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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2016Roy WilliamsMarcus PaigeIsaiah HicksWashington, DC North Carolina - 78 Notre Dame - 47 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by North Carolina. We'll take an opening comment from Coach Williams. COACH WILLIAMS: We feel very fortunate that game yesterday afternoon with the five extra minutes with the overtime, I think it did a lot to take some legs out of Notre Dame. We were fortunate, I thought we played really well defensively the last five or six minutes of the first half, but they also missed some shots. Then we started out the second half, we may have scored the first three out of four baskets. I thought defensively late in the first half we were really good. Again, we caught them where they were missing some of the shots. I think getting Auguste in foul trouble early was important to us. Only bad thing is about 30 second after he got his fourth foul, Brice got his fourth foul for us. But Isaiah, 15 rebounds, was a big force, to say the least. Marcus, seven assists, zero turnovers. Joel Berry, four assist and zero turnovers. You look down at points off of offensive rebounds, we had 20, they had five. They scored 23 against us at South Bend off of offensive rebounds. In South Bend, they had two turnovers. Today, I don't think they had their legs. They had 17 turnovers. But we played pretty well and happy as we can be to be in the finals. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Coach, defensively what was the approach this evening and what was the difference in the first half? COACH WILLIAMS: We went small at that time because I think it was a little over five minutes when Brice and Kennedy both picked up their second fouls. We went small. I think we were very active. We didn't foul them as much as we'd been fouling them before that. I think that Marcus and Theo, Isaiah, Joel, I'm trying to remember, Justin was the other guy in the game, all four of them were really active defensively. Q. Historically this team has not performed very well without Brice. He was on the bench the entire six minutes at the end of the first half. What does it say about the progress of your bench that you can go on an 18-0 run with Brice on the bench? COACH WILLIAMS: I think it says a lot for our team. Isaiah has been pretty doggone good for us all year long. That's the impressive part. I thought Theo came in, other than taking the worst charge I've ever seen in college basketball history, I thought Theo was pretty good for us. Marcus and Joel made some shots in the first half. I'll have to accept your word for it that we've played poorly without Brice in there, but I'd say Isaiah and the other guys have played well all year long. We want Brice in the game, no question about that. Q. Marcus, you had a good shooting performance. What is it like to go in the locker room and not have to answer questions about your shooting slump, that kind of thing? MARCUS PAIGE: Actually, I still did, but it was actually about making shots this time (laughter). It felt good. I had a lot of confidence coming into the ACC tournament that I was going to be able to knock down some shots. To finally do that is a big weight off my back. It helps the team because we have to have balance. That helps us get some balance. We shot 40% I think from three as a team. That's a lot better than we've been doing. It opens up the inside for guys like Isaiah, Kennedy and Brice. I'm glad I did my part. Q. Marcus, you hear people talking about teams peaking at the right time all the time. Is this team in the process of that? MARCUS PAIGE: I think we're getting better. That's a safe answer. But we didn't even play great offensively. I think we shot 43%. But our defense is definitely peaking. We turned the corner a little bit defensively these past several weeks where we've been holding teams to low field goal percentages, doing a better job on the backboards. We're definitely hitting our stride, but I still don't know what our peak is, which is probably a good thing. Q. Roy, you said yesterday that to play for 40 minutes great defense is hard to do. How close was this effort? COACH WILLIAMS: I thought there's no question that we were really good. But we still screwed it up sometimes. But that's the game of basketball, too. I thought our effort was there. I thought we talked in the first half on the defensive end of the floor maybe better than we have any game since maybe the Maryland game really, really early in the season. Played the drive a little bit better. But again, I think we caught Notre Dame -- I think their legs were a little heavy. The bottom line to answer the question is, I think this came closer than we've had in quite a while. Q. Isaiah, you were voted the sixth man of the year. When you're sitting there the first few minutes watching, what are you looking for? What did you see tonight that enabled you to become a factor instantly? ISAIAH HICKS: It's the same thing every game. I look to see how they're playing. Ultimately it's my mindset, I'm going trying to be aggressive, trying to do anything I can to help the team out. Good things happen when I try to do that. When I try to lay back or something, you know, usually bad stuff happens. So it's just going out there, you know, trying to just be aggressive and trying to do everything I can to help them out. Q. When things are going as well as they were at the end of the half, into the second half, is it really fun to do? Do you realize that's happening or are you so focused on the next play that you really don't realize it? MARCUS PAIGE: I mean, it's pretty fun when you know you're playing well and clicking on all cylinders. You also know that a team that came back from down 16 to beat you, there's a lot of game left. It's way too early to celebrate. Watching the film from when we played them at their place engraved in our minds we couldn't celebrate early. We had to keep going. We had to finish the job. That was the message at halftime, to not have the same thing happen again. Personally, I was happy with the way we were playing, but I couldn't get out of my mind what happened earlier than ACC play. It's fun, but it's not the end of the world. Q. Marcus, when you play this way, people say it's like the old Marcus. Are you doing anything different? Do you feel anything different? Do you know this is coming? Are you surprised like everybody else? MARCUS PAIGE: I'm definitely not surprised. I know I'm capable of playing at this level. I was when I came back from my hand injury for a while before I started slumping or any of that stuff. So it was just a matter of time before I got my confidence back and played the way I knew I was capable of playing, just relaxing and playing basketball again and trying to have fun. Yes, I guess you could call it the old me, but I didn't think I ever left, even though I hadn't been playing at the level I was previously playing at. Q. How are you guys liking D.C. so far compared to Greensboro? ISAIAH HICKS: I mean, all I do is stay in my room and sleep (laughter). Marcus can vouch for me. I'm the player that don't really do nothing. I just go to sleep. MARCUS PAIGE: It's probably the same anywhere we go for Isaiah: a hotel room is a hotel room. I've enjoyed it. It's cool. My first three years, it's been in the same place. To have a different venue, it's cool. Obviously, it's a little bit more of a home crowd for us when we play at Greensboro. But our fans do a great job of traveling, give us support. It's cool to be somewhere else, be in the capital, witness some things. I've never been to D.C. before, so I got to see some things I never got to see. As long as we keep winning, I'm going to love D.C. I guess. Q. Marcus, that step-back first three you had, is that one of the first shots you look forward to going back and looking at, seeing the Twitter reaction? MARCUS PAIGE: Not really. I'll probably see it just because social media is so quick with those things these days. I liked that because it was able to get me in a rhythm. I got a good, clean look at the basket. Sometimes it's hard for me to get open looks because I get a lot of attention my way. Anytime I can get a clean look at the basket, I'm happy, I guess. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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