LOCKER ROOM REPORT: Tar Heels Topple Wolfpack
No. 8 NC State head coach Wes Moore and senior guard Aislinn Konig met with the media following the Wolfpack's 66-60 road loss to North Carolina Thursday evening.
NOTE: Click the video in the player above to watch the Pack’s press conference.
Wes Moore
“Got to give credit to North Carolina. They did a great job of attacking and taking it to us. I thought, in the second half, we struggled to hit some shots, and I felt like we probably needed to try to attack a little bit more than we did. Maybe get the ball inside, maybe get to the rim some, but North Carolina did a better job than we did defensively stopping that. It was a frustrating game. We struggled to score inside some, and we settled for threes a little bit too much in the second half. It was a tough game. That’s life on the road.”
“Definitely. During the run, I was very frustrated because we were coming down and shooting quick threes. I kept screaming we want to get some post touches and that sort of thing. On the other side of the coin, Bailey did a really good job on Elissa, bodying up on her and being physical with her, and that gave her some trouble tonight. You have nights like that. Elissa’s been a very good player for us, and she will be again. We’ve just got to keep going to her, and we’ve got to do a better job. Like I said, we’ve just got to attack the basket some. We just stood out there too much. We probably got lulled into a sense of security there. In the first half, we shot the three pretty well. Maybe we just thought we were going to do that all night. Ace obviously shot the ball well. We probably needed to get her more looks. We’ve got to try to attack. We shot four free throws. Part of that is we’re not attacking the basket enough. Elissa was tough in there, but it was very physical.”
“I told the team, ‘I want you to think about it tonight and feel it tonight. I want it to bother you, and I want all of us to look in the mirror tonight, including the coach, and see if there’s something I can do and they can do to do a better job.’ Tomorrow, we’ve got to move on. This league is like being out in the ocean: ‘Here comes another wave.’ You don’t really have time to catch your breath; you better get ready for the next one. That’ll be a big challenge on the road in a tough environment.”
“I was concerned we weren’t scoring inside. In Kai Crutchfield’s defense, she’s got a pretty badly sprained thumb. We had it taped up. That probably didn’t help her any. Like I said with Elissa, they were really physical and bodied up on her. It was a tough night. I definitely wanted to get her going and came out to start the second half trying to run something to get her the ball on the block. I tried to get her going, but it just wasn’t meant to be.”
Aislinn Konig
“Runs are a part of basketball, and you know that teams are going to go on runs. It just so happened that we weren’t able to connect on any of our shots, and it’s difficult to maintain that level of intensity when that’s happening. We just need to find a way, when we aren’t making shots, to create energy on the floor so that we can get back to what we’re doing.”
“Offense ebbs and flows, and when they take away somebody, it’s somebody else’s chance to score. I don’t necessarily think anything changed so much as the flow of the game was flowing away from me.”