Feb. 9, 2008

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Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams
On tonight's game:
"This is probably the best job we've done in the league. Coming down the stretch, I was very pleased with the way we ran our offense. Defensively, I thought we really picked up the energy in the second half. I think that really got through to our offense. Sometimes when you're really working on your defense it just carries over to the offense. We worked hard in terms of setting screens and getting people open. I thought Greivis Vasquez was terrific - he had 15 assists. I was pleased with our freshmen tonight. Cliff Tucker, Adrian Bowie and Braxton Dupree all contributed when they were in there and Dave Neal gave us some good minutes in the first half. That really helped with getting our starters out of there for a period of time."

On the performance of sophomore Greivis Vasquez:
"He shot better up at Boston College, but other than that, he really made some big shots in the first half when we needed them. We just couldn't score there for awhile. What he's doing defensively, he guarded Rice up at Boston College and tonight he was on Fells who is a pretty good shooter. He's doing some really good things defensively that might not get noticed. Offensively, he's just tough with the ball and he just likes to compete."

On senior James Gist scoring a new career-high:
"I'm surprised at the end of the game to see he had 30 points, I really was. That's to James's credit that he didn't go outside of what we were trying to do to get his points and to the other players on the court that they were willing to pass him the basketball. What James has done is he's gotten himself into great physical condition and he can run the court with anybody his size. If he gets open, we'll find him. I think he believes in that and that's helped him."

On what was said in the locker room at halftime to bring about the turn-around in the game:
"We all talked, it wasn't just me. We talked about how badly we wanted to win the game and how much better we thought we could play. You can say all of those things, but the players have to go out there and do it in the second half and I think that was the key. They just knew they wanted this game, but we hadn't paid the price in the first half to get it. We did a good job getting it down to a two-point game in the first half and I think that helped walking into the locker room. There wasn't a lot of yelling or anything. It was just us making up our minds that we had to do more things if we expected to win the game."

Maryland Senior James Gist
On the Terps' pregame mentality:
"We realized the importance of this game. We had two games we got road wins in and we got a chance to come back home and play in front of our crowd. It was big to get this win tonight."

On Maryland's slow start in the first half:
"We came out a little soft in the beginning and tried to pick it up as the half went on. But when you start out laid back it's kind of hard to get things going. Our main focus was to get it going in the second half and I think that's what we did."

On the team's progression throughout the season:
"We've matured a whole lot. We're playing together. We're all playing hard. Every minute out on the court we're just playing hard. I think that's the main difference from the way we played at the beginning of the year."

Maryland Sophomore Greivis Vasquez
On Maryland's inspired play in the second half:
"We didn't play very hard in the first half. We came out in the second half and focused on playing harder. We played well on offense. We played great defense. I'm proud of my guys. I thought Eric [Hayes] played great. It feels good."

On his career-high 15 assists:
"I'm proud of James (Gist). It's about team effort and that's how we got the win."

Maryland Sophomore Eric Hayes
On Greivis Vasquez's performance:
"He saw the floor great tonight. He penetrated early in the game and got to the basket and scored a little bit. In the second half they were kind of helping off him on the drive and he was finding open guys who were knocking down shots."

NC State Head Coach Sidney Lowe
Opening Statement:
"I thought we played a pretty good first half up until the last couple minutes when we took a couple of bad shots. Then we came out a little flat [in the second half]. We weren't sharp defensively and obviously Gist had a tremendous game."

On the team's second half play:
"We played a nice, solid first half and then came out in the second half and didn't increase the intensity. That's something that we're dealing with right now. You have to come out and turn it up, especially when you're on the road. They did that. And as I said, Gist just went crazy. He's a very good basketball player, but I didn't think we fought him enough in the second half."

On the team's defense:
"I thought we did a great job in the first half and I thought that was encouraging. We have to get to the point where we can duplicate that in the second half. The defensive end is where you win it, especially in the second half. We were good defensively in the first half to give up only 31 points and we need to duplicate that. But they came out and scored the first eight of nine times down the floor. Some of those were due to mental errors on our part and against a team like this you can't do that."

NC State Freshman Center J.J. Hickson
On the loss:
"That's been our story all season. We've been up through half time and the first five minutes of the second half then we'll just blow the lead; no execution."

On James Gist:
"He was a major factor in keeping them in the game in the first half but the whole team fed off of his scoring and playing with confidence and it showed in the second half."

NC State Senior Forward Gavin Grant
On the loss:
"We came out flat again. We played Duke and had the lead, it was only by two points, but it was a road game and we came out flat in the second half. We've done that a couple of times - came out with the lead then came out flat, but its something we have to work on. I think we did pretty well in the first half. We did a good job in controlling the tempo. In the second half, I think they wanted it a little more than we did. "

On halftime:
"You can talk about it but if you don't do it it's not worth anything. We definitely didn't go out there and do what we had to do. They went out there and played pretty well and did what they had to do. James Gist is a great player but it was just bad defense on our part."