NC State's Tre Holloman, Paul McNeil, Jr., and Quadir Copeland met with the media following the Wolfpack's 88-86 win over South Carolina in the Bad Boy Mowers Series exhibition in Greensboro, N.C.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch the players’ interview. An abbreviated transcript is provided below.
On Will Wade having the trust in McNeil to put the ball in his hands…
PM: It’s just being confident. I’m a very confident person. We all had conversations with me just having the ball at the end of possessions. Even though I had a tough first half of the second half, he still trusted me. The ball was in my hands, so I had to make the shot. That’s all I was thinking: “Just make the shot, and go home.”
If the shot felt good off his hands…
PM: It felt good, though. That move, that's my go-to move that I work on every day, Monday through Sunday. I work on that same move, and it feels good.
On the confidence in McNeil…
QC: Man, what? That’s P2! The man shoots 70 percent in practice. That was a no brainer. We had all confidence. When I went into the second half — you could ask him, too — I told him, “I don't need you to make four threes. I need you to shoot eight.” We know what kind of shooter he is. We know what kind of player he is, and he’s not a person where you've got to build his confidence. He already had confidence. He had an off shooting night in the first half, and he still kept shooting. At the end of the day, he's going to go guns blazing, and we’re going to have his back.
TH: To piggyback off of Q, we just trust him. P2 shows up in practice and does all the right stuff. When he had it on the last play, we just trusted him, and then he made it.
QC: For sure, he deserved that moment, definitely.
On the team closing out the win…
QC: I don't even want this game, for us, to be labeled as this. This is not the team we are. We are way better than this. We've got a lot to fix. This is our first time really playing together in front of fans and everything. We've got young players. We've got a lot, but we have a lot to fix, and we're a way better team. I don't want this to be the label that we have. We're known as the Red Reckoning, and this was little to nothing, really. We have a lot more to show and a lot more in the tank, too. The fans that were here, I appreciate them, but [I ask them] don't judge us just off of this game. We have a lot more to come with better competition, for sure.
TH: We're just going to get back to the film room, see our mistakes, build off of the positive stuff, and then just get back to work.
PM: Like both of them said, we’re going to get back to work. Over the summer, we built that chemistry, so in the end, we’ll have each other’s back. We do a lot of practice. In the six-minute games, that's what we preach on, man. We have to stay strong and stick together, and you'll see what will happen.
