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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: DAYTONMarch 22, 2013Mark GottfriedRichard HowellScott WoodDAYTON, OHIO Temple – 76 THE MODERATOR: Right now we're being joined by the head coach of the NC State Wolfpack Mark Gottfried as well as student‑athletes Richard Howell and Scott Wood. Start with an opening statement by Coach Gottfried. After that, we'll open up the floor for questions for our student‑athletes. COACH GOTTFRIED: I think we got off to a really poor start. Defensively we weren't very good early, and they were really good early offensively. They made shots. They made a few tough shots. They made some open shots, combination, because they had a great start and we didn't. First half, we come in there and don't guard them nearly as well as we should. We turned the ball over ten times. They turned just about every turnover into a basket. Then we turn around the second half and shoot nearly 70 percent, or we do shoot 70 percent. They only make eight field goals. We fouled them some late in the shot clock. We just didn't guard them for 40 minutes. It's real simple. We guarded them for 20. Didn't guard them for the first 20. Tough way to go out. THE MODERATOR: Questions for our student‑athletes. Q. Question for both seniors, talk about leaving NC State a better place than you found it and the future of the Wolfpack. RICHARD HOWELL: Me and Scott are definitely leaving a better place than what we first got to NC State. It's been a great experience, especially these two years with Coach Gottfried and the type of turnaround that we all had. I know that with the recruits coming in and the players they still have now that they're going to be a dangerous team next year. SCOTT WOOD: I mean, just like Rich said. We've been here through the ups and the downs. We both came here pretty much the same reason, to put NC State back on the map. We know it's in good hands with Coach Gottfried, and he's going to do everything he can to make them improve. I like where it's at, and I know Coach Gottfried is going to continue to do a good job with it. Q. Scott, what was the problem defensively in the first half? You guys ratcheted it up in the second half, but by then it was kind of too late. SCOTT WOOD: I think we just needed to come out with a little better energy there to start the game. I think communication, we were just kind of lackadaisical, gave them some easy ones. Any time you let someone see a couple go down, they get some confidence. That's on me as a senior. I've got to do a better job of just getting them to pick it up. There's no reason that it's the NCAA championship and we should come out sluggish. Q. All year you guys have been kind of taking the criticism of not having the full effort for 40 minutes. Do you think that's a fair criticism, and do you think that played out at all today? SCOTT WOOD: You can come watch us in practice and tell us if you think the same. Q. Scott, you've played against a lot of really top‑tier players. What was your take on Khalif Wyatt tonight of Temple? SCOTT WOOD: He's really crafty. I thought he did a good job tonight of‑‑ even though Lorenzo was on him and we had pretty good help side at times, he was able to draw the foul and get to the line. Any time you shoot 14 free throws in a game, that's going to help you see the ball go in and give you a little bit of confidence. He's a good player, and that's what makes them go. Q. I'd just like to have you comment on the second half, particularly the last three or four minutes when it really looked like maybe you were going to get all the way back, what the feeling was out on the court, and were you surprised you didn't ultimately make the comeback? SCOTT WOOD: Yeah, I think our team had great confidence. We knocked down a couple of shots, and we were getting stops there for a couple of times. But like I said, that first half kind of put us in a hole, and it was just too much to come back and try and chip away. We just did a good job of getting stops. Maybe if we'd have started that five minutes into the first half a little bit quicker, we'd have been right there at the end. Q. Richard, if you could maybe talk about the offensive struggles the first half, what you felt like were the biggest things or what were some things that you felt like Temple did that succeeded? RICHARD HOWELL: I don't think there's a real surprise. We just didn't play the best basketball we could in the first half. We wasn't knocking down open jump shots. We wasn't defending like we should have. Everything that could possibly go wrong in the first half, it did, and it definitely bit us in the butt. Q. Did the preseason expectations of winning the ACC and things like that, did that weigh on you guys at all throughout the season? RICHARD HOWELL: I wouldn't say it weighed on us, but when you come in the season with a target on your back like we had, people are going to give you their best shot. There were times when we came out and didn't give other teams our best shot. That's something that you have to do when you have a target on your back, especially at the start of the season. THE MODERATOR: Richard and Scott, thank you for your time. Congratulations on your season. Questions for Coach Gottfried. Q. Coach, two questions, sir. Number one, why do you think NC State didn't shoot as well in the first half? Were you getting better shots in the second half? And could you also talk about the future of the Wolfpack program. COACH GOTTFRIED: I think in the first half, I don't know that it was necessarily we didn't shoot the ball that well. I know our percentage, I think it was at 41 percent, but we turned the ball over too much. That was the problem. When we didn't turn it over and we executed our offense and got the ball around the rim, we scored a lot, opened the game up with great execution. Then we settled for jump shots instead of getting the ball to the rim, where we had an advantage. Points around the rim for us, percentage‑wise, was amazing all day long. We just didn't do enough of it early, but we turned the ball over, and we probably had three or four turnovers that were the pick six, go down and shoot a layup, give them two points. So that hurt us more than anything, I thought, in the first half, is our turnovers. Then the second part of your question, you know, it's really‑‑ it's an interesting thing because, when I took the job two years ago, we were a long ways away from really anything significantly good. And even through the middle of last year at one point when we were 5‑7 in the league, we were still a long ways away. Then we won four. Then we really played well in the tournament, and we had a great run. And then everything changed. And now the expectation on this group changed greatly. It's something I'm never going to be afraid of. I want it. You want that. But the core part of our group was the same group that was 5‑7 at one point in time. So the whole year became this struggle to reach higher than we were, and we just kept reaching and couldn't get there, and you just seemed to always be falling short. And today's disappointing. No question, disappointing. I take full responsibility. You guys can put it all on me. But I also kind of look at the big picture here, and I see the picture of winning 48 games in two years and going back‑to‑back NCAA Tournaments, getting back in the top 25 here and there. So there are good things happening. But we wanted to play a lot longer than one game in this tournament this year. We wanted to play a lot longer. We didn't. So that's disappointing, no question. But at the same time, I am proud of what‑‑ especially what these two seniors have helped to do here at NC State, get this thing turned around a little bit. Q. The pattern for you guys had been to‑‑ after a game like Miami, the start that you had against Miami, usually the next game you come back and usually play a little bit better. Did you expect a better start today? COACH GOTTFRIED: Absolutely. Q. Given that the start today was so much like the Miami game. COACH GOTTFRIED: Absolutely. I really thought we were going to play well, play early. Great, great days in practice leading up to today. Great energy in our locker room, and then we just started slow, and I don't think defensively we were nearly as good as we should have been early. So I didn't see that one coming by our team. You've got to give Temple credit too. It's not just us. They did a great job, and they played really, really well early. I think we got it back down there at one point, if I'm not mistaken. You guys may know. I think we were down 3 when we had the 3‑point shot at the top of the key there to tie the game. So we really did fight hard, fought back really, really well, but, boy, the start was not good. Q. Mark, can you just also talk about what you saw out of Khalif Wyatt. Did he change at all when he injured his hand? COACH GOTTFRIED: No. He really played well. He's a great player. We've played against really good guards this year, and in the nonconference, Marcus Smart is a terrific freshman and Trey Burke at Michigan is really, really good, UConn's guards are very good. In our league, we saw great guards, and Khalif Wyatt is as good or better than all of them. He controls tempo, doesn't turn the ball over, plays like a senior, can score, can pass. He puts you in a lot of tough positions throughout the game with his ability to drive and to get you on his hip. He's a really good player. He controlled the game, I thought, today from a tempo standpoint. Q. Coach, what do you think it was that many of these guys didn't quite get there defensively this season? You finished ACC ninth in points per possession allowed. Obviously, the offense, when things get out and going, is great, but what was it defensively that didn't quite get there? COACH GOTTFRIED: Here's what's interesting. You bring up a stat right there. I can grab any stat and make it look any way I want. Defensive field goal percentage, four of the top five teams in our league didn't make the NCAA Tournament that had the best defensive field goal percentage. So that's not always one to hang your hat on. At times we were really good defensively. At times we were not. This particular team never seemed to get to a point where we could sustain and maintain great defensive effort the entire game. That's on me. I didn't do a very good job with that. We just never seemed to get‑‑ we could at times, and at times we were very good defensively. At other times we weren't. So that was something that certainly hurt our team this year, no question. Q. The consistency this year that you were kind of just referring to, where do you think that problem stems from? Is there something about this team that made that‑‑ COACH GOTTFRIED: Yeah. I think this team struggled with a lot of things. Number one, we had some immaturity at times. At times we had‑‑ there was‑‑ it just seemed hard at times to have everybody buy in all the way. And for us to get better in the future, everybody needs to. Our young guys need to learn that lesson. At times this year, that just seemed to be a struggle for our group. That was a hard thing for us to overcome basically all year long, from the way we started. Some of the young guys, some of the older guys, and building character every day and doing things right every day, putting the team first, and then personal success and glory comes later. It always does. But you have to trust that. We struggled with some of that this year. I think at the end of the day, you have a team that had a good year but didn't have a great year. It was good but not where I wanted it to be. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you for your time. Congratulations on your season. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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