Jan. 23, 2010

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Head coach Gary Williams

Opening statement:
"The key for me in today's game is the fact that we really played well together as a team, right from the start. Grevis Vasquez is really showing his maturity in the game, allowing the game to come to him. There wasn't much there for him in the first half. He kept the ball moving and we were able to score and get the lead in the second half. He was able to do some things where he got some points, but the most important thing in Greivis's mind today was to win that game. He did a great job. Whether Cliff Tucker and (Dino) Gregory scored a lot of points is not the case, they keep us playing the way we were playing and we were able to do that, especially on the defensive end of the court tonight. I don't think there was any let down at all whenever we substituted."

On having a stronger defense vs. offense:
"As a coach, you always would like to think that your defense keys a lot of things that breaks the ball loose. I really believe as a coach, though, that if you are playing aggressive on defense then you are playing aggressive on offense. The same thing, if you are not working very hard defensively, you're going to be sloppy on offense. So, I think they are connected. I couldn't really tell you which one it is, but I know defensively in this league this year you have to play good defense if you want to survive."

On Greivis' play tonight:
"We saw a couple things that we thought we could score on. Sometimes, you make one or two shots and everything shows up and I think that's what happened with Greivis in the second half. It's important for the players to know that if Greivis scores, and he's going to score, that he is a great player. If he doesn't, we can still play. That's the thing getting out of the first half, Greivis didn't have a lot of points, but he played great. Greivis has got to know that that too. He played great even though he didn't score. Scoring is one thing that everybody measures, but its one thing. It's one part of being a great basketball player. Greivis's defense tonight was exceptional. He was the guy doubling down on (Tracy) Smith. That takes timing. That takes smarts not to foul him when you get down there, things like that. And he did that. That was a big part of what we tried to do defensively going into the game."

On fighting for loose balls:
"Yeah, that's the one (Baltimore Ravens head coach) John Harbaugh got all excited about over there on the sideline. We had three different guys dive in the paint on the floor. See, what you try to preach is if the ball is in the paint, you've got to get it. If it's on the defensive end of the court, if they can pick it up, they'll just put it in the basket. So, you've got to get at least a jump ball in that situation. You work on some drills and you do some things early in practice, then you have to depend on your players wanting to do it because you can get hurt doing those drills that gets you good at that. So once the season starts, you better have that in your defense or else it's not going to happen."

On being tied with Virginia for first in the ACC:
"It gives us optimism. We are pretty level-headed this year. We know we've played four (in the ACC) and we have 12 to play, so we just look at Miami and we'll prepare just like we did for NC State. We have two days to get ready, that's not much time, but we can do it. We've done that before with quick turnarounds so we will be ready to go when we play on Tuesday and we'll take it from there.

Senior guard Greivis Vasquez
On the team's performance:
"We just came out here and played our game. We played with good intensity, and we got the win."

On his play in the first half:
"I was just trying to get everybody involved and be a good leader and good point guard. Cliff [Tucker] did a great job, especially in the first half. Sean [Mosley] got it going, Landon [Milbourne] got it going, and there wasn't really anything out there for me. So I just tried to get those guys involved."

On the team's mindset going forward:
"We can't get too happy, and we can't get too low. We've got to be in the middle. We've got to continue to finish strong and work hard, just like in practice."

Freshman center Jordan Williams
On the team's mentality:
"We just wanted to come out and show that we're a team to be reckoned with, and now we're tied for first in the ACC. We just need to keep this up."

On the team's key to the game:
"I think the main thing was just being aggressive at both ends of the floor and not taking any plays off. That was huge for us today."

Senior forward Landon Milbourne
On the team's effort:
"We always put a big emphasis on playing for 40 minutes. Teams are going to make their runs, we're going to make our runs, but it's all about playing for 40 minutes. We struggled with that at the beginning of the year, but now I think we've pretty much got it."

Junior forward Cliff Tucker
On the second half:
"We talked at halftime about overcoming adversity and that just because they had their run, we couldn't let them take over the game. We came out and wanted to put it away in the first five minutes [of the second half], and that's what we did."

North Carolina State head coach Sidney Lowe

Opening Statement:
"Obviously they played well. I can't take anything away from them. I don't think we played as well as we're capable of, but I think you have to give them a lot of the credit. I was more disappointed in our lack of intelligence of the game...we didn't take charge, even some of our bigs had a chance to step up and we got out of the way so I was very disappointed in that. They were much more aggressive and more accurate than we were."

On what disappointed him the most about NC State's performance:
"I was more [disappointed] with the way it was executed. Just remembering what we were doing and getting to the spots and being tough. They were making hard cuts. I mean, they were making cuts and hitting us when we were on defense. We didn't hit back the way we should have. As a result, they were more aggressive. They had 33 free throws and we had 16 free throws."

On the team needing to play smart:
"Very much so. That's the part I was talking about, the thinking part. Not to commit a foul at that time after we'd made a run and gotten back in the ball game. That right there was obviously disappointing. You have to be smart. You have to think in the ball game. Smart teams always have a chance. If you work hard, and you're smart, they always have a chance because they're not going to make mistakes, they're not going to take bad shots. They keep themselves in the game and that last minute right there was crucial, getting the ball and getting free throws."

On if this loss was a disappointment following their big win over Duke:
"I hope not, and I don't want to use that as an excuse because beating Duke is certainly big but coming in here and beating Maryland would have been huge. It would have been huge. So absolutely it was big to have that win but then you have to get your act up to come in and try to beat these guys. That's a major task to come in here and beat them. I'm hoping that it wasn't a let-down after that game, especially with the opportunity that was presented to come in here and play a team like this. I don't want to use that as an excuse. I want to give them [Maryland] credit for how well they played."

On whether the mistakes from this game are surprising:
"This is out of the blue. We haven't had this one since...we haven't had this one actually. No, this is different. Definitely different. And I think that's why it was so disappointing because I didn't expect it. It was widespread. It was perimeter, it was inside, we just didn't get there. They beat us to every loose ball. They were diving and we were reaching for balls, and that just shows you the difference in aggression."

Junior Guard Javier Gonzalez

On his team's effort game:
"We played terrible defense. We weren't working hard enough. We weren't rebounding. They just played harder than us. They outhustled us and got a lot of offensive rebounds. They got to every loose ball."

On the Terps' balanced scoring attack:
"Everybody got it going [in the second half]. At one point everybody was hitting shots. It was kind of hard to stop everybody at the same time.

Junior Forward Tracy Smith

On tonight's game:
"I just feel like they came out and punched us first. Like we hit Duke first [on Wednesday], they came out and hit us first, and we didn't have the energy to fight back."

On the inside play of Maryland's Jordan Williams:
"He's a big body. He was solid. As a freshman, I think he did a pretty good job in ACC play. He stepped up big. He got a couple offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds and scored some points, and it helped."

On his performance against the Terps:
"I didn't get frustrated at all. I just had to keep working. They did a good job trapping the post."