Postgame Quotes - Wake Forest vs. UNC Wilmington
12/21/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 21, 2011
Recap | Final Stats | Photo Gallery 
Wake Forest Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik
On the play of Nikita Mescheriakov...
"Nikita is an energy player, there's no question about that. He's always in constant motion. He's worked hard to be efficient with that emotion and he's worked hard on his shooting, especially with Coach Battle. They were in the gym for over an hour the last couple of days extra. He plays with a lot of emotion and that's a great thing. Passion and emotion is a great thing."
On the character of the team...
"We're a team. Based on the way the game is going and the way that guys are going, there's going to be guys playing X amounts of minutes and not so many minutes the next. Carson was playing very well with a double-double. We had six players in double digits. We did a lot of really good things with six players in double digits and only nine turnovers, we outrebounded an opponent for the second game in a row, when we were down four, we went on a 12-0 run. I would say that the identity of this basketball team is that they are a team and they care. It's a collective effort from everyone. There's a lot of grit, a lot of passion and a lot of determination in this group, and it showed. We've had some games where teams have come back on us and we've been down, and if your character and togetherness as a team isn't strong then your team will fold, but our team seems to rise to that occasion."
On the strength of the offense in the second half...
"We had some really good executions. We really got them moving. I thought that at times in the first half, we were trying to do too much off the bounce and we were just dribbling into a crowd and getting caught and trying to force too much. When we spaced the court and moved the ball, because we have guys who can score at every position, it really puts a lot of pressure on the defense. And I thought we did a really good job of executing as a team when we got down."
On the difference of this year's team facing adversity compared to last year's...
"It's the character. I mean this sincerely. We have a lot of terrific young men on this basketball team of great character - both on and off the court. And collectively that is how they play."
UNC Wilmington Head Coach Buzz Peterson
Opening statement...
"This is a game, and I'm sure Jeff feels the same way, that you get a little nervous that right before the Christmas break your guys are thinking about going home. I know I have a couple of kids that haven't been home since June, so I know they're eager to go back. We're splitting in different directions. Wake Forest is a much improved ball club from last year. I say that because they have some weapons out there that can shoot it and they have a nice penetrator there. They made it tough for us early. That's the third straight game that we've come out with just not much energy - the motors were not running like they should have been. When you have a young team, I guess that happens sometimes. They really took it to us. At halftime we didn't make any strategy switches, I just tried to get in there and get them going a little bit and up the energy for our team. I tried to get them to be aggressive on offense attacking downhill and hope that one of our outside shooters could get going. I felt like if we were going to win this game tonight, we were going to have to make some outside shots. I think we had 14 three-pointers (against Wake Forest) last year. (Adam) Smith got hot there for a little bit, but give Wake Forest a lot of credit. We couldn't stop them on the other end. Free throws were a little lopsided but we had to do a lot of fouling there towards the end and we could never get it under a two-possession ball game there late. So you have to give them credit with (C.J.) Harris hitting the free throws, but also scoring when we made a run there and they withstood the storm."
