Wake Forest HC Steve Forbes: "We Played Right Into Their Hands"
Wake Forest's Steve Forbes and Andrew Carr met with the media following the Demon Deacons' 83-76 loss to NC State Tuesday evening.
Carr led the Deacs with 28 points on 10-for-13 shooting from the floor, 3-for-4 from three-point range, while adding four rebounds, one block, and one steal.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch the Demon Deacons’ press conference. An abbreviated transcript of Forbes’ comments is posted below.
Opening Statement
I think, over the past three years, that’s the worst half of basketball that we’ve played since I’ve been head coach. It was embarrassing. We completely lost our composure on offense and defense. We got whipped on both ends of the court. I thought we played selfish. In the first half, the ball was in and moving, and we got wide open shots. Second half, we over-dribbled, didn’t play for each other, couldn’t score the ball, and then we couldn’t get any stops. Credit to NC State: their guards outplayed ours. They were a lot more physical, guarding them better in the second half, and we kind of just played into their hands. Even though, as bad as it was, we had the lead 3:31 to go coming out of the timeout, we missed the front end of the one-and-one, go down, and foul, and then it turned into them just getting easy baskets or us fouling. I think they went 20-for-21 down the stretch; it seemed like they made them all. Credit to their players and their team for sticking together. I told the team at halftime, “You don’t win the game at half. No awards are handed out, so you’ve got to play the second half.” We didn’t, and that’s disappointing. We’ve let our fans down by losing an in-state game like this.
On frustration with the first and second half...
I’m completely frustrated, this was a big game for me to see how we would handle growing up from Florida State to NC State on the road. I thought we were tougher than Florida State, to be honest with you. We just imploded in the second half. I’ll take the blame; it’s my job to coach them, my job to get them right. We were just completely discombobulated on offense. Credit to them - they stepped up the pressure — not the full court pressure that wasn’t a problem — in the half court. They just bullied our guards, and we kept overdribbling. We kept telling them, “Drive it, look opposite: wide open.” We just didn’t. That’s not indicative of our players, but it’s really sad because we’re better than that, and to play offense like that in the second half, especially when you have the chance to go on the road and win a game, which we did, and we had it under control for the majority of the game. I mean, how long did we lead? So yeah, that’s disappointing.
On where things went wrong defensively...
I have to go back and look. I think they got inside of us in the second half, they got to the rim more and we fouled more. We didn’t foul as much in the first half I think. They got to the line 33 times. I mean, D.J. Horne had a hell of a game. He made some tough jumpers, but we were going to give him that because they didn’t make a three the entire game. Late in the game, we trapped him, too. We blitzed him and again fouled him. You know, it hurts when we don’t have Efton Reid on the court, and he’s our defensive lead. He’s really good. We missed a couple opportunities. We were supposed to blitz [Horne] — he was the only one we were blitzing — and we didn’t do it. Then, there were a couple segments where when Efton was out of the game. We didn’t get the rebound. We’ve got to have him on the court; we’re a different team with him on the court, and we know it, and it’s on all of us to do better. We either fouled, or they just got to the rim. [Ben] Middlebrooks played a very good game. He made a lot of tough shots from the basket. He plays hard. He’s played in the league. He’s a tough player. He had a hell of a night, didn’t miss. They didn’t really need D.J. Burns for that, but he still got ten. I thought we did a good job guarding him though. I thought the post-double bothered him as well as you can bother him, but I think he’s a hell of a player.