Postgame Quotes: No. 21 Maryland 89, Virginia Union 59
11/11/2005 7:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 11, 2005
Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams
On Maryland's defensive effort:
"We didn't trap at all the second half, we just played straight man to man pressure, which comes in handy when you want to slow a team down. The first half we came out really wanting to work on our pressure and traps. We also had a size advantage."
On Maryland's toughness:
"I think our toughness was better tonight. Even when things weren't going real well in the first half, we stayed tough. You want to run good plays and all that, but there's got to be a certain feel of the team, and you can't let a game get away. You need to work on that just like you work on running your offense. You have to get to where losing is not an option."
On the improvement of the team this far:
"What I wanted to see in this first four-week period was if we'll buy into being a good defensive team. I think we're getting a certain defensive mentality. When you go up against tough teams, you have no chance to win unless you have that defensive mentality. I thought I saw that in the second half."
On D.J. Strawberry:
"He was shaky early, but that's going to happen. He's very competitive. You can't shake D.J. He'll make some mistakes because he's not a natural point guard, but he's really tough to play against. When he makes a mistake, he plays harder. Some guys don't do that, but D.J. does. He makes a mistake and tries to get the ball back."
On Maryland's balanced shooting:
"I think there's going to be nights when somebody is going to step up. Mike Jones, Chris McCray, Nik Caner-Medley, all those guys can shoot. Chris got it going in the second half, Mike got it going again tonight.
On Mike Jones' growth:
"Mike's taking more advantage of his athletic ability. Everybody always talks about his shooting, but Mike is a very good athlete. He's starting to do more and more things to take advantage of that athletic ability, which is making him a better player."
On Travis Garrison:
"He came in the second half and played great. He was aggressive with the ball. The big thing with Travis is he's got to score inside. Then he'll be a complete player."
Forward James Gist
On limiting turnovers:
" Coach Williams really stressed taking care of the ball. We have to be a team this year that takes care of the ball. We came out in the second half and lived up to his expectations."
On leading the team in scoring in the first half:
"I had a good offensive half but I have to do better taking care of the ball. This is when we can take a look at things and see where we are as a team. I am looking at the things that I need to take care of."
On his monster break away dunk:
"I was talking to DJ as soon as we got the steal. When we broke out, I was talking to him the whole way. I told him to drop it back because I was there. "
Guard Chris McCray
On the motivation Maryland has this season:
"We have a lot of motivation. We know we had a down year last season. We had a lot of good times and some bad times. If we can eliminate some of those bad times, we can go as far as we want to."
On starting the regular season next week:
" We ' re ready. If we play our first game the way we played in the second half, no team has a chance to beat us. "
Guard Mike Jones
On his role:
" I don ' t really care about starting. I like my position coming off the bench, as long as I get a chance to play. Once I get out there, it ' s up to me to stay out there. I can come off the bench and play 30 or more minutes if possible. It ' s up to me and how I play. "
On Maryland ' s guards:
" We have a bigger guard in DJ running the point. Teams tend to shade us to one side, but we have another guard who can shoot in Chris McCray and we tend to look for each other. "
Virginia Union Head Coach Dave Robbins
On tonight's game:
"We were honored that we got a chance to play Maryland. We didn't play as well as I would have liked, but we had three games in four nights and I think that took its toll. Maryland is a very good team and it was very hard for us to match up against them because of their size and strength. We played them well early and kept the game under control, but in the end, we just fouled way too much."
On Comcast Center:
"This is a beautiful facility and the crowd was definitely behind the home team. We play in front of sold-out crowds of 21,000 during our tournament, so we weren't really intimidated by the crowd; just by the team."
On play of Panthers' guard Darius Hargrove:
"He is one of our best players. He had 20 [points] tonight and he didn't get much help. He's usually a much better player when he gets some help because then the other team can't key on him. He's an outstanding player though."
On Maryland:
"I was very impressed by Maryland. They are a very well-coached team and they play hard."
On Virginia Union's play in the second half:
"There is no reason to be content with losing, so we tried to trap, up the tempo a little bit and get some steals. But they are coached well enough that they just picked us apart and got lay-ups, which they didn't get in the first half because we were playing safer."
