Postgame Quotes
1/15/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 15, 2005
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Wake Forest Head Coach Skip Prosser
On the Game:
"This was a nine hour marathon. I said to the North Carolina radio people before the game that Carolina is such a high caliber team and that brings out the best in their opponents, and I thought it did tonight. I'm proud of our guys, especially our bench guys. I am grateful for the students, I think they are the best in the country. It was a good game between two high caliber teams, but the reality of it is though, this is one-sixteenth of the ACC regular season. We will have a tremendous challenge for us Tuesday night at Florida State."
On making 32 of 32 free throws:
"I think that if you follow us you will see that as an abberation. We needed all 32 of those, especially down the stretch. We knew Carolina would make a run, so I'm glad we made our free throws."
On Taron Downey:
"I had a feeling that he would be a big part of this game. We struggled a bit in the first half and he came off the bench and lit things up for us. I've said before and I'll say again, he's one of the most selfless players I've ever coached, and for that, he's also one of the most popular among his teammates."
On the fact that you have a very nice group of guys, on their toughness today:
"We do have nice kids, and I'm okay with that, I want to recruit good kids, but I thought we did a great job of holding our own today, especially on the glass. We showed some grit and toughness for sure."
On the effectiveness of the double team:
"I've got tremendous respect for May and both of the Williams. We can't take away everything, but attempting to stop them certainly helped. I thought we allowed some open threes, which I don't like to see, but in the end we were not afraid to be aggressive."
On the hustle:
"I tell the guys all the time, if you back peddle, you will lose, if you sprint, you at least have a shot at winning. In the first half I thought we guarded extremely well and the second half was ok but not great."
On Chris Paul:
"I say all the time, it begins at the beginning. Your point guard is like the quarterback of the football team. I said last year, and I still stand by this, that I wouldn't trade Paul for any guard in the country. I have confidence in him, and so do his teammates, that he will play well. He is a very, very very talented player with an excellent work ethic. He can also read and watch television, so he knew the magnitude of this game and I think he stepped up to the challenge and rose to the occasion today."
Have you been waiting for a win like this:
"Well... yes. Despite what those who attend the coaches show say every week, we do practice our free throw shots, and we focused even more on those this week. I'm especially proud of Levy for making his shots. We were beginning to be at the bottom of the bottom of the league in terms of our percentages, so we needed to shoot like that today."
North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams
Opening statement
"In the second half we were much more competitive, I was pleased with our players competitiveness but again you have to congratulate Wake. I'm disappointed in the result and the way we played, but I think it was a heck of a college basketball game. You've got to have some help from the other team to come back against a team like this, especially from the free-throw line, and they didn't help us there at all. "
On the double foul situations:
"We played much better down the stretch, one of the foul was a silly ones. I didn't see the first "double-foul", but I got some input from our fans that it was a weird one, so I'll be interested."
Why and how has Wake's defense improved over the past year:
"More focused, Skip is the right one to ask that, but it was hard for us to get looks, they are much better on the screens."
On the impact of Taron Downey"
"If I had to pick three or four huge factors, Downey and Ellis both, 29 points combined from two guys off the bench is outstanding."
Stiff competition this week, do you think the guys are tired:
"That is the worst excuse in the history of college basketball. We didn't make our jumpshots, not because they were tired, but because Wake's defense stopped us. Our focus has got to be better."
On Chris Paul's effectiveness:
"He's got a knack, he can weave down and use his teammates and himself. He's got an instinct of getting to the basket, he's got the ability to get to the basket, hang, draw the foul and finish the play. He's got a slight build, he's not Arnold Swartsenager, but he plays like he is that size."
Jamaal Levy
On free throws:
"Before every game, we have to shoot 100 free throws. We know free throws are what it takes to win and this year we haven't been doing so well. But we made them straight up tonight which helped us win."
On posting up:
"We just tried to contest shots and get in their face. And it worked. We knew they had good post players and we had to play them tough. May is a good player, but we posted up strong against him. By playing strong in the post, it stopped their shots and it worked."
Vytas Danelius
On the mentality before the game:
"The main focus was to be relaxed. We just had to play our game. We knew Carolina was going to come out strong. We just had to maintain our poise which was the key to the game. "
On perfect free throw shooting:
"We didn't even think about it. We came back to the locker room and guys were wondering if we had missed any shots from the free throw line. We were asking around, `did anybody miss a free throw?'. We didn't find out the actual stat until we looked at the boxscore. It was amazing, I've been here four years and I don't think we've ever had a stat like that."
On why perfect free throw shooting:
"I don't think we made every shot from the field, but on the line we just had a good day. We want to be a good free throw shooting team and we have been working on that. We just shot our free throws well tonight."
Eric Williams
On the hype before the game:
"Coming into this game we knew that UNC was going to be a tough team to beat. They have beat teams by 15 plus in the ACC so far and everybody knew that we were two high scoring teams and that it would be a close game. We just wanted to come out and not let our emotions get to us and play a good game."
On the outcome of the game:
"I was surprised at the score and thought it would have been closer. I thought it was going to be back and forth between the two teams. But we hit that jumper and it started things out on the right foot for us."
On defense:
"I think everyone was surprised at our defense. They always say that we win by outscoring our opponents, but you have to give us credit because our defense has been pretty good this far in ACC play."
