March 13, 2004

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Gary Williams
Head Coach University of Maryland

(Opening Remarks)
A lot of people have asked me already what halftime was like. We talked about tradition of the University of Maryland. If you think about Maryland Basketball over the years there have been great teams and great players. We talked a little about tradition. You can talk all you want as a coach, but unless you get like the one sitting next to me (John Gilchrist) and Jamar Smith it doesn't matter. We have had a lot of pride on this team this year and that is what is important in that situation. It is not like you think maybe we are going to win the game coming out at halftime. But you know you are going to play. I had a lot of confidence in these guys after halftime. We wanted to play and that was the key thing in that situation.

(On maturation of current Maryland sophomores)
Looking back, it would have been nice to have played them more (last season), but we had four, and sometimes five seniors in the starting line-up that deserved to play. We had a lot to learn this year. This has been really special for what John (Gilchrist) has done this year because he has had new people with him. He has had to be the most experienced guy and he only played 14 minutes a game last year.

(On Gilchrist winning MVP of Maryland Basketball Camp when he was 10 years old)
Don't tell John this, but we give every kid a trophy. No, he got the MVP. I remember that. John was a little guy, but he handled the ball. You know who else came to my camp? Steve Francis. He was smaller than John. He was a pretty good ball handler.

(On gaining three Top-25 wins in the last 10 days)
Everybody can work hard when you are doing well. We have done that before. It is when you are losing that you find out about guys in terms of their character and individual desire to keep improving.

(On team playing more relaxed in the last few weeks)
I think there was some pressure on us. We were trying to keep a streak going for the NCAA Tournament. Whether the players wanted to or not, they heard about it every day. That was always a question as we got closer to the end of the season. It was tough on them, especially after not going through it before. They didn't have the experience with the media like some of my teams.

(On competing in a conference with teams with such storied tradition)
I always felt you wake up every day and ask anyone to name two and the top five programs in the country and anyone will say Duke and Carolina. We had a long time there, no matter how good we got, we were never placed on the same levels as those guys. I think we had to win the national championship for the University of Maryland to be respected. Not that we have done it as many times as those schools, but at least now Maryland is one of those schools that can compete at that level. That was my biggest fight. Fifteen years ago when I took this job I had to make people believe we could get to that level. I had one Dean at the school tell me you should run your program like Duke. That is the model program. I respect Duke's program, but we are Maryland. We are a good enough university to have our own program.

Sophomore, John Gilchrist

(On his second half)
When you're backed against the wall, and you know its do or die time, that's just going to show the heart and character of our team. Going through the rough turbulence that we had this season, it really helped us out as a team to come and deal with situations like that. I just took it upon myself. I said I'm going to do whatever for the team because I have this great opportunity to come out here and play for a legendary coach and a legendary program. That's just what I was willing to do.

(On Maryland's disruptive defensive pressure in the second half)
We knew coming in how deep in the bench that they were, and their rotation wasn't that deep. When we got the game up to our tempo, we started pressing and running and stuff like that, you're not going to be superhuman. Fatigue is going to set in. We just looked at it as an opportunity that's going to help us out. Play our tempo and then we can make up the points quicker.

(On matchup with Duke)
I'm pretty confident that we're going to play them, even though last time at Cameron they got us pretty good, but their record shows that they don't really lose too many there. When we played them at Comcast, we gave them a good fight. On this neutral site I feel that we're really going to come out here, coach is going to do a great job of scouting, and we're going to be ready to play tomorrow.

(On being recruited by NC State)
It's like this. (For) my parents it was pretty much a done deal. I was going there. I just had a feeling in my heart since I went to the Maryland Basketball Camp and won MVP when I was 10 years old. Coach Williams gave me a trophy, looked me in the eye and said, "Thanks for coming out, good job." I just had this idea that I was going to make it to the University of Maryland. Once I got the opportunity to come here, and I prayed about it, it was that I had to go to Maryland. It was in my dreams and everything. It was just my decision versus my parents' decision.

Herb Sendek
Head Coach North Carolina State University

(Opening remarks)
I thought the way we came out and played the first half was probably as well as we can execute. I thought we were really in-sync and playing sharp basketball. Our guys knew it was a 40-minute game and we certainly didn't have any thoughts that the game was over at halftime.

We knew that Maryland has an outstanding team and they would make a run. I think we were mentally prepared for that, but you have to give Maryland a great deal of credit. As sharp as we were the first half, they played that way in the second half.

John Gilchrist in particular was sensational...11-of-13, 30 points, seven assists, and one turnover. He played a really great basketball game. You have to give him credit.

(On the explanation for the technical foul)
We had a manager wiping water off of the floor when they either had in-bounded, or were prepared to in-bound. We had been warned to get that done quicker earlier in the game.

(On Maryland's second half pressure)
We were obviously a very thin team today. We had two guys who had been starting for us that were unavailable. We would have certainly liked to have had a deeper rotation, but that was our reality today and we had to deal with it the best we could. Our guys tried their guts out. They certainly were disappointed to have lost the game. Basketball is a game of runs every night. We were down 13 late in the game ourselves yesterday.

(On what turned the game in Maryland's favor)
I can't pinpoint any one thing. It was a series of 20 minutes worth of plays. If you go back in any basketball game, you can always identify a lot of would've, could've, and should haves. I am sure that when we go back and look at this film, we will be able to do that.

Junior Julius Hodge

(On Maryland's second half performance)
They played hard, played great defensively in the second half, and there was no die in them.

(On the fatigue their second half press created)
We were out there fighting in the first half and second half. They made the big plays that we didn't. We didn't have as much of a lift as we usually do off of the bench, but sometimes that's going to happen. You have to find ways to win and we didn't.

Sophomore, Ilian Evtimov

(On John Gilchrist)
I think he is a great player. He is very versatile. He's very good off the dribble, but at the same time he hit a few three's right on top of our guys.

He's a great passer. If he penetrated, we helped and he dished it out to the big man or to the wing and they converted baskets that way.