|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2018Jim LarrañagaJa'Quan NewtonNew York, New York North Carolina - 82, Miami - 65 JIM LARRAÑAGA: Well, we felt like there were three things we had to do, and we didn't do two of them. Carolina deserves a lot of credit for that. They are a tremendous team in the open court, and we were not able to get back and set our defense enough times throughout the contest to put ourselves in a position to win the game. We gave up way too many lay-ups, and then second shots, they were all over the offensive boards, especially in the last 10 minutes of the game. We didn't turn the ball over that much, which was good, but we didn't defend them great, either. Congratulations to them. We have a tremendous amount of respect for Roy Williams, his staff and that program, and we played a great game against them in Chapel Hill nine or ten days ago and were hoping to play that well today, but we really showed our inexperience. We were very anxious, in a hurry, and right in the very beginning, even when we had the lead, some of the shots we took and plays and decisions we made were really not characteristic of the way we've been playing. Hopefully we can regroup, and hopefully we'll be chosen for the NCAA Tournament, and we'll get ready for that. Q. Jim, the way the game was going back and forth so fast, can the pace sometimes get too fast on a team? JIM LARRAÑAGA: Well, I think what ends up happening is when the game gets very fast, your mind needs to slow down. You can't have your mind going fast forward while you're running at top speed because eventually you've got to make a decision, and at the end, we weren't making good decisions at top speed and they were. They made better plays in the second half in the open court than we did. Some of the credit just goes to their players, who did a terrific job, and some of our situation, I think, we -- playing three freshmen, first time in the ACC Tournament, and we got very, very anxious. Q. Ja'Quan, talk about how disappointing it is to lose a game where you get out to such a big lead at the beginning. JA'QUAN NEWTON: Very disappointing knowing that we had a big lead on them, but there's nothing we can do now. We just go back, watch film, see what we did wrong and get ready for whatever is next for us. Q. Coach, a little bit of a clarification from your opening statement. You said you didn't do two of the three things you needed to do. I think I caught not getting back on defense, giving up second shots. The thing you did right was not turning the ball over? JIM LARRAÑAGA: Yeah, exactly. Q. And how many of those three things did you do right in the win nine days ago? JIM LARRAÑAGA: Well, we didn't turn the ball over. I can't remember the numbers on the rebounding, but it was (indiscernible), and we gave up some fast break points in that, but we also got some. It was kind of very well-balanced. In that game we got ahead not immediately, we fell behind 16-8, but by halftime we had taken the lead, and by the start of the second half we were up 16 with about 16 to go. And then they went on a tremendous run. Their defense was picked up, and we got a little scattery. But Ja'Quan was really in control that day and really distributing the ball well, and then at the end he made a lot of big plays. He scored nine straight points in the closing minutes of that game to get us the win. Q. I'm wondering if you could give me a little sense how you feel about your team going into the tournament, how you are in real time. JIM LARRAÑAGA: I might look at things a little differently than most certainly fans and coaches, but I think the NCAA Tournament is really about who plays well that day, are they in sync with their teammates, are they really playing at the top of their game. One of the things that you can look up statistically is how many wins a team has away from home because there are a lot of teams in this country that play a lot of home games and do really, really well at home, not so great when they have to travel. And the NCAA Tournament is not played on your home court. Our team, we've got, I think it's eight wins on the opponents' home court or something like that. We're like 8-5 or 8-6 or something, and I think there's only three teams in the ACC -- no, four teams in the ACC with winning road records, and that's Virginia, Duke, Carolina and Miami. And if you look around the country, that's true in almost all the leagues. There are a lot of good teams who are good at home and not so good away from home so I think we've got as good a chance as anybody, even though we're young and we do lack experience, but this will be our third trip to the NCAA Tournament, and that makes me and my coaching staff feel good about our chances no matter who we match up with. Q. I know it's important to have the lead at the half; how important was it in your view, that last foul call instead of having a lead at the half, you guys are down at the half, and it seemed like that was a deflating play. JIM LARRAÑAGA: I really thought that was a very typical situation in terms of us not being as sharp mentally as we needed to be. We just didn't make smart decisions. We had a nice lead. We were playing well, and all of a sudden we started rushing. We got caught up. We had a couple of fast breaks where we hit under the rim because the defense was swiping at the ball and we were not in control. Yeah, it was important. It was definitely a shift in the momentum. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|