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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 16, 2013P.J. HairstonMarcus PaigeRoy WilliamsGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA North Carolina: 79 COACH WILLIAMS: We feel very fortunate, I didn't think we played exceptionally well in the second half, I was pleased with what we did in the first half and the thing that killed us was points off of rebounds, they had 12 points each half off of offensive rebounds and that was big for them down stretch. I thought we would get the initial stop and they would get the rebound and put it back in. They played harder at times, smarter at times, had a better coach on the floor at times and we did some nice things at the end that let us win, I think it was at the end, Marcus made the jumper and I think it was a 3‑point game when he made another little tear drop, whatever you wanna call it, floater, and P.J. played 36 minutes, he was one tough sucker today, he's been a pansy most of the time I've known him but today he was one tough sucker. I think his hand bothered him a little bit, he played 36 minutes and is three for ten. He had some good looks, but at the same time I think that what he helped us do out there on the court was extremely important and I do believe that was a tough performance for him. The toughness that he showed today ‑‑ it's not fun playing with Marcus and James Michael setting on the sideline in foul trouble, but it's what it was. James Michael made two big free‑throws for us, and then we had Marcus and P.J. on the line, and I have a great deal of confidence in them, they made some, didn't make all of 'em by any means. Then we got fortunate the last play, if they had attacked immediately, we were not going to foul but if we had a chance around the 5‑second mark we were going to foul and try to take the 3‑point away from them but it didn't get to that and it was Reggie that got the rebound then, did a nice job of getting it to P.J. and P.J. kept it away from them and that was basically it. We are pleased with the "W" and know we can play a heck of a lot better, and we have to play a lot better. We're gettin' ready to play somebody who has beaten us twice by about eight million points ‑‑ THE MODERATOR: Questions? COACH WILLIAMS: ‑‑ or close. Q. Coach, Maryland kept fight and go fighting, but you guys were able to hang on at the end of the game. Talk about the resilience that your team had late in the second half. COACH WILLIAMS: We had two or three stretches. After we had a 12 or 13 point lead and made a huge mistake on an out‑of‑bounds underneath where Marcus decided he would guard Alex Len and letJames Michael guard Dez Wells and that's not a good match‑up and so they make three. And then we come down, kick it away a couple times, but then we made some plays. But they also made a huge run at us, and Leslie made a big three in the corner across from our bench and I think Reggie made a big three on the wing over there, there were two or three times they made big runs at us and we had enough in the tank to come back at them and it was huge for us and, again, James Michael's free‑throws and Marcus's little baskets and we had enough at the end left to get it done. Q. P.J., could you kinda go through the timeline a little bit from last night when you got stitched up, to this morning, to today, to when you started? Think you might be able to play and how it felt? Coach, I know it may be apples and oranges, what is the difference between him playing with the injury this year and maybe John last year, any correlation to maybe the chances of winning this tournament, as opposed to the next one? Anything like that? P.J. HAIRSTON: First, Coach has never called me a tough sucker. COACH WILLIAMS: But he was today. P.J. HAIRSTON: Last night I thought I was going to die. I was in the training room with my mom holding my hand. They told me okay, we're going to clean it out and stitch on it, okay, and as soon as the alcohol and the soap hit my hand I kind of screamed for my life‑‑ COACH WILLIAMS: See, I told ya. P.J. HAIRSTON: And after it was stitched up, it was sore last night. I got medicine from the trainer and the team doctor, and they asked me how I felt this morning, and everything felt fine and‑‑ well, it was sore, but come to the gym and Coach said, "Okay, I'm going to talk to you at warm‑ups, get out your warm‑ups, and I was catching the ball ‑‑ before we came out for warm‑ups, I was in the locker room throwing passes, me and Dexter, back and forth, and coming out in warm ups, it felt fine, I was catching the ball fine, my shot was going in fine, everything felt fine, no difference. COACH WILLIAMS: I have no idea what the question was‑‑ Q. ‑‑ has the makeup of your team given you a better chance in the next tournament. The make‑up of this team maybe be a little bit less cautious? COACH WILLIAMS: John's injury didn't allow him to play. P.J.'s injury did allow him to play. John was never the same John Henson, regardless of the fact that he came back and played two rounds in the NCAA Tournament, he was not John Henson. P.J. today wasn't what we have seen from P.J., but he was still able to play. So John's injury was a lot longer lasting, and a bigger affect on our team because he couldn't play, and when he did come back in he was much more limited even than P.J. was today, I think. P.J., a couple of his shots didn't go in. He had two great ones right in front of our bench, and I liked the toughness there because he missed the first one, it came back to him and he shot it again, because you need to have that confidence. To me they're really, really different, both of 'em. Q. P.J., toward the end of the game you seemed to stop shooting, had you ever done that before in your life? P.J. HAIRSTON: Uh...no, the shot wasn't falling and we wanted to have a great shot offense toward the end and Maryland brought it closer. We didn't want to force anything, we just wanted to keep the ball moving and try to run some clock off and try to get a great shot. Q. Marcus, you hit two big shots there down the stretch after sitting out 6 minutes with foul trouble. Did you feel the need to come in and reinsert yourself offensively? MARCUS PAIGE: I didn't feel the need to but we were trying to get a good shot and a couple of things broke down so I felt like I needed to make a play and get aggressive and they didn't send another defender and our guys were covered so I tried to take advantage of that opportunity. I was on the bench for a while but I didn't feel the need to force the issue I just kinda let the game come to me and a couple of opportunities presented themselves. Q. P.J., about 5 seconds left there might have been an opportunity for one of your signature dunks. Did you feel your coach's voice in your head to pull up instead and pass to Marcus? P.J. HAIRSTON: Are you talking about the very last second when I dribbled down‑‑ Q. The very end of the game you looked like you could have dunked, but you wisely pulled up. P.J. HAIRSTON: I was thinking about my hand so I was trying to stop. I figure we didn't need another point, I just wanted to pull it out. I figured I would do what the coach would have told me. COACH WILLIAMS: He's gettin' brighter. Q. Given the way this season started, what would being able to cut down the nets tomorrow mean to you guys? MARCUS PAIGE: It would mean a lot. We've had some ups and downs this year and we went through a period where we struggled, and a lot of people kinda doubted us, but the great thing about that is we stuck together as a team, and we finally started getting things clicking. So to get a chance to play Miami tomorrow, who has beaten us, like Coach said, pretty badly and have a chance to cut down the nets and be ACC Tournament Championship ‑‑ to win an ACC Tournament Championship would just be ‑‑ it would be awesome to see the season come full circle like that, going into the NCAA Tournament. P.J. HAIRSTON: He took the words right out of my mouth. Like he said, everyone had their doubts. At the beginning of the season, we started 0‑2, then went down to Florida State and had a big win, tough win for us and went out and played hard, and seemed like from there we started clicking. We lost a couple of games to Miami, but we didn't let that‑‑ well, we let it affect us but it didn't affect us on the court. Once we started clicking together and playing as a team and just playing North Carolina basketball that's when everything came together and we started playing with different intensity and a sense of urgency. Q. What can you do differently against Miami after losing to them already? COACH WILLIAMS: Play better. (Chuckles.) Make some shots. Hopefully not give them open shots. They kicked us pretty hard down at their place so hopefully we will get some fresh legs underneath us between now and whatever time we're supposed to play tomorrow. Tomorrow we won't start forty minutes late like we have every game in the afternoon session. Game will probably be on time tomorrow. I guess we'll have to make plans to do that. We just have to play better, I mean, they're a heck of a basketball team. They deserve everything, all the special things that have been said about them. They have scorers at every position, Kadji is a tremendously difficult match‑up, Julian Gamble and Big Reggie Johnson inside are a load on the backboards. Shane Larkin has had a good a year as any point guard in college basketball. Durand Scott today was off the charts. Trey gives them another shooter, Rion Brown comes off the bench, gives them another shooter. They're a big‑time team and they've shown it all year long. Q. Coach, how would you assess the way that Dexter and Leslie handled the offense when Marcus was out with foul trouble. COACH WILLIAMS: I will answer that but anymore questions for the guys? They smell bad. They need to get to the showers. Q. Marcus, I want to ask you about Dexter. Tell me about how he played today and the leadership he has brought to the team this season. COACH WILLIAMS: He's been great. He's our senior leader; he's been around for a while.  He understands what Coach wants and he's understood that since day one, which has kinda helped me especially coming in and trying to learn the system. And even today he did a great job, because he's able to play both guard spots, which has helped me tremendously, and in times when I was struggling, you know, we could go to somebody as sure‑handed as Dexter. He's done a great job of leading this team. If I have to sit out in foul trouble or something goes wrong like that, Dexter does a great job of sliding over to the 1 and running the offense. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, guys. Questions for Coach. COACH WILLIAMS: What was the question back there about Dexter and Leslie while Marcus was out? Is that the question? I think they did a really nice job. We had one turnover and Dexter tried to stop the fast break high and that added another mistake to the turnover that he made, but other than that, I think we did a good job handling the ball. Leslie only made one field goal, but it was a big field goal, but he goes to the free‑throw line for us and makes 6 out of 6 free‑throws. Those were the big plays for us. Dexter missed two shots in a row when we ran the shot clock down but other than that he shot the ball well. So I think both of them really did a good job for us. We need Leslie to do more than 1 for 7 from the floor, there's no question about that, but he busted his tail defensively and goes 6 for 6 from the line, and as I said, Dexter, 7 for 12, which means he was 7 for 10 before the last two shots, but I thought both of 'em were crucial for us. Q. I know you and Mark are close. What have you seen out of the development of his team in the three times you have played them this year? COACH WILLIAMS: Well, guys, you know, it's strange because they had almost a new team last year, new coach, and a couple of guys, and it's almost a completely new team this year. I just think he's done an outstanding job. It's a hard job, coaching in the ACC; is not easy. You have ‑‑ everybody is an expert and the criticisms and the whole bit, but he's one of the toughest individuals I've ever been around. I honestly thought he did a better job second half with his club than I did with mine, and I have a great deal of respect and care and love for the guy, and he's one of the toughest competitors I've ever seen many my life. And he's going to do a wonderful job at Maryland and has this year. Q. You talked about the loss at Miami by, your words, about "400 points" preceding the line‑up switch. Does this group match up any better? What are the challenges? COACH WILLIAMS: Seems like it was so long ago, except my memory of looking at that clock and seeing the score as I walked off the court and the way I felt during the game is that we had no control over anything. Smaller lineup has helped us. We're a better basketball team. Is it a world beater, is it the newest thing that ever happened, the best thing that ever happened, no. Today, 24‑4 on offensive rebounds, so we've got some deficiencies there but it was the best thing for this team. Whether it presents any different problems for them, we'll have to wait and see what happens tomorrow. Q. Roy, on that last Maryland 3‑point attempt were you expecting Logan to get the ball? Did you look for something like that? COACH WILLIAMS: No, we talked about two scenarios. We hoped we would get them to throw it toward the center line and not toward the baseline. If when they got the ball originally, especially if we made 'em throw it in the back we were not going to foul, but if we got them to take 3 or 4 seconds before they shot it, then we were going to try and foul, as I said, when it got to the 5 second mark. They ran that play‑‑ I think he was the third guy coming around and I think he rushed it probably, too. I don't think our defense made him take that rushed shot, but if they had gotten it down to 5 seconds or so we were going to try it foul and make them shoot from the free‑throw line and not take the 3, but I didn't know that specific play they were going to run. When they started running the play, it looked like that's what was going to happen and we were yelling at the guys then but that was after the play had already started. Q. Coach, coming in to today, Dez Wells has been as dominant and as aggressive as any player in this tournament and by my count Reggie Bullock kept him without a point for the first 14 minutes of the game. How do you quantify the importance of that? COACH WILLIAMS: I think it was important, but Dez almost carried them all the way back at the end, too. I grabbed him and told him he had a phenomenal performance for three days here, build on that. We couldn't get him ‑‑ we were trying to slow him down, and we couldn't get guys back fast enough to help Reggie, and it's hard to guard Dez when he's in the open court coming at you full speed. But you look at Reggie's line, he is 6 for 10, 3 for 6 from the three‑point line, 15 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 0 turnovers. That's a big‑time line. Reggie Bullock did some great things for us. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions? Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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