Feb. 28, 2009
– GEORGIA TECH COACH Paul Hewitt
On Carolina’s scoring
“In the first half they had 13 second chance points, which is something we felt coming into the game, I think Wes [Durham] might have said we were the two best rebounding teams in the conference, and that was something we felt like we had to establish. And I think that 13 point lead at the half gave them some momentum and then they came out and shot it really well in the second half.”
On the foul situation and giving up loose balls
“Nothing I can think about it…I was upset because we gave up 13 second chance points. I thought there were a lot of loose balls that we allowed them to beat us to. One time we wanted to press them, Drew was in the game, and we created a loose ball in the middle of the floor. And when we don’t come up with it, it goes from an obvious turnover to an and-one. So, those are the plays that had me upset.”
On Tyler Hansbrough
“He’s a great player. I wish we could have denied him the ball a little bit more. But he’s a great player.”
NORTH CAROLINA COACH ROY WILLIAMS
Opening statement
We feel good, I thought for a huge portion of the game we played pretty well. The last eight to ten minutes of the first half I thought defensively were good, I didn’t think we were early but the last eight to ten minutes I thought we were good defensively and somebody said they made two of their last 11 shots and I think that gave us a little margin at halftime. I wasn’t real pleased with the last possession that they made but that’s being a coach. In the second half I thought that except for a stretch of about four or five minutes when we had two (turnovers by) Deon (Thompson), one (turnover by) Tyler Hansbrough, one (turnover by) Larry (Drew) and one (turnover by) Danny (Green) stepping on the baseline, I thought we lost our concentration and were too casual at that point, but other than that we were pretty doggone good for the second half.
“It’s a tough year for Georgia Tech, but not only in this game but in every game they’ve played, they’ve played all the way to the final buzzer. Paul (Hewitt) doesn’t need me to critique his team by any means, but I think it’s hard from the way their season has gone to continue doing that, and I think you need to congratulate them.
“Ty Lawson, I told him in the locker room that may be as good as I’ve ever seen a point guard play when he didn’t score a field goal. I think that 11 assists and (on) three or four of (Ty’s passes) I know we missed a layup and (on) two or three of (Ty’s passes) we got fouled, so their could have been more assists for him, but I thought he was exceptional and I thought that Tyler Hansbrough, particularly in the first half, was a load for them inside and got them in foul trouble, and they do have the three big guys, and after that they have to keep changing the lineups.
“I do believe that Tyler Hansbrough and Ty Lawson, and then Danny (Green) in the second half, he did some really good things in the second half. We didn’t shoot the ball very well, you look down and we’re four for 14 from the three-point line and we’ve had some nights when we’ve shot it really, really well, but we didn’t do that. I was disappointed in the second-chance opportunities we gave them in the second half. I think at the half they had zero points from offensive rebounds, I don’t know what they finished up with…(asks question to Steve Kirschner)…so they got 13 points on second shots in the second half, we talked to the guys in the huddle about it so at least that makes them feel like I know a little bit about what I’m talking about. It was a good day for us, congratulations to Tyler Hansbrough, I told the guys in the locker room that’s not a North Carolina record, that’s not an ACC record, that’s a national record and that’s pretty doggone impressive.”
On team’s assists
Well we didn’t emphasize just the assists, we emphasized sharing the basketball, and we emphasized the 16 really, really, really bad shots that we took up at Maryland, but we emphasized the whole ballgame, and we had very complete practices, I didn’t try to kill anybody, I didn’t put anyone on the end line and say you’ve got to run until three people puke or anything like that, we tried to get better as a basketball team and they were full practices and I think it helped us a lot.
