Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes met with the media after the 70-57 loss to NC State in their ACC opener.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Wade’s statement. Video from the full press conference will be available soon.
Opening statement...
On a positive note, I thought we came in here and did a really good job defensively guarding their stuff, especially in the half court. Our ball screen defense was pretty good, we contested, we guarded the personnel.
But we just couldn't get anything going offensively, especially turnovers. We had probably, they probably scored 11 points on the timing-bomb turnovers.
We were 12 for 26 at the rim, not winning numbers, really 5 for 27 from 3 in the guts of the game until we made 3 there late. 9 for 13 from the line, and we're 0 for 7 at the rim going off one foot launching, that's just impossible, it's just frustrating. I thought that Will's team did a really good job of switching us 1 through 5. And we just, we don't have enough guys willing or trying to get in there off of dribble.
A lot of times we were just station to station around the horn instead of getting in there off the drive off some mismatches. But they did a good job, they're a physical defensive team. They turned us over, what, 15 times?And, but a lot of those, 16 times, a lot of those turned into points, I thought.
So the start of the second half just killed, I felt pretty good at halftime. We were down four, we had a nice comeback.And we come out, we can't score. And we put, I think there was 10 possessions to start the second half, scored twice, and that just put us in a hole. And so, coming in here, thinking if you could hold the 70, because they score a lot of points in this building, we'd have a really good chance to win, but our offense just didn't get it done.
And I say that crediting NC State and Will and his team. They played, they're tough, they're physical, defensively. And they turned defense into offense, the way we kinda like to do it too.And they just did it better than us today, no question.
Steve, the Omaha Biliew that you saw today. Yeah. Is that something you can kind of bottle up and kind of carry with you the rest of the season?
I think it's a good point, it's called consistency and confidence. And yeah, I think that the more he plays, I think I've said this before, the more he plays, the better he's gonna get. I thought he showed what he's capable of today. And I don't mean just to score any rebounding, but he didn't turn it over either.
He plays, I think that of all the guys on our team, he's probably the most consistent at playing his role on both sides of the ball. Both sides, defense and offense. He's pretty consistent in what he does. And we need more guys like that. But I would hope that he could continue to play that way. I thought he played well, I thought he played with a lot of confidence, and I’m happy for him.
And- Steve, I know it's been nearly two weeks since the Vanderbilt loss. You said after that game that your team needed to do some soul searching. Is this performance tonight indicative of that soul searching? Have we still got some soul searching to see?
I thought we competed. I thought we competed. I don't have any problem with it. I had a problem how we finished the game against Vanderbilt competitively. That was, it's not like intensity or anything like that. We got all these data, tells you how hard you're playing.
I mean, that stuff always kind of matches up each game. But it's not to me, it's not about that. It's about competitiveness. And competitiveness on both sides of the ball. And so I thought, for the most part, we were competitive today.
You mentioned the frustration with finishing at the rim. It feels like that's been a problem for three games in a row that we've talked about that. Yep. What solves it?
What solves it is playing to your fundamentals and playing off two feet. And people say, he says play off two feet. Yeah, go look it up. The good teams do it. And we just got too many guys in the launch. And then looking for a foul when it's not gonna be there. I mean, I can think of three times Tre had a ball in the basket and didn't finish. And two was Dunks got blocked and he missed one. We had a guard on him on a miss.
That was the beginning of the second half. There was six points right there we should have had. And so driving it in there, launching off one, trying to get a foul. You're not getting that foul, not at this level.
And so, yeah, I guess at the end of the day, you put that on me and my staff for not being able to effectively convince our players that this is the way that you have to play. But here's the thing, you can do it in practice, but you have to do it when the lights go on, right? And sometimes these things that I tend to see sometimes aren't the things that I see when the lights aren't on.
You mentioned Tre, he's a fifth year guy. Nate Calmese was 0 for 5 too, I think. That's part of the frustration that they're the older guys not doing it.
Yes, I mean, they've been around. I'm not, I'm a juke, driving in there when there's three guys in there. You're gonna take your ball, kick them off of them. Just pretty basic stuff. But again, the shooting percentages are poor. And you say, okay, I give NC State credit. But I do think there was a lot of times there we had pretty clean looks, and we just didn't, we didn't make them, we can't.
It's not gonna win that way in this league, especially on the road. And this is not gonna be an easy place for anybody to come in and play anyway. And I'll go back to it, if you asked me before the game, could you help hold them to 70, would you have a pretty good chance to win? I would say, heck yeah. We did in the first half, but last time I checked, there's two halves.
Does it feel like another missed opportunity to pick up a more key quad one, quad two game?
I mean, any of them, I think any time you can be, that's a missed opportunity, right? And so, yeah, I mean, these are the games you have to win to get in to where you wanna go. And let's just be quite honest, we don't get home opportunities.
We had one against Vandy. We'll probably maybe get one against Louisville, and that is going to be it. And that's always kind of been my biggest thing with the net. Since I've been in the ACC, it's just the lack of zero opportunities to win at home and get a quad one win.
Coach, what did you see schematically from NC State that kind of made it a little bit tricky for you guys offensively?
They just switched, they just switched. They switched one through five. And so we, again, when they do that, somebody has to catch a match up and drive it, and then make the right play, right?
Get in there, finish, up two, kick out. And we did some of that. And I thought when we got in there and kicked out, we had some pretty good looks for three, but we just didn't make enough of them. But I would say, just coming into the game and knowing how they were gonna play, I would say the switching, one through five, was. And that's kind of given us trouble pretty much all year long, yeah.
You've seen Paul McNeil since the Garner Road days and then obviously last year. How much of a scouting went into tonight to try to take away what he does?
Yeah, guys like Paul, they'll stretch your defense, right? And then what happens when you go stand out there and guard, and then everybody gets what, driving gaps. So it's a two, it's a double-edged sword with him. Yeah, you gotta be there. Because you can't just be out there hugging him, because that's what they want. And then Copeland, Williams, and Lubin, Halloman, they get what? They get driving lanes, cuz you're out there worried about him.
And so, yeah, he's gone from being on the scouting reports, probably being a little bit more towards the top of the scouting report. That's different. You gotta scheme for it. I mean, last year we came over here and he hit us for 25. So I guess we did a better job this year. I like him, he's a good player. I think he's gotten better. And credit to him for sticking it out. And a lot of guys would have ran to transfer. And credit to him for sticking here and getting better.
And it was 16th mistake, he cut 11, and he had that one possession, about seven shots. Did that kind of personify what you were speaking about a few minutes ago?
Yeah, exactly. He said it better than me. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you gotta, I mean, come on, man, we're getting stops. You gotta get a stop score, or score, stop, score, or a stop, score. You gotta string some of those together, and man, I don't know.
I was more frustrated probably with the wide open threes, the wide open ones, and the lack of ability to finish at the basket. And I just said the numbers. Look, 12 for 26 at the rim, I mean, that's less than 50%, and I'm bad at math. And I know you gotta be 60 or better at the rim. And if you do that, and you make a few more threes, then you got a really good chance of winning the game.
And that's kind of where we're at. I felt good defensively. I felt like we turned them over a bunch too. We turned Copeland over seven times. I felt good about what we were doing defensively. I just, offensively, we just couldn't get it done.
Speaking of that, Steve, the turnovers, both of you guys were 11 in the first half, and it felt like it was whoever could handle it better in the second half.
Yeah, but we only turned it over, what, five times in the second half? And they turned it over, what, same, four? Yeah, we're kind of even there. They probably, I just think they got in there, they were like 11 for 14. In my mind, just what numbers I have. So there's, to me, it's a game.
Us, our lack of ability to finish at the rim. I'm not talking about floaters here, I'm talking about at the rim. And their ability to finish at the rim. I would say, what's the difference? It would be that right there.
Because both of us didn't shoot the three or eight, right? We made three late, that made it look like we made eight, but we really made five for 27, in my opinion. And so, I would say finishing at the rim.
