North Carolina State University Athletics
Post-game quotes: Maryland at NC State
2/14/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Maryland] got baskets and rebounds because our bigs just couldn’t get up in the air with them.”
“When you get in the game, you have to man up and guard your guy. Our perimeters just couldn’t defend. [
Bryan] Nieman was the only one who did a good job staying on his guy during the game.
“We have to get back to work and improve our defense. It all comes down to guarding your guy, staying on him. The press on the offense didn’t hurt us, so we don’t have to worry about that as much.”“This time we made sure to get the last shot in the first half. We slowed down and made sure we took a good shot.”
“Our bigs were pump-faking and trying to get off shots. [Maryland’s] bigs can jump high, and it caused us to be nervous about our shots being blocked.”
“[Courtney Fells’] injury kept him limited. Even taking a shot hurt him. He tried to play defense, but he just couldn’t do it.”
Maryland head coach Gary Williams“This was a big win for us. We’d had some big wins earlier in the year and not come back and played well the next game. I thought we were a little out of sync at times in the first half. We talked at halftime about how we had to play at a certain level to win a game like this and we came out and played well in the second half.”
“I thought our bench helped us tonight. State is in a tough situation. They’re thin, and we felt that our depth could be a factor. We were able to rotate some guys in there and stay fresh, and that made a difference, especially in the second half.”“We were playing a team tonight that beat
North Carolina. In no way did we think that we were going to come in here and that it was going to be easy. State has a lot of pride. They play hard, and their coaches have done a great job. It’s tough coming in late like they did and having a thin team, and their coaches have prepared them well.”
“[Strawberry] talked after he scored. That happened a lot tonight, both sides. He got a technical. But he’s a senior. He knows he made a mistake, came to the bench and said he’d made a mistake, and he went back out there and played well. He helped us win.”“[Strawberry] had a lot of rebounds. We needed that. That’s his game. He rebounds a lot like a forward and handles the ball a lot like a guard. A lot of times at the end of the game you don’t think he was really on his game, but you look at the stats and he had a double-double. That’s his game, and when he’s on his game he helps us win.”
