Wes Moore: "It's Tough Coming Down Here"

NC State head coach Wes Moore met with the media via Zoom following the No. 5 Wolfpack's 76-64 road win over Miami Sunday afternoon.

NOTE: Click on the video in the player above to watch Moore’s press conference.

Opening Statement

It’s just awfully tough coming down here because Miami just gets after you on defense. Katie [Meier] has them playing really hard for her. They’ll use a plethora of presses, and then in the half-court, they’re trapping and flying around. It’s really not conducive to my blood pressure coming down here. Obviously, Elissa Cunane was really a great answer inside. Sometimes against the zone, you forget to give her the ball, and I thought we did a better job of that in the second half, maybe even late in the first half. It seemed like we had more turnovers than what's on the stat sheet, but we’ll take it. I was proud of the fact that we had 29 field goals and 21 assists, so I thought we did a better job later on of sharing the ball and creating things for our teammates. All in all, I'm glad to get out of here with the win after a two-day notice and having to travel. It was a good win.

Can you discuss the challenges with the two-day notice, having to switch from preparing for Notre Dame to Miami, and the differences between the two teams?

I told my wife what was going on. She was like, “You've just got to be flexible.” I said, sarcastically, “Yeah, that's really a strength of mine, isn’t it?” All coaches are doing it. It's just the way it is. My assistants put together a base scouting report on each opponent ahead of time, and then after the game, you jump to the next opponent. After the North Carolina game, I was up until 3:30 in the morning preparing for Notre Dame. Then, we find out about 4- or 5-o’clock the next day, “Oh no, you’re playing Miami.” And so you’re up until 2:30 in the morning because you did get a little bit earlier start than you did the night before. I know it's that way for everybody, but it's tough. It’s tough for our players, but on the other hand, they get to play, and they have fans there. We have to be thankful for those things. Like I said, it wasn’t always pretty today, but they found a way to get it done, and especially on the road in the ACC, you better take all those you can and move on. It was a great team win.

How do you feel the players handled Miami switching defenses?

Probably better than the coach did. They make it tough. They take you out of what you're used to doing. They show 1-3-1, and sometimes they trap out of it. Sometimes, they don’t. They pick you up in full court. Like I said, if we only had 13 turnovers, I know that sounds horrible, but that probably isn't too bad considering it's 40 minutes of either press, traps, or things like that. Like I said, I think we did a better job later on of realizing that Elissa was being really effective inside, and we started getting her touches. She was Elissa. She had a great game for us, but other people did, too. They knocked down key shots when we had to have them. Again, a lot of people contributed and did good things when they came in.

Was the rebounding discrepancy concerning to you, especially the offensive rebounding?

Yes, sir. Of course, there's team rebounds also. They got 21 offensive rebounds, but they actually went and got 16, and we went and got five. Either way you look at it, they got 13 more shots than us because of that. The turnovers were fairly even. In fact, they had one more turnover than us, but because of the rebounding, they got 13 plus shots. That’s hard, especially on the road, to survive that. That's what we just talked about in the locker room. If we want to get where we want to get, we’ve got to have commitment. Everyone's got to get in there and help us, and we've got to do a better job. We knew coming in that’s what they’re great at. They're great on the boards. They’re great in transition, and you’ve got to take away those easy points. Unfortunately today, we didn’t do that. Give them credit; they knocked down some shots, too. Again, yes, that's a big concern.