Postgame Quotes
12/13/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 13, 2009
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Opening statement...
"First of all, I'd like to give a tremendous amount of credit to Matt and what he's doing with that program. In the first half that's a 10-point game, and Farouq makes a falling down shot to make it 41-28 at the half. We were in a dogfight and I think those kids from Elon played very hard. As we were watching tape on them, I don't think you can give a coach a better complement. They're getting better, and better, and better. They're going to be a team to be reckoned with in that league and Matt deserves a tremendous amount of credit for that. I thought we played very well in the second half. Maybe we had to knock the rust off from not playing in a week. I thought we really shared the ball well in the second half. I thought we really rebounded the ball well in the second half and I thought our transition defense was much better. When we're back and in a stance we're pretty good. We held them to 29 percent and 0 for 9 from threes in the second half. It was a good win for us, and I thought our bench really gave us another great lift. They've done a tremendous job all year with Ari and Gary Clark coming in. Our bench did a terrific job for us."
On Gary Clark...
"I told him before the Gonzaga game that he's better off in practice if he's on the scout team because he's getting touches and reps and he's running and getting in shape. That's opposed to being a second-team guy and standing on the sidelines and he's sitting there for eight minutes and getting four minutes of repetition. He's done a great job. He's shooting the ball well for us. Again, he's one of those guys who have been coming off the bench and giving us a big lift. We had five guys in double figures and another guy with nine points. I'm really happy for him too. I grabbed him before the game and I said, 'Gary, think about all the nights you've been in the gym shooting. You have an opportunity for yourself now. As long as you're guarding and as long as you're rebounding, good things will happen for you.' I'm really happy for him because he invests a lot in his game."
On following the Gonzaga game with a good performance...
"It's really important. I told them before the game that I don't have to cite any other illustrations about who we're playing. I think that we know ourselves that we can get beat by anybody anywhere, or we can beat anybody anywhere. Our last couple games showed that with William & Mary and at Gonzaga. As long as we understand who we are and we come to play every night, that's really important for this team. Anybody on our schedule can beat us; conversely, we can beat anybody on our schedule. I think it's comforting to play well the other night, and play pretty well for most of the game today. I think we have to keep building because Wednesday night is not going to be any day at the beach."
Elon Head Coach Matt Matheny
Opening statement...
"It was a great opportunity for us to be on what we deem the national stage. Anytime you get a chance to play an ACC program, on their home court or anywhere in the world, that's what we want. We had that opportunity today. We got a little bit better I thought in the first half as a team. I thought we were competitively pretty tough in the first half at times. I didn't think we were quiet as competitively tough in the second half. As a result, you get the wide margin of victory. Wake Forest was as good as I had seen them. I had seen a lot of tape on them. They were as good as I had seen them defensively. Dino (Gaudio) has a lot of talent and I'm sure they're going to do very well this year. It was a learning experience for our team and our program. I'm sure when we watch film we'll be able to grow from it."
On Wake Forest stretching out the lead early in the second half...
"We have to learn as a team to overcome adversity a little bit better. I felt like we missed some open shots that we can make in the first half. We had the defensive rebound at the end of the first half, we lost it and they got a basket. I told our team at halftime that this could be a five, six, seven point game if we just make a few open shots. I felt like we were right there at halftime. We ran a nice set and I think Devan (Carter) made the shot at the beginning of the second half to cut it to 11. We were right there. They had a pretty aggressive attack in transition in the second half. We did not respond very well defensively to that. As a result, they got easy buckets. It just stretched from there."
On Elon's inconsistent play...
"We got from December 3rd scoring 31 points and shooting 26 percent to December 5th scoring 82 points and shooting more like 50 percent. You could say that in the first half we were December 5th type of team. The second half we were more like a December 3rd type of team. It's been a roller coaster ride for us because our guys are learning our system. We're getting a little bit better at it. I see stretches where we're effective in it. Unfortunately, there are still quite a few stretches where we're not. Wake's defense was very good. They made it difficult for us to get open shots. Even some of the shots we made in the first half were contested. I had seen Wake's game at Gonzaga, which was a tremendous win in a tough environment. I had seen them play Purdue. My impression today is that they were better defensively than I've seen them and have a chance to be a very good defensive team."
On if he considered playing a zone defense...
"We are a team that likes to play man-to-man. I felt like going in to this game; we had an opportunity to play a type of team that we played that we wanted to get better from this experience. I'm not the type of coach that will start a game in triangle and two, box and one, 2-3 zone, 1-3-1. We're not going to create new defenses to play just to try to win a particular game. It's just not my philosophy and that's not something I believe in. Could we have played more zone? Sure. We talked at a few timeouts about going zone. Would it have made a difference in the outcome? I don't think so. I think the most important thing for us to draw from this is that we need to be competitively tough for 40 minutes. For most of the first 20 minutes, I thought we were. The second 20 we were not.
