Postgame Quotes - Wake Forest 73, North Carolina 67
1/5/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 5, 2014
Wake Forest Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik
Opening statement...
"First of all, I want to thank our fans. Our fans were really there for us and we appreciate them very much. Just a great team effort by our team. They all stood out. Aaron Rountree gave us tremendous energy in 14 minutes with four blocks, three steals (and) two rebounds. Arnaud (William Adala Moto) grew up a lot today; nine rebounds (and) 11 points, all in 18 minutes and just a great team effort from everyone. Our focus coming into this game was to limit our turnovers and do a good job on the boards; one-out-of-two isn't bad. (UNC) is a very good offensive rebounding team and they penetrated and we lost bodies; give them a lot credit in that regard. But we did a great job. I think we only had four turnovers in the first half. A couple of them came very early (and) Carolina depends on those turnovers to fuel their offense."
On working on turnovers and rebounds...
"Turnovers and rebounds were our big focus coming into this game. I believe half of (UNC)'s points come off offensive boards and scoring off turnovers. We did a much better job. In the first half we didn't turn it over, in the second job we did a much better job on the boards."
On the offense...
"We only really had a couple bad offensive games - that was Xavier and UNCG. Other than that, we have been scoring a lot of points. We worked really hard on our spacing and screening. We worked really hard, I thought we handled Carolina's traps really well. We knew they would and we worked on that a lot. We put in a couple of sets and got some backdoors off their pressure. We executed well and screened better. We read screens better."
On the difference from this year's team to last year's team...
"We've grown up a lot. Last year, all those freshmen; they learned the hard way. We lost last year and I don't even want to bring up last year. We lost seven games by six points or less and those little things make big differences in games."
UNC Head Coach Roy Williams
Opening statement...
"(With) 24 offensive rebounds should be more than 17 points. But we weren't tough enough, physical enough, strong enough, explosive enough; whatever to finish the plays at that point. We got it to a one possession game then we took two shots that we rushed. We probably should have taken a few more seconds to get a better shot and we had some chances but didn't shoot the ball in the hole very well. That always makes it more difficult as well. Congratulate Jeff (Bzdelik) and his staff and his team; 19-out-of-33 free throws for them and 7-out-of-11 for us. We've got to be more aggressive and attack the basket instead of shying away from everything."
On the offense...
"They were guarding us, we were just missing. (Devin) Thomas and (Tyler) Cavanaugh have good size inside but when you get the ball on an offensive rebound two or three feet from the basket, you should finish the play before you get fouled but we didn't take it up very strong at that point. That hurt us; just unforced turnovers and not finishing plays around the basket were big for us the entire night. We never really did until the very end we had a layup, a six-footer and a tip but we didn't finish the plays around the basket. But give their defense some credit. They had six blocked shots but they affected a lot more than that."
Wake Forest Sophomore Guard Codi Miller-McIntyre
On beating North Carolina...
"It's a great feeling. It's something that all of us have dreamed about - beating Carolina. For us to come out and actually do it, we all had a great feeling that we would; we all really believed in it, and I think that's where it all started. We had a high belief that we would win tonight, and it feels extremely good."
On his play...
"I think I started off badly. I shot poorly from the free throw line, but I have to get over those mental humps from missing those free throws and find a way to help my team out, and that's what I think I did later on in the game."
On keeping North Carolina down in the second half...
"They're a great team. They're Carolina, they're Top 20, so it's hard to keep any team like that down while they're down. They made a run to come back, but we stayed together as a team and did what we had to do to win."
