Wake Forest Athletics
Post Game Quotes
11/27/2018 10:12:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Opening Statement
"I thought we came out today and got off to a pretty decent start, at one point in the first half we had an 18, 20 point lead. Unfortunately, Western Carolina made a run and did some good things, made some shots. They had like five threes at the half, banged in that long one at the end, giving them a little boost going into halftime. I thought we came out in the second half and we did some okay things, but we need to continue to work to get better defensively. I was happy with the way our guys responded late in the game this game, coming off our last game."
On why the early lead dissipated...
"I mean you're not going to shoot at the rate we shot at for that long of a period, to be honest with you. That's part of it. We also have to get the ball inside. We didn't do a good enough job of that at times because we missed some guys with opportunities to catch the ball in closer to the post, so we have to do a better job of getting inside as well."
On Olivier's play and potential...
"He's still a really young player, he's got a world of potential. He's working hard, he's a tireless worker. He gets after it each and every day. Offensively, it's going to start coming. You see the seven rebounds, you see him having a presence force, we only had two blocked shots and he had both of those. That's always something that we value, someone protecting the rim for us."
On the size mismatch and issues on rebounding...
"Well they had one guy get 16 (rebounds). We should be better, but (Dotson) is a load. Make no mistake about it. He went after it and got some defensive rebounds, and three offensive rebounds that were pretty big. We just have to do a better job of going to get rebounds. It's not just our big guys, it's everyone across the board. We have a formula for rebounding, and I don't think, maybe with the exception of Olivier, nobody really hit their formula, hit their number today. It's about rebounds per minute. So that's something across the board that we have to continue to work and get better at and something that we chart and make note of."
On how close the game was at the end after being up early...
"That's college basketball. You know, it just happens. Tonight we lead the game for 37 minutes and we lose the lead late in the ball game. I'm happy and proud of how the guys continued to fight, especially those last minutes. Isaiah (Mucius) comes up with that big deflection steal and Jaylen (Hoard) comes up with a loose ball for us as well. Thought that was obviously very key for us."
Western Carolina Head Coach Mark Prosser
Opening statement
"I'll start by saying it was great to be back here. I think the world of this place, university and men's basketball program. I think very highly of Coach Manning and staff, they do things the right way. It's fun to come back and play. At the end of the day, Wake made the winning plays down the stretch that we didn't make. I'm proud of our team and what we showed. It says something about our men to come back as it starts to get blurry and fight to take the lead with around two minutes to play. It's a process learning how to win and make winning plays down the stretch. Again, Wake's players are very well-coached, they have a very talented team and they deserved it. We will learn from it and move forward. Wake Forest is a wonderful place, it's like home for me and my family and they have wonderful young men on their team."
On the first few minutes of the game...
"We've had a couple starts like that, and we talked as a team after. Our willingness to fight back and counter punch says a lot about our kids. It's good to see a couple games like this early in the season. They're wonderful kids, they are fun to coach everyday and they are very good student-athletes. They show fight and that's who they are. We're not panicking at the first media time out. They made a bunch of plays throughout the game to put themselves in a position to win, but at the end of the day Wake Forest made enough plays down the stretch to win the game."
Chaundee Brown
Thoughts on the win...
"We pulled it out. Like Coach was saying, we were up 18 the first half and we got comfortable. But, you know, at the end we put a lot of energy in and. Jaylen and Isaiah, everyone chipped in and had great plays. We really bought in at the end and especially those two steals that Jaylen and Isaiah got, they put us up big. It was a good win, we needed that after our loss to Houston Baptist."
On getting too comfortable with a lead...
"Yeah, I don't know, we do the same thing in practice. We start off fast and then we'll just die down for a good 15 minutes and then we'll pick it up and then we'll die down. We just gotta stay consistent when we're up, like coach was saying, we just gotta keep driving and "chop their heads off", don't get comfortable."
Jaylen Hoard
On stepping up late in the game...
"I feel like it was big, we needed a win. It wasn't looking good the whole game, I'm not going to lie. We'll take the win, but I feel like it wasn't a good game for us, we can do better. Like I said last game, we had an 18 point lead and we gave it up and as a team we had six assists, which is pretty bad. As a team, we just need to move the ball more."
Brandon Childress
Thoughts on the game...
"A win is a win, I mean, we pulled it out. But we gotta do a better job of focusing on the defensive end. You know, at one point we were up 18 in the first half. They were a great team, they shot the ball, so congrats to them. But when we are up 18, we gotta do a better job of closing the game off like that."
On what adjustments need to be made...
"We stopped sharing the ball, we had six assists for the game. We can't do that, can't do that at all. As time goes along, it gets better and better, but we gotta focus on that and keep moving the ball."
