North Carolina State University Athletics
Post-game quotes: North Carolina at NC State
2/3/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
NC State head coach Sidney Lowe
“It was an unbelievable effort from our team on both ends. We knew that if we could execute and get the shots we needed, we would have a good [field-goal] percentage. Outrebounding UNC was huge. We knew we had to concentrate on that, and we came out on top.”
“We’re getting the looks we need and knew that those shots would fall. I keep saying we need to be patient and the guys did a good job waiting and forcing [UNC] to play defense for more than 40 seconds. I thought our offensive attack was great. We made a few turnovers, but we kept our heads up and made huge shots. We finished the ballgame the right way.”
On Courtney Fells’ three-pointer at the three-minute mark: “It was one of those shots down the stretch when the other team is making a run and we need to stop it. We moved the ball around the horn and found him when he was open.”
“ [Tyler Hansbrough] is a handful. He’s active, he’s aggressive. Our bigs held their positions and made it tough for him to do what he normally does.”
“We went zone to protect him [Engin Atsur] from foul trouble and to slow UNC down. We made match-up adjustments for who would cover [Ty] Lawson.”
“We needed Ben [McCauley] for his offense and his defense. He plays very intelligent defense and kept up our momentum. The younger guys like Dennis [Horner] might not be able to handle it as well as he did.”
North Carolina head coach Roy Williams
“I congratulate Sidney and his staff. You have to admire what they’ve done the last two games. I don’t know that I’ve erver had a team shoot 76 percent in the second half against us before. I have no answers. They had more passion for the game than we did, and I don’t understand that. I never will understand that. They dominated us.”
“I told Sidney how happy I am for him. I told him I was ticked off about how we played, but I didn’t say ‘ticked off.’ I’m ticked off, but I admire the way they played. I think the game they played the other night at Virginia Tech had a very big impact on how they played today.”
“We talk constantly about never allowing anyone to catch a length-of-the-court pass for a layup, and yet they did [Gavin Grant’s layup at the end of the first half]. I can’t explain it. We’re too fat and sassy right now. We thought we could win just by showing up, and you can’t do that. Every team in this league is good.”
“There is going to be adversity all the time, but you can’t just let people jump up and shoot the ball right in your face. There’s a certain amount of toughness needed to play this game. They didn’t give us the trophy last week when we beat Arizona. We went out today and got our butts kicked.”
