Postgame Quotes
1/16/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Wake Forest Head Coach Danny Manning
Opening Statement...
"I thought this afternoon we got off to a bad start. I thought Syracuse shot the ball exceptionally well. We lost (Trevor) Cooney far too many times for him to have the kind of first (half) he did shooting the basketball. We knew he was a good shooter. We just took a step back today, there's no other way to say it. The way that we've played so far this season, today was a step back. It's very disappointing because I thought we had a wonderful crowd and a lot of energy and support behind us. We didn't have it today."
On the effects of Wednesday's game at Virginia Tech on today...
"I don't know. We just didn't have it. We didn't shoot the ball well. I think we're a better shooting team than 2-of-20 from the 3-point line. I think we've shown that this year, but you have to give them credit. We didn't make shots today and we didn't guard the way that we're capable of guarding. I thought maybe five or six possessions throughout the course of the game, we really sat down and guarded. Other than that, we gave up too much dribble penetration.
On Trevor Cooney's scouting report...
"He was on the scouting report. We didn't do a good job of locating him and knowing where he was at."
On concern about lack of effort...
"That's why I said we took a step back. I think all the way around we've taken a step back. We've got to get back out on the practice court and get back to doing the things that we've done this year to give ourselves a chance to be successful."
On whether or not there were signs of this kind of performance...
"No, I've been doing this long enough. I've been on teams where guys have a great week of practice and then go out in the game and have a performance like this. I've seen teams that have terrible practices and go out and play the way Syracuse did today. The bottom line is that we just have to understand the type of team that we are in order to have success. We've got to go out there and we've got to make sure that we understand scouting reports and make sure that we're not making mental mistakes. Far too many times we turned the basketball over and quite a few times we were just staring down the person we were going to pass the ball to. That's something that we talked about against their length. Against that zone, you have to fake a pass to make a pass, you have to penetrate gaps and we didn't do enough of that."
Syracuse Head Coach Jim Boeheim
Opening statement…
"This was the best defensive game we've had all year. We were tremendously active. We've been doing a good job at the 3-point line, but not so much inside. We were much better inside tonight. I thought our centers were really good. I thought, obviously, we haven't shot the ball great. But when we make shots early like that, it changes the complexion of the game. We've had those shots in a lot of these games and we haven't made them. Tonight we made them and we're just a different team when that happens. It was a tremendous effort. We got help from everybody coming off the bench. Again, it was a tremendous effort for us. Wake Forest didn't make shots, and that's something that's hard to overcome. We've been there."
On the effectiveness of the zone defense…
"I guess our defense was active. They got some inside. But (Konstantinos) Mitoglou hurt us severely last year, and we knew that coming in. We just wanted to make sure we did a good job on him. We tried to keep the ball from (Devin) Thomas as much as possible. But I thought we didn't give them any good looks and we did a real good job when (Codi) Miller-McIntyre tried to drive. He hurt us last year too. I just thought we played by far the best defense we've played all year. No question."
On getting the first true road win of the season…
"It's good to get any win, where we are. We're happy to get any win right now."
On the play of freshman Tyler Lydon…
"He didn't hesitate tonight. He stepped out and he made the three. And that's what he did in the Bahamas. He hasn't done that since then, he's been hesitating a lot. His rebounding and his defense were really good. I just thought he played really well tonight."
On the play of Trevor Cooney…
"I thought we did a really good job of moving and setting screens and getting him open. They tried a lot of guys on him. I think in the second half, (Codi) Miller-McIntyre did a good job on him. But I thought three or four of the best looks he got were in the second half and he missed. He got some really good looks. But he's been shooting the ball well. When we get him good looks, he shoots a very high percentage. I thought Mike (Gbinije) did a good job of getting the ball up and running the team. Defensively, Mike was really good and solid the whole game. When you win like this on the road, everybody played well."
Freshman Center Doral Moore
On the opportunity to play more minutes today…
"I just wanted to prove I could play more, and that I can be more effective when it comes to games like that. Especially when it's a team like Syracuse, they're always big and athletic and long. They play the same type of way, so it benefits me to play a little more. But I have to prove it to (Coach Danny Manning) in practice and in games. I think I've done that today, but I have to continue to improve. The freshmen struggled at the beginning of the year, but they steadily climb up the latter. That's what I want to keep doing."
On putting Syracuse in foul trouble…
"We just attacked the basket every single time we got the basketball. I think that's why we lost today, because it was only us. The guards needed to attack the basket too. We kind of shot ourselves out of the game."
Senior Guard Codi Miller-McIntyre
On the loss…
"Defense. We got to get stops. We came out flat. We can't let a player like (Trevor) Cooney start out like that. He had 19 in the first half."
On Syracuse's play defensively…
"I think we came out extremely passive. We weren't aggressive. When we swung the ball around, they can just match up against us easily without having to work. The best thing to do against a zone defense is to get it to the corners. But we weren't finding our bigs and they did a pretty good job at covering the short corners. We didn't do a good job at attacking the zone. We just stayed on the perimeter."
On the play of Syracuse's Trevor Cooney…
"He's a great shooter, he scores in bunches. We just gave him too much space. He had a lot of looks that were wide open. We can't let a shooter like him get wide open from the three."
