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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 15, 2013Reggie BullockMarcus PaigeRoy WilliamsGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA North Carolina: 83 COACH WILIAMS: We're excited to still be playing, there is no question about that. It was a nice effort for us offensively particularly in the second half to shoot 61%, problem is we let them shoot 54%, put 'em on the free throw line way too many times with ticky‑tac fouls, because they were laying it up, but to get through with James Michael, it was a weird play. You got to play without fouling, you got to work all the time to not foul but James Michael only play 14 minutes was big for us and P.J. was big early because he was all of our offense. We're extremely concerned right now, his hand is torn up and they're stitching it up in the training room right now, I have no idea, won't have any idea. I told you everything I know, it doesn't look good and they're stitching it up and I wouldn't watch it. It was split in the webbing between his fingers but he and I agreed we weren't going to watch while they stitched it up but Reggie, Marcus, Dexter, their ratios were great and Reggie's baskets in the second half were big. We would have made 100% of our free‑throws if Marcus hadn't missed one. Q. Did any of the players see what happened and how the injury occurred? REGGIE BULLOCK: He was the only one on the end of the court and going down to the other end so none of us seen it. COACH WILIAMS: The guy was trying to steal the ball and when you see that blood you're a little delirious. I couldn't say and he had the ball and slammed between the ball and he felt like the ball jammed between his fingers and that's what he said. Q. Do you guys feel that you're at your best when you guys are running? MARCUS PAIGE: Definitely, when you get transitions and get stops it helps you, whenever you can be in transition you can shoot a higher percentage and we pride ourselves getting out on the break and we weren't able to do that much the first part of the game but second half we started getting out on the break and putting more pressure on them. REGGIE BULLOCK: He took the words out of my mouth but every day in practice we have the wings get out and run wide and we had to turn it up on the defensive end of the floor and turn it into transition easy buckets. Q. Marcus, can you talk about what happened from your perspective when you guys generated the 17‑5 run right after James Michael went out? MARCUS PAIGE: Our defense fuels our offense and we didn't play great defensively in the first half until the last six or eight minutes of the half and then after James Michael went out we were able to step it up another level and that led to easy baskets and we knocked down some shots, which always helps. Q. Marcus, you had 13 turnovers in the previous two games. What was the key today to bounce back? MARCUS PAIGE: I think when I stay aggressive I tend to turn the ball over less. When you're passive on the court you let the defense get to you and dictate what you do so I tried to be aggressive and make smarter decisions with the ball. Two games in a row when I was sloppy with the ball, so I made a big effort to make sure I knew where my passes were going today. Q. Coach, and Reggie, you guys with this new lineup, new offense for about eight or nine games, what do you like the most about it, and what has it allowed your team to do that maybe it wasn't able to do before? REGGIE BULLOCK: For me the things I like about it, Coach probably like it too, but he tells me to go to the board all the time, I have to live on the boards. I think the advantages that we have is we can set traps, we can get out in transition, we spread the floor with adding P.J. in the four, so we have four ball handlers on the floor and those are the advantages. The things I like about it is, I live on the board and try to make other plays. COACH WILIAMS: I think that's part of it, but I do believe we're able to create turnovers, which helps us get out on the break as well. We don't rebound the ball as well but it balances out, we don't have a shot blocker. They shot 54% the second half but they had 18 turnovers, that we turned into 27 points so smaller is quicker and it hurts us on the board but we can spread the floor. When we were doing it like we were and we outscored them 17‑5 we had great space and go moved it and moved it and we got great shots. Q. Reggie, you had 4 points in the first half, 13 in the second. What changed for you in the second half? What was your mentality in the second half? REGGIE BULLOCK:  I tried to be more aggressive and I was getting shots that I was wide open in and I wasn't connecting. My teammates were finding me, they told me to continue to shoot the ball and that's what they expected me to, is shoot, and I decided to become aggressive and get to the boards and make plays for other teammates. COACH WILIAMS: I did some great coaching at the half and told him to make the shots. Q. If P.J. can't go tomorrow have you thought‑‑ he's been such a big part of this lineup have you thought about how you might address that? COACH WILIAMS: I really haven't. We could play Marcus at power forward, possibly, but the conventional wisdom would say you have to go big because you can't teach Reggie the out‑of‑bounds plays from the four spot between now and tomorrow at 3:00, it's already so ridiculous that it's midnight and we have to be back at 3. The nine o'clock game started at 9:40 again. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, guys. Q. What did you tell Michael after the game? COACH WILIAMS: I told him he was a heck of a player, I enjoyed watching him play, and I told him that maybe that doesn't make him feel good right now but maybe he could appreciate it later because I'm a huge fan of his. They were 8‑0 on games decided by four or less and he was directly responsible for winning four of those and he's a security blanket on the other ones. But I just think he's a heck of a player. Q. James Michael was playing in foul trouble, how were you able to compensate for that? COACH WILIAMS: During that time period he was out, Jackson, Desmond, Brice, those guys had to fill in for him but we had movement and got some easy shots and the problem is on the defensive end we gave them easy shots but during that time period we had some great shots. Q. Give us a sense of how tricky it is, you come out at halftime, whatever you talked about, you blink your eye, James Michael gets his third, Snaer gets a three, that was dramatic. COACH WILIAMS: I was upset because we didn't close out on Michael Snaer, and he made three or four shots and we weren't challenging him. And in that time‑out I said I thought we were going to guard people. I liked our composure, P.J. makes the 3 right after that time‑out, Reggie made a tough 3 from the far corner so we just kept playin' but it wasn't a very comfortable feeling to say the least. Q. Six days ago you're playing Duke and for Carolina, that was a disappointing outcome. Was there anything in particular that you worked on after that or focused on this week that led to what we saw today? This is a 20‑point win against a strong Florida State team. What was the difference? COACH WILIAMS: We worked on everything. The biggest problem was Duke was great. The Carolina fans think it was just about us, Curry made a three with Reggie all over him. His hands were spaced apart wide enough for the ball to go through and Seth made one as he was falling down on his rear end. You have to give them credit. We panicked and took quick shots and talked about that, but basically we tried to work on everything the week of practice, tried to work on better spacing in our offense, better poise, doing a better job on the defensive end of the floor, too, so it really was everything. I told them I want us to learn from that game, hurt from that game, never forget how bad it was but we've got to move on, next play, next game. Q. Maryland has all of the size that they theoretically could challenge your small lineup and yet they used four guards to beat Duke today at times. Does that make it more complicated for a quick turn around? COACH WILIAMS: It does and the most complicated thing we have right now is what is going to happen to P.J. and I have no idea. Other than that still North Carolina is going to play Maryland and we've got to figure out a way to play. Last year we got John Henson hurt in the first game the tournament and Kendall getting hurt later got all the attention in the NCAA Tournament, but we were harmed by Henson getting hurt in the ACC Tournament, and we never could come back from that. And last year James Michael stepped up for John and played great in the ACC Tournament so if we can't have P.J. we've got to have somebody step up and play great. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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