NC State F Khamil Pierre and G Qadence Samuels met with the media to discuss their 91-54 win over SMU.
NOTE: Click the video above to watch the full interview!
Well, first of all, you introduce us to your friend here.
PIERRE: This is my nephew, tell him what your name is.
OAKLAND: Oakland.
Is this the first time he's seen you play in Reynolds?
PIERRE: No, when he comes, he always wants to be on TV, so this is his moment.
You guys obviously didn't go as well the other day, and then you came back. Was that sort of a, I won't say sense of urgency, but was it, let's fix this, let's don't let this linger type of thing?
PIERRE: For sure, I think the last game was a loss that we gave up and we know we shouldn't have. So just coming into this game with a chip on our shoulder, but understanding that as we should have won this game like we did, we should have done the same last game.
You guys jumped them early. Did you sort of sense this was gonna, I mean, how did that go? When you jumped them early, was that a point of emphasis? Did you want to do that?
SAMUELS: Yeah, definitely, it was just like knowing the scout. Just like knowing their weaknesses and just trying to score more points. Like the first half.
Were you just having fun out there today?
PIERRE: Yes, I was. It's like, I would say like a whole different me when I'm at NC State. It's like I'm just smiling every time. Yeah, I feel like it's just fun to me.
You guys, when you are playing free-flowing basketball like that. Describe what that feels like. Is there a different vibe when it's just open court, connecting with everyone like that? Everybody scored today. You get five and double figures.
SAMUELS: Yeah, I would definitely say like, when everyone scores, it's like basically everyone's getting their turn. And we're all just happy for each other. Just passing the ball and sharing the ball is just that chemistry that we have.
Question for him. Who's the best team?
OAKLAND: Woah.
PIERRE: You like Wolfpack? Say go Wolfpack, say it loud.
I'll ask one more, I guess. Just you guys will wait for us coming up. You're five and one in the ACC, so you still have a lot of opportunities ahead.
When you go into this road matchup, do you sort of say, okay, yeah, we fixed it from Clemson, but we wanna now show what we can do on the road and sort of keep this momentum so we can stay atop the conference?
PIERRE: I think just approaching the game the same way we approach every game, but also understanding that it is a real game. So obviously we gotta go to their court and just make sure we try to get it done.
But everything's the same principles of going out from the tip just hard and making sure everyone's involved in the ball movement and just working hard and we should be totally fine.
When y'all go on the road and it's not the same atmosphere, does that make it harder? Sometimes it's like you have to kind of generate enthusiasm a little bit because sometimes some of these places, they don't really have a lot of fans.
PIERRE: I think sometimes, I think for the most part, just understanding we're a team and we're with each other every day. So kind of that energy just comes from within and understanding we all have a goal we're working towards right now.
Have you all seen the game different today than that? You all seem to at times just kind of find a spot to weave through to get to the basket and then there were a couple times even when you missed the ball, it's kind of like, hey, I just happened to get the rebound and go in and score.
SAMUELS: Yeah, I would say like, obviously they couldn't like, they couldn't really, I don't know how to say it. It was like we could have, we was like driving on them anytime and that was like one of our strengths. And once they were playing defense, it was obviously like we had the threes, so.
