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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: RALEIGHMarch 17, 2016Joe DooleyMarc-Eddy NoreliaChristian TerrellRaleigh, North Carolina Florida Gulf Coast - 67, North Carolina - 83 THE MODERATOR: We are now ready to begin the Florida Gulf Coast press conference. At this time we'd like to ask Coach Dooley to please make an opening statement. JOE DOOLEY: First thing I would like to do is congratulate Coach Williams and North Carolina on a terrific effort. I thought the start of the second half obviously dictated the result. Really proud of our guys. I thought we played as hard as we could. We had a bone-headed start to the second half but I thought our effort was tremendous and I am really proud of our guys. Looking at some things I think Carolina, looking down the road, they will contend for a national title; they're so good. I am proud of our guys effort and complement Caroline on their effort. Q. Christian and Marc-Eddy, you guys must have been feeling really good at the half, very competitive half. Looks like they could have knocked you out in the first half. You really hung in there. How was the mood at the half? CHRISTIAN TERRELL: We were excited. We played a good half at the beginning and knew we had to keep up the intensity to come up with the win and we couldn't do that. MARC-EDDY NORELIA: Just like Christian said, we played a great first half and we made a few big mistakes at the beginning of the second half that kind of cost us. Just kept playing from behind and it was pretty hard to do. Q. Christian, Marc-Eddy, the first few minutes was there any sort of surprise or shock with the size and length of North Carolina? MARC-EDDY NORELIA: I'm long myself, so it wasn't a surprise there, and I think I'm fairly tall. They were a lot bigger than I expected, too. When I watch them on TV everybody looks proportionate to each other. But when you're next to them, maybe they're a little longer than they appear on TV. It was a great, competitive game but they were pretty big. CHRISTIAN TERRELL: They were as big as we thought they were. They were everywhere on the court. They seemed to block everything. Johnson had eight blocks I think, and they just controlled the paint. Q. You never lacked for confidence, but you seem to have a certain calm and poise about you. Can you talk about that belief that you guys had that you were going to get this done? Christian, that first three-pointer, you took your time and buried it. Could you both address that. CHRISTIAN TERRELL: Yeah. The first three kind of gave me a little bit of confidence going into the game. But we just know that if we make the right plays and I play the right way, we can compete with anybody and we showed that in the first half and made mistakes in the second half. So we couldn't show that in the second half. MARC-EDDY NORELIA: Just as Christian said, you always have to believe in yourself. You have to think about it. All of us are Division-I athletes. We believe in ourself. We work just as hard as they do. We just have to make the right plays every time and give ourselves the best chance. Q. Joe said coming in, that this was a really good opportunity. This is NCAA Tournament for you guys, you young guys. I'm wondering about things to build on for the future, and obviously both of you guys are back, you just lose two seniors. How do you feel coming out of this for the future? MARC-EDDY NORELIA: I feel pretty good. Now we see that we can't make stupid mistakes. We just have to play hard at all time, and give it all we got. We see what we need to do now playing with a No. 1 seed and see what it takes. CHRISTIAN TERRELL: We're very blessed to be here. It's just one of those feelings and experiences that you want to come back every year and you're just hungry to get back. I think that's where we're going be in the offseason, and I think we'll be back. Q. Hey, this is for Christian: You said North Carolina was big. They were everywhere, yet your line, personally seven assists, one turnover, how did you feel about the way you played, handled their depth and size? CHRISTIAN TERRELL: I think they were helping out a little bit on my drives. I found the open guys and just tried to make the right play and it just worked out in my favor this game. Q. They kept trying to separate from you guys in the first half, and they would push it and then you guys answered every time. Did you see the response in their faces at all, a little bit of surprise at all, that you guys weren't going away? MARC-EDDY NORELIA: Yeah, I could say that, because I don't think they expected us to compete at the level we did. And once we started -- like they started in the second half, they brought it up a notch and we made stupid mistakes that put us in the hole. Q. What mistakes were they making in the first half or what were you guys doing well that made you all be so successful? CHRISTIAN TERRELL: We were playing team ball in the first half. We were making plays for each other, and in the second half trying to play hero ball, like Coach said. Yeah, that's about it. We were playing selfish, I think. Q. You guys actually outrebounded them tonight. I think coming in you guys were really taking that. What was it like hitting the boards against these guys? It's very, very physical inside tonight. Both of you, just what was it like under the boards fighting for rebounds? MARC-EDDY NORELIA: It was pretty physical. We just knew we couldn't let up any second because they were a very good rebounding team. We had to make sure we box out every time and go and get the ball at the highest peak. CHRISTIAN TERRELL: Like I said before, they were everywhere, we just tried to match their effort and match their intensity and we did that today on the boards. THE MODERATOR: Other questions for the student-athletes? All right. Gentlemen, thank you, very much, very much. All right. At this time we'll take questions for Coach Dooley. Q. Joe, philosophically, how proud are you of what everything you guys have been working for displayed itself in the first half, all of the classic fundamental pure basketball stuff working very well? JOE DOOLEY: I thought the guys -- we played hard. I had no problem. We have no problem with our effort, and guys competed. Played as hard as they could. Lost to a better team and that's, you know, we can analyze and study, but, you know, they're terrific and our guys played as hard as we could. We just got worn down. Q. Joe, if you would briefly comment on the season overall, and then, you know, what -- you guys grew a lot this season and then, again, you said coming into this, this will be a great experience to build on for the future. And just how do you feel about this tonight and how do you feel about starting next season? JOE DOOLEY: I feel bad about tonight. You don't want the season to end. It's always miserable when the season ends. You take a week or so and look around. We got a lot of young guys, hopefully this is a learning experience for them. See what it takes. You can't play one way for a little bit and all of a sudden do it now. Part of it -- not part of it, most of it is a tribute to Carolina. When you come out and try to explain to these guys he is 6'11", he is 6'11". It's not a media guide misprint. Carolina does a great job of wearing at you. They had four great posts. They had depth on the perimeter. Hopefully the young guys understand, you got to get stronger, you got to get bigger, hope to learn going into next season. Q. Joe, from your remarks, and from Marc-Eddy and Christian earlier, it sounds like you feel like the game got away from you in the second half. It's not very common that a 16 seed gets to say that against a 1. JOE DOOLEY: I'm sure Coach Williams challenged them at halftime. We had 14 turnovers. It wasn't just the turnovers. Some is shot selection. It's like live-ball turnovers. We ran in there on first sides instead of getting the ball to the third side, getting the ball in reverse, we came down and went early, and that's when the game really got way. That's when we stopped running offense. We scored and we tried to score quicker than they scored. That put us in harm's way. You can't give them transition. When you shot bad shots and they block it. Next thing you know it's a three-point play the other way. Some of those shots weren't turnovers but they should've been. Q. Joe, could you comment on Christian. Tre gave you a big lift tonight. JOE DOOLEY: Tre played well throughout the year. He's been a real factor. Unfortunately he put himself in harm's way with cheap fouls. He fouled on a rotational deal when he shouldn't have fouled, and then he hip-checked the kid on a ball screen, which wasn't part of the play. We have to get him to where he can play 25 minutes at an effective rate. He's gotten good at the post. Scoring more effective. His field-goal percentage has gotten up and he's a sophomore. Hopefully there can be a sophomore to his junior year just like Christian. Q. Can you comment on Christian and Marc-Eddy? JOE DOOLEY: I thought once Marc-Eddy figured out how tall Carolina was and played facing them a little bit more. I thought he was a little bit effective. He had a couple open shots he couldn't make. For the most part I thought he played well. Christian was aggressive. For the most part found guys open. That's why he had a career-high in assists. Q. You guys touched on my question about Christian. You mentioned his career-high and assists. His season assist-turnover ratio was 1.5-1 but today 7-1. What do you attribute that to him seeing? And then also, what would you like for him to work on for next year? JOE DOOLEY: He's got very good vision. I think he has a tendency to dribble one too many times. I think he'll improve at that next year. He'll see something, he'll take one more to try to get a little closer. If Christian can put on 15 pounds of muscle. There's no telling how much further he can take his game. I think it would help a lot of things. First of all, I think it would help his confidence. It will help him not get worn down. He's 175 soaking wet. I think if he can does those things, he can make another jump. If you look at the jump he made in his freshman and sophomore year, he made a job and I hope he does. Q. Speaking of next year you have two guys on red shirt this year who become eligible. You have three freshmen that we know of coming in. That's the first time you'll have 13 guys on paper starting. Can you talk about the prospect of having the experience and that array of bodies, all of the style that you like and what that could mean for this, you know, this program? JOE DOOLEY: Hopefully this will be a learning deal for our program, our guys, create competition in practice. I imagine, you can see one of the reasons North Carolina is so good, because when you got those type of guys in practice every day and you're competing against them every day, you've got two ways to go: Either you compete and get better or you get left behind. I think it's a great lesson to learn. If you want to be a competitor, you have to go every day in practice and play against the guy in front of you, take his spot or let him take yours. Our guys will hopefully learn that. We got enough depth going through the year that it will be very competitive. Q. You talked about Tre developing in the post especially the latter half of the season, between him, between Johnson, between Terrell. Is there any one player that you think improved the most from the start of the season until today? JOE DOOLEY: I would have to say Zach. Here's a young man -- Tre got to practice. Here's a young man a year ago that was not able -- everybody said he redshirted. He shot free throws. He couldn't practice, couldn't shoot, couldn't do anything with movement involved. You put the ball in his hands and say, make good decisions and get the other four guys involved. You're a freshman and you haven't played in a year. You look at December on, his assist-turnover ratio, the way he scored. Obviously he saved us in several games. He'll make a big jump from this year to next year because he's seen it all now. We're excited to have him, very excited. Q. Should people expect to see FGCU in the Tournament next year, maybe as a better seed? JOE DOOLEY: You know what, we'll line up tomorrow and figure out tomorrow. We'll line up next year and try as hard out again. Like I tell you guys, it's hard to get here. There's teams throughout the country -- there's good teams; there's 68 of us. We'll line up again next year and try as hard as we can. THE MODERATOR: Any other questions? All right. Coach, thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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