?
Trash men. Trash men if we don’t get ourselves together. So that’s our main focus right now, being big-time players for this program because we can do it.
On them having a good practice after that
Oh it was great. Coach said before practice he didn’t want to see any smiles and nobody smiled the entire practice… It was pretty tense.
On Williams saying he was more pleased with tonight’s effort and if he told the team that
You could see him when he walked in, he was smiling because he knows we got the job done, he knows we did a great job. The tape is never promising. You might see some plays where we lapsed a little bit on the tape, but I think we’re satisfied with this win because we did a great job on the defensive end.
Brice Johnson
On how he is playing personally
Uh, the first couple of games it took me a while to get it going. In the first halves I got two quick ones (fouls) in both of those games, so it was alright, I wasn’t playing that well. And then in those games I started to turn it up a little bit. On the film of the Fairfield game I really didn’t play well at all even though the stats didn’t say it. On the defensive end I wasn’t running back, I was not playing defense like I know I can. And me having double doubles in all those games I guess is just talent.
On last year saying he was “Jonathan” when playing soft and Brice when playing harder, if Johnathan has crept back in some in these three games
Oh yeah, definitely in the Fairfield game when I didn’t run back. There were two times when my man was maybe 20 feet ahead of me and I was just trotting back and coach just got on me. He showed it to us on film and it was really disappointing to watch. I even asked C.B., I was like ‘Hey, did they slow down the clips or turn the timing down or something?’ But it wasn’t, it was in real time and I was like ‘I can’t do that. I’ve got to be able to play defense and score the ball, I’ve got to be able to do both.’
On rebounding the ball
“It’s very important because, like Coach [Williams] always says, we don’t want to give them a second chance at an opportunity to score the ball. We’re more effective when we give the other team one bad shot and then we get the ball and we run because we are a good running team. That’s the one thing that we emphasize all year, is we need to rebound the ball a little bit better.”
On the three-point shooting from last game to this game
“They were knocking them down [against Fairfield], I can’t really complain if they’re knocking them down. They were open shots. Some of them didn’t go in, and Nate [Britt] and Joel [Berry II] were shooting at like 70 percent together. That’s really good for our guards. Of course if it’s open and you make it, we’re going to clap. Our offense is getting it inside and working its way back out, but like I said, if they go in, then nobody cares about it.”
Joel Berry
On him seeming to penetrate and create more opportunities in this game
They play it’s called a 21 defense, which is like a sagging man-to-man, so I just tried to get my points in transition and tried to push it as fast as possible and it just so happened that I was able to get all the way to the rim. That’s what we want to do, and as a point guard that’s what you have to do to put a little pressure on the defense, so that’s what did.
On the play of the bigs
“The game plan was to go inside. We have two of the best big men in the nation, so we wanted to get the ball down to them, and that’s what we did in the first half. They didn’t shoot as well as they usually do, but just having that inside attack. We were able to get the ball inside and that’s what we wanted to do. I don’t think I had a three-point attempt, and Nate only had two. We were able to get the ball inside, and that was our focus.”
On focusing on turnovers
“I just think in general Coach [Williams] wants me to be smarter with the ball. We always wants to get a shot; we never want to come down and have a possession where we don’t have a shot because that’s a loss of a possession and a chance to score. So it’s not necessarily that he gets mad at me, he just wants me to be a little smarter with it and just cut down a little bit on the turnovers so we can have that chance of being able to get a shot.”
