WATCH: Banghart, Grant Discuss Heels' Play4Kay Win Over Wolfpack
No. 25 North Carolina's Courtney Banghart and Laine Grant met with the media following the Tar Heels' 61-59 win over NC State Monday evening in the Wolfpack's 21st annual Play4Kay game.
NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch the Heels’ press conference.
Opening Statement
CB: What a great environment. Kay Yow would be really proud of what women's basketball has become. She had a huge part in that. Many of you don't know, but she was really good to me, and so this is special. I feel really honored to be at the Play4Kay game. Obviously, Sylvia Hatchell, our great [former coach], was here as well, so it’s just a great environment. Having lost our SID, Dana [Gelin], from a year ago to breast cancer, and having my associate head coach [Joanne Aluka-White] fighting it — [her name is] on the back of our jersey — this game meant a lot. Basketball is a huge part of our lives, and it's what we all do, but it doesn't supersede the importance of tonight, and that women's basketball got to put it on the stage that I think it deserves. That's probably not the opening statement you guys all need, but that’s what’s on my heart.
On Aluka-White allowing the team to wear shirts honoring her fight…
CB: Yeah, it did take convincing because I think what makes Jo special is it's not about her. These kids mean the world to her, and so she, at first, wasn't a huge fan or didn't, right away, say yes. I said, “That's the point. People have to know that all types of people are dealing with this.” She didn't give me much flack after that. I know it had to have meant a lot to have the team in shirts that represent the fight that she had and made, and she did it all while staying working. It's pretty remarkable. Women are superhuman.
On the No. 6 on the back of the shirts…
CB: “I've got your back,” like they say in the military. You shouldn't go to war without someone at your back, and I always say, “You have to be strong enough so that you can have someone's back.” People that are fighting breast cancer and still going about their days are strong enough to have somebody's back, so it was the perfect number for her.
On the last five minutes of regulation…
CB: Up 10, [there were] two key turnovers in the middle of the floor. That was part of it, and then they made two huge shots. Anytime you're in an away environment like this, it feels like you just gave up the game. Our guys just really stuck with it. [Nyla] Harris came in and hit two huge free throws. Obviously, Indya [Nivar] sealed the win there. You can practice [end-game situations] all you want, but until you're at Reynolds [Coliseum], and until you're playing in a rivalry game, that's not really how we drew them up, and we practiced them all week because we hadn't had a game in eight days, but you know what? We found a way to win, and this rivalry seems to have a lot of these kind of games. This was our night.
On her mindset during NC State’s comeback…
LG: It wouldn't be the UNC-NC State rivalry without that little bit of excitement at the end. I don't think I've ever been in a gym that's gotten that loud. I think my ears actually popped after we turned the ball over in the middle of the court. This team has been in a lot of really close games throughout the season, in ACC play and out of it, so we were just kind of leaning on our experience, leaning on our leaders. I look to [Reniya Kelly] and Indya a lot, and whenever I see they're calm, they're not freaking out like everybody else, it kind of just tapers off of them, and they did a great job sealing the game for us.
On what went through her head during the third quarter…
LG: I guess what was going through my head was, “Just keep shooting. When you're on a heater, just keep shooting.” My teammates did a great job of calling the right plays that put me in the right spots. They pour a lot of trust into me. Coach pours a lot of trust into me, so just trusting in the work I put in [helped]. You work hard for those big moments, and you just show up and shoot it [whether] it goes in [or] doesn’t.
CB: I told her, too, at a time out, “Scared money don't make money.”
LG: You did say that. I was like, “Okay.”
On her first win inside Reynolds Coliseum…
CB: Probably more so, it’s also Indya's first chance to get a win here, and what she's meant to our program and her journey. That was really great. I’m sure there's many people who do, [but] I don't know what the win loss record is between Carolina and State, but it’s a place that's hard to win. It's hard for anyone to win here, and good for [NC State]. They've really created a home-court environment, and so you feel like you're kind of playing against six. I's a hard place to win. I will say I've had my career, so it's not as much about me. I hate to say it; I don't remember a lot of the details of the win-loss [record] and all that, but I'm just happy for our guys to get a win against a really good team in an environment that will prepare us for March which is what we said: “This is going to feel like March,” and that's where we're at now in the season. We’ve got to have games that feel like March, and this was kind of our first that really felt like March.
On the Tar Heels answering NC State’s baskets with baskets of their own…
CB: Our team really showed some resolve, and when they put some game pressure on it, we had to keep switching up. They're so dangerous offensively, so we had to keep switching up our defenses. We went from our zone to our under coverage to our show to our switch, and we just had to keep changing things to try to make things a little more difficult. They out-rebounded us by what felt like a million; I can't believe it's only six. We also were kind of playing cat and mouse, trying to figure out, “What can we rebound out of?" Our guys just showed a lot of resolve. Reniya stepped up, turned down a three in one possession, and then hit the next two, kind of reminding her, again, that scared money don't make money. That was big as well, so yeah, the game pressure was there for sure. We finally showed some like response to it. These are the two youngest teams in the league, and we play like it a lot, as do they. We certainly started to respond to it which was great.
On the bench rotation, Taissa Queiroz in particular…
CB: She's a freshman, as well. Usually, Nyla [Brooks], Elina [Aamisalo], and Taliyah [Henderson] play more minutes, so I was like, “Wow, they didn't play very much." This is a really important rivalry game that takes some time to kind of get your feet wet into. Taissa's kind of a matchup problem because she's more of a perimeter player, but she's strong and big enough to be a defender, so the ball moves really well in her hands. Defensively, she's really strong, so she can kind of deal with either one of them. Putting her in, it let me kind of rest the other two, one at a time. I do like our bench. It sounds silly that I say that because they didn't play a lot tonight, but when you look at the aggregate of our ACC play, we're playing a lot of guys. We have three games this week. It's interesting; we had eight days with no game, then we have three [games] in seven [days] which is sort of fascinating. We’ll need our depth to show up, and I'm very confident they will.
On the defense sagging when the Wolfpack penetrating the front court…
CB: One-v-one, they're so hard to guard, and so it's probably more so that they're hard to guard one-v-one. Lanie is going to do the best she can, and all of our guys will do the best they can, but we needed to put some secondary hands in gaps and things just to make it look more crowded. You give something else up, but at least you're not giving up a straight line drive right through your chest. They’re a really gifted one-v-one team, so if you let them play one-v-one, it's going to be a long night — and it might be a long night if you don't let them play one-on-one too, right— but at least make them do one more thing, and that's kind of how we were able to pull this one out. It's interesting because you watch, as I'm sure he did, you watch every game they play, so you really understand their team, so you build out what you're going to do, then the game happens and you're like, “Interesting. We're actually going to do something that we didn't practice a ton based on what the game flow does.” That’s why these games are great that they're later. If we had both played this game in November, it would have looked different, probably, because both of us have more things. Both of us have more things to go to. We prepare as best we can, and then we’ve got to kind of play the game as it's playing front of us.
On limiting Zamareya Jones’ and Zoe Brooks’ production…
CB: I give a lot of credit to the on-ball defenders. We really tried to chest up and meet them there. We sort of put a lot of onus on guarding the ball; you have to guard the ball, not to your level, but to her level, the way that she feels it. We were ready to be helpful. They don't have a lot of three-point threats from the post position, so we can help a little bit off of there which does give the offensive rebound, so you've kind of got to pick and choose. This is a really good team, so we were willing to help off the bigs a little bit which led to some offensive rebounds, of course, but these are two really good, dynamic guards, especially at home, that we needed to deal with the best we could.
On the message at halftime…
CB: I thought the first half, we didn't play as well as we had wanted — I'm sure they didn't either, but we didn't. We were only down four, and it felt like, “My gosh, you guys are only down four, and we haven't really done anything yet!” The ball hadn't moved as well. Our pace wasn't as good at actions. Defensively, we were allowing too much one-v-one. I'd like to say, sometimes, I'm really helpful. I think this time it was sort of like, "Guys, we haven't really done what we said we're going to do yet, so why don't we just do what we had planned to do in the second half?" I think these guys are kind of tired of getting pushed around right. We missed massive free throws late to lose two games. We go to Notre Dame and just never came off the bus, so they're kind of like, “All right, Coach, I've had enough.” I’m also starting to see a little bit more response. Did I say anything really helpful? I don’t remember.
LG: You said something; obviously, it worked. I think there was just the intent and purpose behind this game. It meant so much to us, like Coach said: who we were playing for and the purpose behind the game. There was never a moment where we knew that winning wasn't an option for us. To do it for Coach Jo, especially, it would mean so much to her, so there was a buy-in. We looked at each other before we went on that run, and we were like, "We can do it. We just have to play to our standard." We obviously went on that run, but…
CB: Look at Indya: 16 points, six assists, seven rebounds, a senior, playing a local kid. That's just for you guys to just take that, and I just gave it to you on a silver platter.
On the team’s winning streak after falling to Stanford and Notre Dame…
CB: The thing about college basketball: so we've had, what, 122 days together already, not including game days? It's so dumb how long our season is. It’s like all that actually matters is March. It's fascinating. I spent all my life doing basketball, and it really is one month that matters. We lost those games, and we knew there was more ahead. I'll be honest: these guys were pushed back from it. We had gotten good because I was hard on them, harder than I've been on any team. Then I think I started to realize, me being so hard on them, and then they lose, they're starting to only see their negatives, and I had to really do the opposite. I've kind of taken a full turn, and instead, I'm kind of speaking confidence into them and reminding them, “Lanie, there's things you don't do well. Let's talk about things you do do well.” These guys just really had to look within, and they kind of came up with their own slogan, “It's us,” and it's always us. They really have taken that the results and said, “We've got a lot left,” and we've always said with this young team, “We've got to get to March.” I would be saying that if we won or lost this game. It's just that I'm coaching a different team than it was a month ago.
LG: Obviously, we hit that point in season where we dropped a couple games [that] we may not have wanted to drop, but it was part of the season. Like Coach said, our one goal is March, to prepare well in March and in the ACC tournament. If you get so bogged down in the moment, sometimes it's hard to see what the actual goal is. We had a decision to make: were we going to let the season go and all do our own things, or were we going to make a conscious effort to come together? What really drove that decision was our love for each other, our love for this place and this program, and our seniors, Indya, Nyla… That's our two seniors, right?
CB: That's all we've got.
LG: They mean so much to us, so there was never a moment where we knew we wouldn't get it together. It was just a matter of when, not if.
CB: But there were some —
LG: There were some bumps.
CB: — some long days.
LG: Like Coach said, I'm learning. She's learning. Everyone's learning, and everyone's growing, and everyone's taking steps forward, but we did come up with our slogan, “It's us.” It's just a reminder that no matter what we may hear, what we may see, we're all in our own individual paths, but at the end of day, it's us.
On Banghart’s demeanor changing…
LG: I would say she still does a really good job of pushing us, but I think that sometimes she thinks that we know all of the good things about ourselves, like any coach. You know, but sometimes I don't know, and so I think she's done a really good job of meshing the good and the bad recently, about being like, “Hey, you can't do this, but you're doing this really well,” which is great. Like I said, everyone's still learning.
