March 10, 2011

Recap |  Box Score |  AP Photo Gallery 

Head Coach Gary Williams

Opening Statement:
"The players did a very good job of preparing. In other words, we lost three games last week and had a tough type of week. A lot of things happened that weren't good and we were tough enough to come into practice and work on some things that we thought we needed to do to get ready to play tonight's game. To NC State's credit, they come out and they didn't go away. I thought we were in pretty good shape there in the second half and they made a great run and that just shows you how the players feel on that team. They are there to play and win a game just like we were. We were fortunate to get a lead. We made some big free throws down the stretch. These two guys have had a tremendous year working with some new guards, and it has been a work in progress all year. We haven't got to the point all year, but tonight was really a positive step for us moving in that direction again. We learned something about ourselves tonight which is always a key."

What did you learn tonight?
"I thought we learned we could win. Winning is a fragile thing. We lose tough games and the doubts start to creep in. You have to have tough people like the guys sitting here beside me (Dino Gregory and Jordan Williams) to prevent that from happening. We have a young team and it is up to the guys who played last year to be the leaders. I thought Jordan and Dino and Cliff Tucker and Sean Moseley coming off the bench giving us a boost. When they do that, it is a lot easier for the freshmen to make the free throws down the stretch."

How will you change your strategy for the game against Duke since you had a bad loss against them?
"We'll show up, No. 1. And then strategy-wise, that's between us. So we'll be ready to play. Whatever happens tomorrow night, we'll be ready to play, I guarantee that."

What went into the decision to start Haukur Palsson:
"He's one of the players who is a street player. In other words he brings some excitement one way or the other to the game and he was great early. That got us off to a great start, and that was tremendous. And the other guys behind him really stepped up and Hauk came in and made a couple of really good inbounds passes for us down the stretch there. It's great to see him do that as a freshman to walk on the court in the ACC Tournament and play that well."

What do you take from tonight's game?
"The positive thing is that we won. Believe me, that's really important, especially at this time of year, to get that win. And now we feel good in preparation. You have to scramble to prepare because we put everything we had into NC State to get ready to play. Now we play Duke. We played them twice, so we have a pretty good idea what they do. Now we've got to find some things that we can do, hopefully do some things defensively that will bother them. It's like any other game to prepare for, except you have a short window. You have 24 hours and you have to get ready to play. It's a long night for the coaches, but the big thing for the players is that they have to rest. We should have our rest. We should be fine. We had some days off before this game and we'll get a good night's sleep tonight and go from there."

In the first game against NC State, they made a run at the end of the first half and made it close. Tonight the guys stopped that tonight. How important was that?
"I thought it was the key. We've been preaching defense all week. I thought our defense wasn't as good as it could be the last week, so I was glad to see us get some stops. We have to be that way. Whatever games you have left to play this time of year you're not going to win without playing good defense because the teams you'll play from here on out are very good defensively, starting with tomorrow night. You've got to match that, that's the big thing with defense, you have to match the other team's intensity level, the other team's ability to play defense. Hopefully, we can do that."

Talking about State, you said it shows how the players on that team feels - what do you mean by that?
"I loved the way they came back. I didn't like it at the time, but looking back at the game now I respect what they did. They made us work all the way up to the end of the game. Players don't do that unless there's a reason why they're doing it and I really respect the NC State team, how they approached this thing."

Senior Forward Dino Gregory

What do you think you learned from this game?
"We found out we are a pretty tough team. We put our minds to it and our focus tonight was to believe in ourselves and to go out there and play as hard as we can and we did that."

For the players, you both really started off fast tonight. What was the difference from last week?
"My thing was aggressiveness. Coach wanted us to come out aggressive and play NC State really hard and I thought we did a pretty good job at the beginning of the game."

Sophomore Center Jordan Williams

What do you think you learned from this game?
"After our three losses it was definitely a good time for us to come out and get a win tonight. At this time, we just take it game by game and play by play. We trust each other and trust the coaches and I think we are going to be a tough team to beat."

You guys played Duke tough at Cameron but it got away from you in College Park. What can you take away from those games?
"I remember in Durham we just came out with an aggressive attitude. We didn't care who they were or what their ranking was. We just came out and played aggressive. The second game we played flat the whole game. We took the first game and took them lightly. It's important for us for definitely to come out with the same fire we had in Durham and be ready for it. All the guys will be excited about it. We'll definitely come out with that fire.

For the players, you both really started off fast tonight. What was the difference from last week?
"Just come out with fire right away. We wanted to show them we had more energy. We hit some shots which obviously helped so we just had a little momentum from there."