ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 4, 2021

Courtney Banghart

North Carolina Tar Heels

Postgame Press Conference

Wake Forest 82, North Carolina 71

COURTNEY BANGHART: Yeah, we allowed defense to be our heel tonight. I think we've been pretty good defensively all year long. We gave up -- I think we were averaging about 66. We gave up 82. Just not a good enough effort in March to get stops.

They obviously came in guns a-firing. There will be plenty of defensive breakdowns that when we break the game down, we'll be able to say, six inches here, a foot here. And then offensively we didn't move the ball or our bodies at the pace and the consistency that we have been all year.

It's been a long push for these guys. They had a must-win game for each of the last -- basically the whole last month -- and I think finally realizing that it isn't an absolute must-win, I think they settled in a little bit. We'll look forward to taking that and fuel that in our next contest.

Q. Do you think your freshmen were caught up in the moment with the ACC Tournament today? Do you think that was a factor in their performance?

COURTNEY BANGHART: I don't think our freshmen were the problem, I thought that they were -- if you look at their stats, Alyssa had a career high, Deja obviously did just fine. No, I don't think anyone, including our leader, Janelle, would point to the freshmen by any stretch.

Q. I don't want to look forward, but with your freshmen doing so well today, is that a bright spot, and does it kind of make you feel a little bit better moving forward just because I know in the past the last couple of seasons has been building opportunities step by step? Is it a bright spot for you?

COURTNEY BANGHART: Yeah, I mean, I think the way that I just told them in there, the way that Janelle and Jaelyn have brought in so many newcomers this year and really implored and taught them and showed them how to treat one another, so they could be a full team, and that's through everybody's individual struggles and inconsistencies.

As much as it's a bright spot of the freshmen in terms of their return to Carolina, it's also, I feel like the seniors that are departing us, in particular Janelle, she's leaving the program in a way she can be really proud. I know that if I need her, if these guys turn against one another, wherever she's playing I can call her and say, Let's go, and she'll jump on a Zoom and get this group right.

I think there's a lot of bright spots for this program. I know we're all happy with how far we've come, and we want to really show in March how good we are.

Q. This game was such a game of momentum, especially considering the history between UNC and Wake this past year and your last meeting, which was also a big offensive battle. What do you think changed offensively between this matchup and the last time you guys met in overtime?

COURTNEY BANGHART: Yeah, I mean, their guys made more shots. I thought we got it down to a two-point lead, we missed three straight lay-ups; Deja, Alyssa and Watts all missed a lay-up. So that pushes your lead to six pretty quickly.

We had some fouls with below five seconds on the clock. It was basically a possession game, and their guys in a possession game, it's whose guys find a way to grit it out on either end, and their guys actually gritted it out on both ends. So real credit to them. They took it to us there.

Q. I was looking at the stats, three-point shooting, is that something you guys got to work on, even if you guys move on to the NIT or another tournament game?

COURTNEY BANGHART: Yeah, I mean, first of all, we're not going to the NIT. We're going to the NCAA Tournament. We're fourth in the RPI, in the net, in our conference. The net takes into consideration the teams you've played against, so when you look at the top six teams in the league and how we've done against them, it's good wins and bad losses get you into the tournament, and we feel like we're in a good spot both ways. You shoot 4 for 16 from three and conversely they shoot 10 or 17, Petra going 0 for -- felt like 0 for 100, 0 for 4, Watts being 2 for 8, that's a problem. When your two seniors go a combined 2 for 12 from three, hard to win those games.

So you know, if we had guys that we think can really knock down threes on the bench, we would have played them, too, but I think we felt like these guys have proven over the course of a season that they give us the best chance, and it's too bad they didn't shoot very well today.

Q. You touched on this a little bit in your answer to the last question, but going in this was a matchup between teams which have been considered to be on the bubble of the tournament throughout the season. Was that weighing on any of your guys' heads going into the game?

COURTNEY BANGHART: No, I think the opposite. I think we've been on the bubble for so long and then finally we played our way off the bubble, so now we're not in the last four in, we're sort of where we need to be. So in a way I think it -- finally we can breathe and we hadn't breathed in literally a month and every game was like this urgent, you have to win or else your season is over. And then today, instead, we're actually playing for a better seed. I think that kind of -- we took our foot off the gas a little bit, but we'll have it back on when we need it.

Q. Can you talk about Alyssa's game? She seemed to do it all there in the second half, getting loose balls, scoring, making good passes.

COURTNEY BANGHART: Yeah, I mean, Alyssa, her play speaks for itself. To be a great player, your competitive fire has to be consistent, and the Alyssa you guys see is the Alyssa we see all the time. A kid that gives you that much effort you can win with, and you win because of. I'm really happy for her because she puts the time in. She takes her career very seriously. That's someone who hasn't had an off-season yet and when she does and when we can really continue to develop her skill, she's going to be a problem in this league for a long time. And that's not -- the fact that she wasn't on the All-Rookie Team I think was a complete oversight. There's no way this team is in the NCAA Tournament without Alyssa Ustby. No way. So I thought we sort of challenged her to show whoever didn't think she was good enough, and now in the ACC Tournament she's got 23 and 9 with only two turnovers.

Yeah, she's special. She can do a lot of things well, led most of all by the fact that she's got a winning spirit that carries her way through her effort.