Wake Forest Post-Game Quotes
2/25/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 25, 2004
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Wake Forest Postgame Quotes
February 25, 2004 vs. Florida State
Wake Forest Head Coach Skip Prosser
"Florida State brought out the best in us. But it felt like we were a salmon trying to swim upstream. Florida State is an NCAA team, it's obvious. And our guys somehow, someway, were left standing at the end of the game. ACC wins are very hard to come by."
"I don't think the game builds character, it reveals character. Tonight showed that our kids have tremendous character. Our kids body language has been extremely good. They are always up on their toes and that's why we ran the trap. They showed tremendous resolve."
"Right now FSU, Maryland and UVA are playing like Davy Crockett at the Alamo. They have to win these games. And they will come out with impressive improvement."
On Wake's defense in the second half:
"We tried to play the ball screens and post differently. Sometimes it's not an adjustment, but a realization to the kids that they just need to step up."
On the crowd:
"This might sound clich?, but our crowd would not die tonight. They were like Brucey Willis in 'Die Hard'. They keep fighting and keep the game going. The crowd has changed a lot since my first year. There used to not be enough people to start a fight, and look at them now. They are electric."
Florida State Head Coach Leonard Hamilton
"I thought Wake Forest did a great job doing the little things needed to pull out the game at the end. We had some uncharacteristic turnovers down the stretch. We lost our composure and made mistakes at the end. You have to credit Wake Forest. They increased the defensive pressure in the second half and put us in position to make plays and we came up short. It's a learning process for us to finish a game on the road against a team of this caliber. We'll get better."
"In the middle of the second half, we had too many empty possessions. The significant thing that made the difference was their defensive intensity. We turned it over in the middle of the second half too much."
"We're much better now than we have been. We will win these games. I'm encouraged but at the same time I feel bad for the seniors who put so much effort into tonight. We will be a factor in the ACC and on a national level. We will learn from this and grow in the future."
On the quick start:
"We have had a tendency to get off to slow starts, and I thought we showed that we are working on eliminating that. It is obvious that our guys are improving and I thought they played extremely hard."
On WFU:
"They are a well-rounded team that is dangerous from many positions, inside and out. You don't play many teams of a caliber like this and I thought our guys handled it well."
Wake Forest Guard Taron Downey
"Coach told us to keep chipping away. We did that versus Duke and we had faith in one another. So we focused on chipping away. We gavce them a different look defensively and forced a couple of turnovers that led to easy baskets. That helped us get some momentum and the crowd really got into it."
"We definitely have confidence and we need the momentum going into the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament is right around the corner. Tonight's game was like an ACC or NCAA Tournament game. All those games go down to the wire, so this was a good game for us."
Wake Forest Guard Justin Gray
On three-pointer in OT: "We were running a play to get Big E the ball. But Tim Pickett cheated down low and so they kicked it out to me and I let it fly."
On Tim Pickett:
"He's a tough defender, one of the best in the league. He's an animal when he gets around you. You have go at him hard like he goes to you and keep the pressure on him. Don't take all the pressure."
On defense:
"The change in defense that Coach did was great. We haven't pressed a lot recently, so they may not have been ready for it. We pressed early on in the season and we went back to it tonight. That helped us get the momentum and create turnovers."
