Wake Forest Athletics
Postgame Quotes
1/23/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 23, 2010
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Wake Forest Head Coach Dino Gaudio
Opening statement...
"I thought our kids played very hard against a very well-coached and hard-playing Virginia basketball team. As you know from so many conversations over the past three years about our defense, so much of the credit goes to the Bennett family - Tony and his dad Dick. I'm glad we guarded as well as we did today and our kids did a really good job on the defensive end of the floor. I thought we lost our focus a little bit down the stretch. I told the kids afterwards that I thought we had a very good week. If we had won one more game it would have been a great week, but we had a very good week and I'm very proud of them. We had a couple of very physical games from Sunday (against Duke) to Wednesday (against North Carolina), and for the kids to play like they did today, I think they deserve a lot of credit."
On the 24 turnovers by Wake...
"What I told the kids was that teams when they're down like that are going to change their defense. When you get down like that you have to start extending a little bit and getting in the passing lanes. Some teams will go full-court 94-feet 1-2-1-1 press, or 3-2 press, or whatever, but what teams of our ilk are going to do is still play half-court man-to-man but now we're going to get out in passing lanes. We were just a little too casual and laissez-faire with our passes. We have to throw hard crisp passes. 24 turnovers is way too many. When we're shooting 52 percent, if we only have 12 (turnovers) there's another 24 points right there."
On the advantage of playing the same pack-line defense as Virginia...
"Early we felt like we wanted to feed the post from the top. If you're trying to hit the wing and then take the ball to the baseline there's terrific help. When the ball's in the center of the floor, especially when we have C.J. and Ari out there, they have to stay a little more attached. We tried to feed the post from the top. We were going high-low a little bit early, and we spent a lot of time on making that high-low pass. We don't practice hitting the rim with it like we did a couple times, but the guys did a good job of going inside early where we wanted to go and implementing the game plan of trying to feed it from the top."
Senior center Chas McFarland
On playing against Virginia's style of defense in practice...
"It does help quite a bit because we know what they're going to be doing on defense. They're going to swipe and they do all the same principles that we do. That could have been a plus for us, knowing that's what they're going to do when you pass it and when you cut."
On the reason for his strong performance today...
"Just hard work. Coach Wojcik got on me towards the beginning of the year and just said, 'Keep playing hard and everything else will come.' So every game I just try to play hard."
On the ACC this year...
"This league is just like it is every other year. Anybody on any given night can beat any team. It's always been like that since I've been here. It's one of the best leagues in the country so if you don't come out and play hard every night, you can get beat by anybody."
Freshman guard C.J. Harris
On if he is proud of the team this week...
"Definitely. We had a tough loss at Duke but we came back and won on the road at North Carolina and got this big win. We're 4-2 right now in the league so we're climbing up."
On what this week demonstrates to the team...
"It shows how mentally tough and physically tough we are. We're all beat up but to fight through a tough game like this shows how tough we are."
Virginia Head Coach Tony Bennett
Opening Statement...
"Not a whole lot to say, I think we got outplayed early and often. They were really aggressive, they kind of hit us in the mouth with their play on the offensive glass and we had way too many breakdowns defensively. I think that affected us; they had so many easy hoops. You're going to have games where you struggle to shoot the ball, which showed at the free throw line tonight. Usually our defense is good enough to keep us in there until we can get something going offensively, but that wasn't the case today and then certainly some foul trouble hurt us. You have to credit Wake Forest, they did the job, they were aggressive, they were ready. We made a nice run at the end, there was some effort shown that we didn't die, but the game got out of hand too soon and it was just a mad dash to get a chance."
On Chas McFarland...
"Sometimes we worked him up the lane pretty high, and there's a point certainly where you can't try and be on the top side or the front and your ball pressure has to be really good. We knew how quick (Ishmael) Smith was, and I thought we were soft on the ball. When you're soft on the ball defensively, that got us off on the wrong foot. I thought we respected their quickness but were almost too scared of it perhaps. Sometimes we were riding them too high up the lane with not enough ball pressure. They were very physical and took it at us."
On his decision to keep Landesberg out...
"When Sylven picked up two and Mike [Scott] picked up two, we cut it to 18-14 around the seven or eight minute mark, and I thought if we could just hang in there, but the game got out of hand. Usually I hold a guy out when he gets two fouls and I stuck to that. All of the sudden there's maybe two minutes left and we had to put Sylven back in. Now it might be foolish if he picked one up, and then they hit the last second three of the half and the lead stretched out. I might have to reconsider thinking about that, it's something you just try to feel for. Being down 19 at the half is that's hard to overcome against a team that defends like they do."
On Ishmael Smith...
"I told him after the game that he's as close to as fast as Muggsy Bogues. He's a very talented player, 21 points, 6 assists, 2 turnovers. He draws so much attention. We respected his quickness, but he just sucks the rest of the defense in with him and then he finds the open guy. You have to account for him, he takes more than one guy to guard him, you have to guard him with your team defense. He doesn't press the issue, he has great feel and I think that has to do with his experience and being a senior, he knows when to be aggressive and when to let it come. He's certainly one of the best I've seen so far, mind you this is only my fourth game in the ACC."
On playing on the road...
When you go on the road, you better be ready to play. I wish we would've played better and given a better effort. I know being 3-0 is great and all that, but it's so early in the league. If you don't bring good stuff, you can see what can happen, at least to us. I think it's a teaching point for our guys, saying our margin of error isn't great, and we have to be locked in to play against a team like this."
"I think that's the beauty of sports - you can't be too discouraged, or too elated if it goes well. We have a day off, and then we prepare for our in-state rival. We'll learn from the breakdowns, address those, and then get ready to play. That's all you can do."
