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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 3, 2016Wes MooreMiah SpencerJennifer MathurinGreensboro, North Carolina NC State - 76, Boston College - 60 WES MOORE: Just was real excited to see our kids come out so focused. They knocked down shots. They got us going early with a lot of momentum, a lot of energy, and that was good to see. We've started a few games this year in the hole, and in fact the last time we played Boston College we dug a hole early. It was good to see our kids really respond and be ready for this atmosphere, and to come out and play as well as they did. Made my job a little bit easier, obviously. Again, they did a great job of knowing the scout and defending the way we wanted to defend and knocking down shots, as I mentioned, and taking care of the ball. It was an all-around effort. Q. It seemed like your players were really excited to go after loose balls and things like that early in the game. What got everybody so fired up do you think? WES MOORE: March Madness, March gladness, whatever. Again, they deserve all the credit. They came out with some energy and made plays. You know, it was fun to see. Hopefully we're building some momentum ahead of us. Again, couldn't be prouder of the way they came out and responded because I think a lot of times the team that played the day before has an advantage in the first half. They've gotten the tournament jitters out of the system, and they've already been out on this court quite a bit. I think the team that didn't play the day before has the advantage in the second half, but that's not exactly the way it worked out today. But overall I liked the way we came out, and we were very businesslike. They deserve all the credit for that. Q. Miah, how much of a factor was last year's slow start against Virginia Tech and how much of that was on your mind as far as preparation going into this game? MIAH SPENCER: I mean, one thing we talked about was just being focused at the beginning of the game and having momentum coming out and not like letting down or if they start hitting shots let that affect us. Last year's experience helped the older people, and I feel like we just came out ready to play from the beginning. Q. Coach, this was the most running I've seen you do in a couple of weeks. Was the game plan to not let Boston College get into a half-court game and try and take them out of a half-court game as much as possible? WES MOORE: Well, we definitely wanted to get up-and-down a little bit. We felt like with them playing the day before that it could be a factor at some point. We've got some posts that can run the floor pretty well, and our guards are athletic and can push it. We definitely wanted to try to get up-and-down some, and sometimes I'm probably the one that holds them back. Today they were able to just get out there and go, and made good decisions with the ball and knew when to attack and when to downshift. They handled it really well. Q. How much did you like the speed of the game early on and how much of a quickness advantage did you feel you had as a team and as individuals on Boston College? JENNIFER MATHURIN: As a team I think it helped us get going. Like Coach said, we could have had a disadvantage not having played yesterday, so I feel like we got our energy from running and from steals, and from that point on afterwards, I think we had the game under control. Q. Y'all were hitting three-pointers at a crazy pace early in the game. When you relax, is it just easier to do that? WES MOORE: Is this for me? Q. Anybody that wants to comment. Thing are going so well, seemed like you relaxed a little bit. WES MOORE: Everything is contagious, whether it be free-throw shooting, three-point shooting. Somebody hits a couple and then everybody gets happy and starts knocking them down. I do think it is contagious. Like I said, I think it was great to see us come out and start the game the way that we did. We looked really good then and it was good to see, because like I said, we hadn't played in a few days and hadn't been on this court much. It was nice to see us jump out early and play well, and I think a lot of that had to do with the energy level that they played at. Q. You were able to give your three guards a lot of rest this game that they have not gotten in a long time. How critical is that going forward these next three days? WES MOORE: Well, I would have liked to have gotten them even more. I guess I'm very conservative. When the game is out there, I want to make sure we finish the job or whatever. But it was good to be able to rotate them a little bit. We know tomorrow is going to be really up-and-down. That's the way Syracuse likes to play. So we're going to need all our energy, so hopefully we can get them off their feet tonight pretty quickly. The good thing is we don't play until 8:00 again tomorrow night, so we've got all day to recover. But no doubt we were trying to rotate them out some and keep them fresh. Q. Second half, obviously changing personnel, and to build up on that, they got some momentum and so forth, but going into the next game, somebody looking at the box score may say, wait, they got outscored the second half even though they got that great run there, but really you changed bodies and a lot of people who saw could understand, but really the little things that maybe you didn't do near the end, what do you tell your team to get ready for tomorrow? WES MOORE: Well, I mean, we're moving on. You know, no matter what, we've got to put this one behind us and focus on Syracuse. Again, they're a little different than a lot of teams in that they play zone almost exclusively and they press pretty much the whole game. It's not what you're used to seeing. Our players did a nice job at home against the press. Hopefully we can duplicate that. But you know, again, you also realize Boston College went to zone, so you don't necessarily want to show everything you have when you know you're going to see zone again tomorrow, so we kept it pretty vanilla and just let them kind of eat clock. Q. For both players, several really close losses this year like the one to Syracuse. Is that in your mind as you go back to play them? How much motivation do you have going into tomorrow's game? MIAH SPENCER: I mean, of course that game is in our head. It was a very close game at the end at our place. One thing I think that we are trying to focus on is not remember the game but remember it at the same time. Like Coach Moore said, they press. We can't let them speed us up. We have to control the tempo of the game and just play our basketball and not try to let them speed us up from their press. JENNIFER MATHURIN: I feel like as a team we tasted the close wins, so I think we were ready to just eat it. That's all I have to say. We need to eat. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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