Opening Statement:
Needless to say it feels a heck of a lot better than it did a couple of weeks ago. I will say one thing before I start talking about the game; Marshall Plumlee is out there now, I’m assuming with the senior night and that young man has had a great, great season for that club. I recruited a little bit of his brothers and I recruited him. I think he is a fantastic young man, he played 37 minutes tonight and in my opinion he was the reason they won the game over at our place. He played the last 14 minutes with four fouls and challenged everything we had around the basket. I’d like to congratulate him. It is a wonderful feeling in our locker room right now; there is no question about that.
Sometimes you say some things that work and sometimes you don’t. I reminded our guys of 2012 when Austin Rivers made the big three at the end of the game at our place and we thought we had the game won, should have had the game won and we didn’t. Then we came over here and we played very well, we played great, and ended up winning the game over here. I told them that it has been done before and we can do it again. I tried to give our kids confidence; I knew one team that could come in here on senior night, play great and win, and that was us. The backboards and the inside area was huge for us. It was not as huge as it needed to be when we played at our place. Rebounds were 64 to 29 and we had 27 offensive rebounds. We batted it around like volleyball around the basket three or four times, two possessions we had six shots, we were 0-for- 6. We shot 28 percent the second half, but we had so many opportunities around, then they cut it to one or two the first half with a nice run and we took it back out to eight or 10.
They cut it to one in the second half and I told our guys during the timeout that they had done that in the first half, and we responded so let’s respond right now. Justin Jackson made two free-throws. Brice [Johnson]) scored a couple of buckets in that time period. Joel Berry made a three. Then down the stretch Theo [Pinson], Joel, and Marcus [Paige] were eight-for-eight from the free-throw line to finish the game. A lot of good things in the locker room, it is a fun locker room right now. I thought that it was very fitting that Marcus could not throw it in the ocean, but he went to the free-throw line and made four straight free throws us.
On the play of Kennedy Meeks:
Kennedy [Meeks] was big today. Isaiah [Hicks] was pressing himself too much; he wanted to do too much. Isaiah has been fantastic for us all year long, but never seen a game where he is two-for-six with four fouls. Kennedy was big early; Kennedy was big late rebounding the ball. He could have even scored more, but he couldn’t get it to stay in the basket. Fourteen rebounds for Kennedy and 21 for Brice Johnson. I have been on those two guys all year long because I want more out of them effort wise, intelligent wise, effort, effort, effort. Tonight; 12 [points] and 14 [rebounds] for Kennedy, and 18 [points] and 21 [rebounds] for Brice. Brice Johnson offensively has done some things that have been done very seldom in my years as a head coach; rebounding the ball and scoring the ball. I think I have said something about everybody that played today so this was a North Carolina win.
On comfort level of Marcus Paige taking free-throw shots at end of the game:
You never know what your comfort level should be, but if I had to pick anybody in the country to step to the line in that situation, I wanted Marcus Paige over anybody else; he was pretty doggone good.
On looking for Brice Johnson down the stretch:
We looked for him the first minute of the game, the 19th minute of the game, and the 32nd minute of the game. He, Kennedy, and Isaiah were about to drive me crazy; because I wanted a flash in the middle of the zone even harder and we sort of sashay in there. I told them at one of the timeouts that they were short-arming their shots; shoot the basketball. It is great coaching; I mean this is how silly the game is. I said ‘If you want to take a shot, be tough enough to make the dang ol’ thing,’ and you know that is silly as it can be, but that is exactly what I had said. We were trying to go inside every minute of the game because we got a size advantage and a depth advantage inside.
Needless to say it feels a heck of a lot better than it did a couple of weeks ago. I will say one thing before I start talking about the game; Marshall Plumlee is out there now, I’m assuming with the senior night and that young man has had a great, great season for that club. I recruited a little bit of his brothers and I recruited him. I think he is a fantastic young man, he played 37 minutes tonight and in my opinion he was the reason they won the game over at our place. He played the last 14 minutes with four fouls and challenged everything we had around the basket. I’d like to congratulate him. It is a wonderful feeling in our locker room right now; there is no question about that.
Sometimes you say some things that work and sometimes you don’t. I reminded our guys of 2012 when Austin Rivers made the big three at the end of the game at our place and we thought we had the game won, should have had the game won and we didn’t. Then we came over here and we played very well, we played great, and ended up winning the game over here. I told them that it has been done before and we can do it again. I tried to give our kids confidence; I knew one team that could come in here on senior night, play great and win, and that was us. The backboards and the inside area was huge for us. It was not as huge as it needed to be when we played at our place. Rebounds were 64 to 29 and we had 27 offensive rebounds. We batted it around like volleyball around the basket three or four times, two possessions we had six shots, we were 0-for- 6. We shot 28 percent the second half, but we had so many opportunities around, then they cut it to one or two the first half with a nice run and we took it back out to eight or 10.
They cut it to one in the second half and I told our guys during the timeout that they had done that in the first half, and we responded so let’s respond right now. Justin Jackson made two free-throws. Brice [Johnson]) scored a couple of buckets in that time period. Joel Berry made a three. Then down the stretch Theo [Pinson], Joel, and Marcus [Paige] were eight-for-eight from the free-throw line to finish the game. A lot of good things in the locker room, it is a fun locker room right now. I thought that it was very fitting that Marcus could not throw it in the ocean, but he went to the free-throw line and made four straight free throws us.
On the play of Kennedy Meeks:
Kennedy [Meeks] was big today. Isaiah [Hicks] was pressing himself too much; he wanted to do too much. Isaiah has been fantastic for us all year long, but never seen a game where he is two-for-six with four fouls. Kennedy was big early; Kennedy was big late rebounding the ball. He could have even scored more, but he couldn’t get it to stay in the basket. Fourteen rebounds for Kennedy and 21 for Brice Johnson. I have been on those two guys all year long because I want more out of them effort wise, intelligent wise, effort, effort, effort. Tonight; 12 [points] and 14 [rebounds] for Kennedy, and 18 [points] and 21 [rebounds] for Brice. Brice Johnson offensively has done some things that have been done very seldom in my years as a head coach; rebounding the ball and scoring the ball. I think I have said something about everybody that played today so this was a North Carolina win.
On comfort level of Marcus Paige taking free-throw shots at end of the game:
You never know what your comfort level should be, but if I had to pick anybody in the country to step to the line in that situation, I wanted Marcus Paige over anybody else; he was pretty doggone good.
On looking for Brice Johnson down the stretch:
We looked for him the first minute of the game, the 19th minute of the game, and the 32nd minute of the game. He, Kennedy, and Isaiah were about to drive me crazy; because I wanted a flash in the middle of the zone even harder and we sort of sashay in there. I told them at one of the timeouts that they were short-arming their shots; shoot the basketball. It is great coaching; I mean this is how silly the game is. I said ‘If you want to take a shot, be tough enough to make the dang ol’ thing,’ and you know that is silly as it can be, but that is exactly what I had said. We were trying to go inside every minute of the game because we got a size advantage and a depth advantage inside.
