March 12, 2004

Recap| Box Score| Notes| Photo Gallery

Gary Williams
Head Coach University of Maryland

(Opening remarks)
I would like to really congratulate our players. It was a great game, played hard by both teams, not perfect, but played hard. I thought we hung in there. We made a couple of mistakes, but we never quit.

Jamar Smith in the second half really went after the situation. We felt we could get him inside, and had (Eric) Williams in a little bit of foul trouble. The players did a good job of getting the ball into Jamar. That was a key.

We had a lot of guys step up and had some pretty good balance out there. We were in some foul trouble early, but we were able to get through it because our bench did a good job once they got in.

Wake is going to be a great tournament team. They come at you in a lot of ways. We were fortunate to play good defense on the three-point shooters for the most part.

They out-rebounded us by 17 at the Comcast Center. Tonight we got them by seven, and I thought that was a big change in the first two games.

(On the missed free throw at the end)
It worked out well because he got a piece of it. It's not bad to miss it in that situation, because it is going to be a long shot anyway, so one doesn't really matter. We are not that experienced as a team. If you start messing around a little bit there, you might get in trouble.

We wanted to make it, put Travis Garrison on the ball and hope we matched up pretty well. It worked out really well because John (Gilchrist) made a great play. After he missed it, he got a piece of it and knocked it loose on the floor.

Sophomore, John Gilchrist

(On stopping the Wake Forest run)
We are coming together as a team with our experience now. We all know that we need to stay positive. Teams are going to make runs, especially good teams in the ACC this time of year. They are going to make their runs and we're going to make ours. That's the nature of the sport.

(On the final free throw)
I wanted to make the ball hit the rim, so we could get a scramble situation. We didn't want them to be able to roll the ball up and get a good shot.

Skip Prosser
Head Coach Wake Forest University

(Opening statement)
Give credit to Maryland. In the second half they shot the ball great - from the three, from the line, from the field. Part of that is a function of our defense, part of that is they played extremely well.

They deserve the right to move on. We earned the right to go home.

(On Chris Paul)
He has been pretty impressive throughout the season. This was obviously an excellent performance, but I don't think it was a surprise.

(On timeout with 3.7 seconds left)
We discussed what we were going to do, make or miss. We had a play set up, if it goes in, a full-court pass that had worked pretty well for us. If he missed, the idea was to come up with the rebound clean. We told them, 3.7 seconds is a long time, but when we don't get the rebound clean, it was done.

Chris Paul
Freshman, Wake Forest

(On 30 points in his 1st ACC Tournament game)
That actually doesn't mean anything if we don't get a win. Defense has plagued our season so far. We came up short tonight and we're just going to have to go back to the drawing board and try to get ready for the (NCAA) tournament.

My teammates helped me out so much. I tried not to let the atmosphere affect me. Thirty points doesn't mean anything if we don't get the win. I'd rather score no points and move on and get a chance to play tomorrow, but it didn't work out that way.

(On Wake Forest's defensive effort)
Coach made many different defenses to try and stop them, but it's not up to Coach to stop Maryland, I think it's up to us. We've been talking about defense since the second half of the season. We're just going to have to step up and try to get stops ourselves.

(On Maryland's last play)
We pretty much knew John Gilchrist was going to get the ball because he's been their most effective player. We tried to guard him as best as we could. Unfortunately he got fouled and knocked down one of the free throws to beat us.