Postgame Quotes: Wake Forest vs. Liberty
11/14/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Wake Forest Athletic Communications (@WakeMBB)
Wake Forest Head Coach Danny Manning
Opening Statement...
"Liberty came out and obviously played well enough to win the game, but I thought they did some really good things. I'm extremely impressed with Scottie James. I thought he was the best player on the court tonight. He came off the bench and played 22 minutes and got 14 rebounds. He played with a high motor and I think that was infectious throughout their team and it carried over to a certain extent. They're a very talented team who played exceptionally well. We knew coming into the game that they're averaging nine 3-pointers a game. They did that tonight; we didn't take that away from them, and then they hurt us on the glass. Their whole team did a good job, namely Scottie James who just came in and imposed his will."
On rebounding…
"It was one of the disturbing parts. We are not a good team right now. We have to get better. We have to come into practice every day with our hardhats on and our lunch pals. We have to quit feeling sorry for ourselves and get better. That's the only way to get out of the situation that we're in now."
On tonight's offense...
"We have to figure out a way to make shots. Our guards are our most experienced guys on our team. If we go 2-for-17 from 3, we can't let that affect our energy level on the other side. We can't live through our offense. Too many of our guys have that mindset when it needs to be the other way around. We need to be able to create some offense from our defense. We play good first shot defense and then we turn around and we look and we wait for Dinos Mitoglou and John Collins to fly in and get off a plane and come get a rebound. That's not happening."
On the team's leadership...
"It's going to come from us, and then it will trickle down through them. We'll continue to coach and we'll continue to challenge, motivate, prod, or whatever we need to do to get that motivation, to get that level of play that we need."
Liberty Head Coach Ritchie McKay
Opening Statement...
"I appreciate the effort our guys played with. I'm very familiar with Wake Forest, Coach Manning, their system and how well he and his staff respect the tradition and storied history that Wake Forest basketball has. They were certainly a team that we were not excited to oppose. Our guys really played with poise. We play with a pretty experienced back court. Even though they are not so experienced in years, they are experienced in the fact that they played very early as freshmen. When Wake Forest made a run, we were able to stem the tide with those guys' steadiness. As a result, we were fortunate enough to come out with a victory."
On offensive rebounding...
"We were last in the country in offensive rebounding last year so there has been a little bit more attention to it. Guys are not playing small, and we have some depth now, so guys are able to get some rest. I thought Scottie James played terrific tonight. He played with such a great energy and toughness-- he was awesome. The same is true of Isaiah Williams. Those two individuals on the post were really good for us."
On Wake Forest...
"I promise you Wake Forest is a good team and they're going to be in the mix. I would hope that their fan base doesn't go doldrums on them. They've got some young guys who are going to be really good. I've seen this group before and I know what a good job they do."
