Postgame Quotes - Wake Forest vs. Samford
12/14/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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Wake Forest Head Coach Danny Manning
Opening statement...
"I'd like to give Samford a lot of credit. Scott has his guys playing extremely hard, they're very unselfish and when they shoot the ball the way they shot in the first half, they really present some problems. Tonight, in the first half, we didn't guard as well as I would like. That's definitely for sure. They end up shooting 58 percent, you have to give them some credit for making shots, but I think we need to be a little bit more disruptive defensively. We were able to do that in the second half. I thought we did a decent job of attacking their pressure - whenever they rotated the ball, we made sure that we flashed back to the ball and caught the ball and tried to go attack. We have to do a better job of converting when we get to the free throw line, and we missed some shots at point-blank range tonight that hopefully we can clean up these next few days at practice before our next game."
On whether he made any adjustments in the second half defensively...
"Guard your man. That's the scouting report at all times. What are we going to do? Guard your man. That's kind of a running joke with the coaches when guys want to know the scouting report. It's real simple - guard your guy. But no, not really (any adjustments). We played to our principles. They played with a small lineup from time to time and we were able to switch on dribble hand-offs and ball screens, something that we do work on, (but) we don't do it a lot."
On Mitchell Wilbekin's first 10 games...
"Mitch has been extremely solid and he shoots the ball very well. A lot of that has to do with his bloodlines. He's had a chance to watch high level basketball for a very long time. He's got a chance to pick his brother's brain for the last four years about high level basketball, and it shows. When he's out there on the court, he has a certain presence about him, he has a certain toughness about him that he just gained through experience and the hardships of his brother going through it as a freshman."
Samford Head Coach Scott Padgett
Opening statement...
"Two keys for us going into this game and really any time we play up - the first one is always going to be the backboard. We're not a very big team, and we've played up and played Pittsburgh - and they're not BCS, but (Louisiana Tech), they're pretty big - and both of those games we were basically even on the board, and it was because we hit first. We didn't wait for them to get down by the basket, we hit early, created space, and today we didn't do that. 19 offensive rebounds, that was big. And then for us, the ball was moving really, really well in the first half. If we didn't have an initial shot on a look, it was get into a drive and kick game, and if we didn't have a first one, it was get into a second and third and then have an open look. The ball stopped in the second half, and when it stopped we started turning the thing over a little bit more. Obviously when you look at 23 points off of turnovers for them and 16 second chance points, those things are key in the game. I think they did a really good job of handling our press. We kind of made some mistakes of stepping up in the first half that kind of gave them some easy buckets. Whenever you play against a team and you're a pressing team, when you give them easy buckets early, it gives them confidence against it."