Postgame Quotes - Gardner-Webb at Wake Forest
12/18/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 18, 2011
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Wake Forest Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik
Opening statement...
"We knew that Gardner-Webb was a very well-coached, tough, scrappy basketball team that has played in some tough arenas thus far this year. We had tremendous respect for them, so this type of game doesn't surprise me, personally, at all. We fought hard. We won. I'm really proud of Ty Walker. I thought that Ty Walker was the difference in this basketball game. He had a tremendous impact on the game with timely tip-ins, rebounding, he was very energetic and had a great approach mentally.
On Ty Walker...
"The last few days, I've seen Ty have some consistent, great practices. He played today like he's been practicing. When he is active and energized, that alone will have an impact on winning because of his length and athleticism. We need it to continue."
On what areas the team needs to focus on...
"Guarding the ball and defending players off the bounce. Rebounding the basketball. Being ball strong. Those areas are areas from a coaching standpoint that we have addressed and we do work on. We will continue that. We can't turn the ball over as much as we did today, and we've done a good job of that. We've done a good job of not turning the ball over. Today we let a couple get away from us. We were dribbling a little too much, exposing the ball and not being ball strong. One of the reasons your offense stalls is that you dribble too much. We've got to rebound the ball better, and guard the ball off the dribble."
Gardner-Webb Head Coach Chris Holtmann
Opening statement...
"Well we just weren't good enough. I give Wake and their coaching staff credit. They really responded in the second half like we thought they would. I thought (Ty) Walker was the difference in the game. I expected him to play a significant role in the game, this being his second game back. I think his length and size was clearly the difference in the game. We've got a young bunch - seven in particular - and the hardest thing when you have seven new pieces and you're trying to fit them together is to be able to respond to adversity playing on the road. At times we did that well, but we had too many break downs in the second half."
On the second half...
"They did some things better, and we probably contributed to it as well. Playing on the road, you're going to have stretches where you don't particularly play well and the other team plays well. They got us taking some quick shots, some bad shots. The key was, at halftime, we had gotten to the line 10 times, and we had limited their free throw attempts to four. Based on their games thus far, one of the best things they do is get to the free throw line. We knew that was an area we would have to neutralize, and we did that in the first half. Obviously, we did not do that in the second half."
On handling the Wake Forest press in the second half...
"I think that helped them. I'm not so sure that they use that as much to speed teams up as they do to take some time off the shot clock and make it a little more difficult for you in the half court. I just thought they were more active. We played Butler and IU on the road. We played Clemson on the road, and there have been those stretches in the second half where my team has just got that wide-eyed look. We haven't been there enough, in those situations together, to respond the way we need to. I think we took a little bit of a step forward in responding in a positive way tonight, but that's what's going to happen to you on the road."
