Wake Forest Athletics
Postgame Quotes - Nebraska 79, Wake Forest 63
11/28/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 28, 2012
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POSTGAME QUOTES
Nebraska 79, Wake Forest 63
November 27, 2012
Joel Coliseum - Winston-Salem, N.C.
Wake Forest Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik
Opening statement...
"We struggled to score the ball. It seemed as though we got frustrated emotionally and did not do the little things defensively that you have to do to get stops. We got frustrated by the fact that we had a hard time scoring. Give credit to Nebraska's defense, but we also missed shots and couldn't finish around the rim. It diffused our defensive energy and frustrated us. We can't do that when the ball isn't going in and lose our minds defensively."
On defending Nebraska's shooters...
"Chase Fischer made a good play one time to get the big guy to pass the ball outside. We wanted to stay with their shooters and double down on them. Our reaction time was not good enough on defense tonight."
On C.J. Harris...
"We have great confidence in him, and we need him to be aggressive. He can tell you that right before the game I've told him to be aggressive. We need him to lead this team as well. He has to be able to rally the guys and make sure that they stay mentally strong and into the game. I know that's a lot to throw on a young man, and I have great confidence that he will bounce back."
Nebraska Head Coach Tim Miles
On offensive efficiency in the second half...
"We were fortunate. That was as well as we've moved the ball and cut. We cut pretty hard, and then then we rolled a hot hand. Any time that we missed, Almeida cleaned it up. He's such a physical presence, and then Ray Gallegos shot the ball as well as he shot it all year. Wake Forest was unfortunate that they caught us on a hot night, and we were fortunate that we were hot. They're a young team and they're going to have growing pains. There's no doubt about it, but Coach Bzdelik is an amazing coach. I've coached against him and seen him in the NBA, and he's going to get those guys going."
On applying special attention to C.J. Harris and Travis McKie...
"McKie especially, we wanted to double him anytime he was anywhere close to the basket. And with CJ, Ray Gallegos did a really nice job of keeping him in front of him because he's such a weapon. I thought we did a good job of guarding the ball. Systematically they get to the foul line a great deal and they really rebound well. I thought we did a good job on the boards and we didn't send them to the line as much as they had been going. I thought that was critical too."
On possible adjustments made at halftime...
"We didn't make many. I felt like we were a little slow getting back on defense. I didn't want them get transitioned. That worried me. We didn't make any matchup changes. We talked about some of the three-point shooting that we let get away from us in the first half. We don't like to give up threes, and we had a group in there that gave up I think 3 threes in a short amount of time. We lost the lead, and I think that's the only time we lost the lead. We're thin right now. We have a guy that's hurt, and we only played six scholarship guys tonight. We don't have a lot of depth so we had to manage that as well."
With Gallegos adjusting shooting in second half...
"We told him we weren't playing Kent State anymore and that helped a lot. A lesson that I learned is never to get into a shooter's head. I do as little as possible on the psychology part so I say keep shooting and we'll get you rhythm shots."
Wake Forest Senior Guard C.J. Harris
On what went wrong...
"They stuck it to us, they outhustled us, our offense and defense struggled. There isn't an excuse for the way that we played."
On any nuances they threw their way that surprised them...
"No, we knew pretty much everything that they were going to do. We knew who their shooters were, who their drivers were, we just didn't do enough on defense."
On Nebraska's second half success...
"Yes I saw their confidence surge, and that is something you can't let a team do. We didn't do a good enough job of buckling down and getting stops and converting on the offensive end."
