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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: RALEIGHMarch 18, 2016Marcus PaigeJoel Berry IIRaleigh, North Carolina THE MODERATOR: We are now ready to begin the North Carolina press conference. We're going to start with the student-athletes. Q. This question's for Marcus: Marcus you played a little bit and have a familiarity with Kris Dunn. I'm curious as to what your relationship is with him, and what you remember of his game from playing in AAU circles? MARCUS PAIGE: It's been four whole years since I played against him. We don't really have like a relationship. We played in the McDonald's All-American practices, which are really competitive, and in a bunch of different camps and on the circuit. So I'm familiar. He's an explosive point guard. What really sticks out is his defense and length. He's got really long arms and uses his quickness to get a lot of steals. He's going to be a problem for us but we'll throw different guys at him and try to contain him and keep him out of the lane. Q. Marcus, I'm curious what you remember two years ago playing against Providence. You were probably the star of the game. Hit a lot of big shots at the end. Do you take anything from that or is it so far away? MARCUS PAIGE: I definitely remember. I think the star of the game his name was Bryce Cotton. Yeah, I played pretty well, too. Just getting a sense of how they played, their style, how they are going to try to attack us is pretty similar to that. Our team's obviously changed. Joel and his class wasn't playing in that game. So you can look back for some similarities, but this group is a lot different than that group. Q. This is for Joel: You and Marcus are both on the smaller side of the point guard scale. Kris a little larger. What are the challenges of guarding a larger guy trying to post you up? JOEL BERRY II: He'll try to post us up, since we're smaller than him. I guess it's like going against someone else. He could probably shoot over us, but we're going to try our best to try to stay in front of him. If he tries to post us up, try to get in front and try to let our big guys help us over the top. Q. Marcus, Kris came back for his senior year and you're a senior, can you talk about what guys miss out on their senior year that leave for the NBA for whatever reason, what they are missing out on? MARCUS PAIGE: Yeah. I think it's different for everyone. I didn't want to miss out on a chance to play on a team that I've had a chance to play on so far this year, one capable of making a deep run and missing out on this. This is what we play for. This is what we come back to school for, missing out on getting a degree and missing out on your education. ^ different guys are in different situations. A lot of time playing at the next level the money is hard to turn down. I don't think anything beats these four years. You only get four, so you might as well use them. Q. For both of you guys: Can you talk about playing here and what it means to have your hometown fans. It's kind of like a home game for you guys taking on Providence. JOEL BERRY II: Yeah, it means a lot, just having our home crowd here. That gives us a little boost out on the court. I know in the second half yesterday, once we got it going, they were behind us and it helped us a lot. That's a big thing for us. MARCUS PAIGE: Yeah, I agree. In the neutral-site game to have the crowd be heavily tilted in your favor kind of turns it into almost like a home game for us. So it's good to have our Carolina faithful behind us. Hopefully we give them something to cheer for like we did in the second half as opposed to the first half last game. It can give you a spark. If you make a great play and the crowd gets into it, it's easier to increase your level of play. Q. This is for Mr. Paige: When Brice starts kind of getting emotional the way he did last night, what does that do for the rest of the team? Do you kind of feed off of that or did you kind of look at him and say, that's just Brice? MARCUS PAIGE: The answer to that is yes on both fronts. We know that's just Brice but when he's making tremendous plays like that, screaming and yelling and jumping up and down an getting the crowd into it. We feed off that, too. It's hard not to. He's showing energy and excitement as a player. Everybody starts following behind and starts playing better. Q. Joel, your role has increased a lot on this team coming from last year to this year. How much do you think learning from guys like Marcus last year has helped you move forward towards this year? JOEL BERRY II: Coming in being a point guard, it s the hardest position to transition from high school to college. And when I came in, Marcus told me that Coach Rob was going to be in my ear all the time on the sideline. That definitely happened, and then Marcus just helped me out, you know, with different situations, and tells me what it takes to be a point guard here. It helped me out a lot. This year I think I'm playing with a little bit more confidence than I was last year. I worked on my game a lot over the summer. I just think it was like a confidence level and also being comfortable within our system. Q. Following up on that, Joel, not that you wanted Marcus to miss six games at the beginning of the season, but how much did that help you, knowing that you had to be the man, and he wasn't there to kind of lean on for that first few games of the season? JOEL BERRY II: Yeah, that helped us a lot. As a team, you know, it just helped playing without one of our key players, and other guys had to step up and step into different roles. And I think that's why Nate and Theo are giving us good minutes off the bench, because they had to step up when he was out. And then also, you know, just me, like I said, with my confidence level with Marcus out, it just helped me a lot just being on the ball and being able to make plays and just knowing that I can do that. THE MODERATOR: All right, gentlemen, you're excused. Thank you very much. Good luck tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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