Maryland vs. Wake Forest
2/28/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 28, 2008
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
Maryland Head Coach Gary WilliamsOpening statement...
"I thought we played with a certain amount of intensity for the 40 minutes; we had our ups and downs and we weren't perfect obviously, but at the same time defensively, I thought we were committed to play hard. However it looked, [even if it looked] sloppy, it didn't matter we were going to play hard."
"We lost to Virginia Tech three games ago, and we had a lead in the first half, a lead in the second half, it was a really tough loss at home, and we hadn't been able to play with that intensity until tonight. We finally got it back somehow and were able to do some things defensively to keep us in the game, especially down the stretch when we didn't score and still were able to win the game."
"We had two guys really step up scoring-wise, James Gist and Greivis Vasquez. I thought guys like Adrian Bowie, Cliff Tucker and Jerome Burney allowed us to rest those guys a little bit. That's less minutes than they've been playing, and I think that all goes into down the stretch."
"It was a good team effort and I'm proud of our team. It's been tough the last week [...] this win helps get us back to decent position.... It keeps you going this time of year."
On the play of James Gist and Greivis Vasquez...
"He had a game like he had against NC State. Wake is really an impressive team with their quickness at their various positions, and I think James [Gist] has that type of quickness which helps him out there in a game like this tonight. Wake is really good, you look at what they've done this year considering the circumstances; it's just been a tremendous team effort; coaches, players, everybody involved. To come in here tonight, we knew their home court record and we knew we had to match their intensity level. James [Gist] I think was the leader in that; he was really vocal in the locker room before the game and that helps us. You get a guy like [Greivis] Vasquez that backs up anything he says; he goes out there and plays. It's not going to be perfect with us this year, but I think we know how we have to play to be successful."
On the multiple three-pointers in the first half...
"It's one of those things where the flow was going for us. We were running pretty good offense; we got some good looks for us. We got confidence, but we're really not that type of team but we've had stretches. James [Gist] is a good shooter, he can make them, Eric Hayes, Gravius [Vasquez], those guys are all legitimate three-point shooters, but sometimes that's like fools' gold in the beginning of the game for us where we just rely on outside shots. The second half we really struggled shooting and we didn't do a great job all of the time running our offense, so this is a coach that's very happy about the win."
Wake Forest Head Coach Dino Gaudio
Opening statement...
"I want to congratulate Maryland, I thought they came in and played very hard and very well. We didn't do a good enough job on the backboard in the second half and they had no offensive rebounds in the first half, seven in the second half. And we didn't do a good enough job at the free throw line. Our defense in the first half was poor, that's why they got the seven point lead. I thought our kids scrapped, tried to claw their way back in but it was too little, too late. For some reason we didn't have that same bounce coming out of the locker room to start the game that we usually do, and that's my fault. I give them a lot of credit, they played well. Maybe [Maryland's] veteran guys understood what it was like to go to the tournament and how much it meant to them, and they played with a little bit more energy than we did tonight."
On the missed open shots...
"The kids aren't trying to but we missed some really good shots, some point blank shots that we usually make. We usually make them. I don't know how many shots we missed right around the basket that all year we have been finishing. It's not like half the time they've gone in and half of the time they haven't. We've been making those shots all year, getting right to the rim and finishing them but we didn't do it tonight."
On Chas McFarland fouling out...
"We talked about it again. Some of the fouls that he picks up are just unintelligent fouls. Of the ones he gets, two and three that he gets are legitimate, but the others are bad fouls. Two games in a row now he's played 22 minutes; he's got 11 points, six boards, and three blocks in 22 minutes. If he plays 40, I know you can't just double it, maybe he gets 20, maybe he gets 10, maybe he has five blocks. He's learning and a work in progress and hopefully the light switch will go on. But he has to stay on the floor for us to do what we want to do."
On James Johnson's defensive performance...
"James [Johnson] wasn't the only one, when you give up 58% and 53% in the first half we had a lot of guys that aren't guarding like we need to. When we start doing that we'll be a little better served. We hold them to 40% and 22% in the second half which is great, but the first half we really dug ourselves a hole with that."
On the importance of boxing out...
"I think it was a big difference maker, we went down the stretch maybe under three minutes and two or three times we got stops but we didn't box. They hurt us; we couldn't switch and get their attention to switch when [Greivis] Vasquez was posting us. He was backing us in and posting Jeff [Teague] a little bit. We then put L.D. [Williams] on him when the opportunity presented itself. We were able to get Harvey Hale's attention and Harvey switched on to him. The thing that was frustrating was as the young man was backing in; we know he's going to shoot it. I think twice he backed in, shot and missed and they got second shots. Now when he's backing in, he's going to shoot it. We just didn't do a good enough job of putting a body on somebody and pushing them out there."
