Coach Wade, Darrion Williams, and Terrance Arceneaux met with the media after the Boise State win.
Opening statement...
Will Wade: I think we played better, tougher defense in the first half was really good. We were more physical. But not as good as we need to be, but we were better than we were. Give our guys credit, we were able to turn it around pretty quick against a really good Boise team. It was a good win. We needed it.
Terrance, first game with double digit points in an NC State uniform. What was it like to have to sit out those two games and now getting back and rounding into form here in Maui?
TERRANCE ARCENEAUX: It was hard, but I knew what I had to do for myself to get better, and Coach understood that. Big credits to him. Like I said, it was hard watching my guys out there playing, not being able to. But I knew I had to sacrifice a couple games just to get where I wanted to be.
For both players, obviously it's a quick turnaround. What was your conversation amongst you as players last night as you prepared for today?
DARRION WILLIAMS: Just be more aggressive. I think we got punked yesterday to be blunt about it, so we wanted to come out and be aggressive today.
TERRANCE ARCENEAUX: Exactly. We had a get together between each other and it was like, hey, we want to have a good season so we've got to be more aggressive. The things that affected us this game, we can't let it affect us this game, so everybody was just locked in and focused.
Darrion, I wanted to ask you about Terrance's performance today. What he gives you guys defensively is pretty clear, but what he gave you offensively today, how much did that help you guys?
DARRION WILLIAMS: I think it helped us a lot. I've been telling him since the summer, Coach been telling him since summer, just be confident in your shot and be confident in your work. I think he showed that today. Even when he was suiting out he was still a really good teammate. If you were around him you can't do anything but laugh.
But he's just been a great teammate, and he got to show what he can do today.
Will, you talked about the defensive performance yesterday and how it wasn't up to snuff for you guys. You ended up creating 11 turnovers in the first half; finished with 24 points off of turnovers today. How did you feel the defense stepped up today?
WILL WADE: It was better. We fouled too much at the end, but Boise is always one of the 25 best teams in the country at drawing fouls. When Buchanan gets the ball, there's nothing you can do to stop from fouling him. Southern Cal had their best defender on him last night, yesterday, and they fouled him.
Our goal was to kind of keep them. But I thought we were more active. I thought our guards were more active. We weren't getting blown by as much. We did more in the second half. But we told on ourselves. We've been able do that in spurts.
But having Terrance helps. He covers up some mistakes. He blocked that corner three. He covers up some mistakes and helps us there. But we've still got to be better than we were today.
This was just a step in the right direction. This is nowhere near where we need to be.
Just your thoughts on Terrance's overall performance, not just what he did on defense but also giving you guys 11 points on the offensive end of the court today, too?
WILL WADE: It's about time. We had a spirited conversation last night, me and him, and I told him, I'm tired of waiting around. You can either do it or your ass needs to sit, and we'll just say your achilles is hurt and we'll move on. But everything has been cleared. It's time to play.
I knew he was capable. That's why we signed him. He's a good player. But he's got to play, and he did a good job today, and now we've got to do it consistently because we've got to turn it around and do it again tomorrow.
We've got some work to do on that, and hopefully we can get him to flip it around and have a little bit of consistency to him.
Coach, in terms of the one or two things that you'd like to see, we talked about this transition again between today and tomorrow to build on those building blocks, what are those couple things that you're looking to do?
WILL WADE: I thought we held on our own on the glass tonight, but they've been out-rebounded six times in two years. That's what they do. Coming into yesterday, they had a 78 percent defensive stop rate.
Like they got a stop on 78 percent of their possessions with a defensive rebound. So like 80 percent of the time in the half court they get a stop and a rebound. They are one of the best rebounding teams in the country. His teams have been that for a long time.
We've got to cut down -- we can't give up 14 offensive rebounds. We gave up three team offensive rebounds to them just where we're fumbling the ball out of bounds and that sort of stuff. We've got to be able to go get rim-level rebounds, two hands at the rim. We need to certainly do a better job there, and then offensively we've got to be a little cleaner with our execution on some things.
We had some different lineups in there, but I was also proud of Alyn Breed. He hadn't played a whole lot. But he's somebody I really trust. When you're in a tight spot, you go with the guys you trust, and I have a lot of trust and a lot of belief in Alyn. I was proud of him stepping up. Hit a three, hit a couple free throws, so that was a positive.
