Feb. 26, 2000

Recap| Box Score| Notes

Gary Williams, Maryland

"I thought we played extremely hard and took a pretty good hit from a very good player in Joe Forte and we still managed to keep our offense going and played well enough to win the game. I thought Carolina was really ready to play and they played well against us. There's no doubt about that. We had people like Mike Mardesich and Tahj Holden coming off the bench, who really played big for us. Coming into this game we thought we had to play tough against their inside people. To do that against Carolina, a team that is pretty well-balanced, we're going to give something up on the perimeter, which we did. At the same time we didn't get dominated inside which is why I felt we won the game."

"Mike Mardesich has won games for us and the fans know it. There have been games when Mike hasn't scored, but played good defense. Today he scored and everybody notices. But what I wanted out of Mike today was to be able to play Haywood for some minutes, which he did. Then he made a couple and got some confidence. He was a very confident player today."

"Juan [Dixon] is a scorer. He's a very good shooter, but he can just put the ball in the hole. He finds ways to score, in addition to being a good shooter."

Bill Guthridge, North Carolina

"Congratulations to Maryland. I felt coming in that they were one of the best teams in the country. Today I thought their stretch of 12 straight points put us in a hole. We had chances in the second half but we didn't capitalize. Their domination on the boards was a real minus for us. I though that and their run at the end of the first half was the difference today. Maryland is a good team. Gary does a great job. Lonny, Terence and Juan were great and Mardesich has had two career games against us."