UNCG Spartans
Coach Wes Miller
Opening statement
“I’m pleased with my guys’ resilience and their fight, but that is not a new thing. I’ve been pleased with their resilience and fight all year. It’s good to see them get some results. I think the only frustrating part of this season has been the results at times, because it has been an absolute joy to coach them. I’m glad they got a result here in the conference tournament. Hopefully we can keep this thing going. We took it one game at a time in our approach and we will start that approach again as soon as we get out of this room and get back to the hotel with my guys. Give (Samford coach) Scott Padgett a lot of credit. I thought every time we pushed it and had a chance to get a comfortable lead, they made a big run to get back in the game. I didn’t think it’s because we weren’t playing well; it was because they really played well. I thought they had some terrific defensive possessions that forced us into some bad shots or shot-clock violations. He’s got a really resilient young bunch that’s going to be really good in this league. I know we feel the same about our bunch. Diante Baldwin was terrific for us tonight. He was tremendous. I think he’s got to be a chance to be a leader in this program. We haven’t had a guy that can lead us at the point-guard position. He’s been that guy. I think he can grow and grow and grow. He showed that in the first half with Tevon Saddler in foul trouble. He had to handle the ball-handling responsibilities, and he did it with ease. We only had four turnovers against a pressing team at half time. I was pleased with that. I thought everybody on the team played really way. Nick Paulos’ four 3s were big for us too. He got some good looks and we were fortunate that he was able to step up and knock them down. It was a good team effort and a lot of resilience from us tonight.”
On facing Wofford on Saturday
“I hadn’t had a lot of chance to think about it but off the top of my head, Wofford was the tournament champions last year and the regular season champions this year. They are a tremendous basketball program. I wouldn’t even just say team. I think Mike Young has done it there for multiple years now and built a tremendous program. It will take a big-time team effort from us tomorrow to compete. I think we do have some confidence in that we have been up against them at halftime at their place and were up 10. But we also know how good they are and how they keep coming at you. As Diante just mentioned, it will take 40 minutes to be competitive with them. We know that. We will have to spend a lot of time preparing for their motion tonight and all the screening they do off the ball, which is very different from what we had to do to prepare for Samford, which was pressing and driving the ball off the bounce. We will certainly have to execute our offense tomorrow. They do such a good job in the half court. It will be a big-time challenge for us, but I think my young group is excited for it.”
UNCG sophomore guard Diante Baldwin
On the team’s approach to the tournament and his thoughts on the final minutes
“We just want to take this as a new season and take it one game at a time. We wanted to put together 40 minutes. Coach has been preaching to put it together for 40 minutes the whole season. So we’ve been trying to put together 40 minutes and have our team’s back. When we make mistakes, we try not to worry about them or hang our heads and go on to the next play. Down the stretch, I was just playing off of instincts and trying to get the team to stay together and play hard D so we could get stops because we were getting what we wanted on offense.”
On UNCG’s balance
“We always play with balance. We never really have somebody that scores 30 or 20 points per game. It’s always been a balanced team because we have things we do well and we like to share the ball as a team.”
Samford Bulldogs
Coach Scott Padgett
Opening statement
“Hats off to them, they switched every pick-and-roll we had and it puts them (guards) in situations where they have to finish over a bigger guy or they have to kick. At the end of the day, 3-for-18 when you kick, it’s rough. Defensively, they did a really good job with the press. (Tevon) Saddler’s size hurts our press because we have some smaller guards, and when we are getting into those rotations, he can see over the press and make those long plays that most teams can’t. They did a good job of having him handle the press, and we didn’t do a good job of getting him to turn it over. With us, we’re a team of runs, but it is hard to have a run without getting turnovers. The two huge things for them offensively were that they killed us on the glass with 18 offensive rebounds. There was about three different times where we could overtake them, but (Nicholas) Paulos would come up with a big 3 and we told them, ‘We don’t want him getting a shot off unless, literally, we’re standing straight up-and-down in front of him and he decides to shoot a bad one.’ He got four wide-open ones and he hit all four of them.”
On team’s intensity when trailing by 11
“I think I’m going to get a hypnotist to tell them we are down 15 to start the game, because they have this thing in them to where they don’t want to get blown out. We got beat by 40 the first game of the year and they didn’t stop fighting then. Any time they see that (deficit of) 10, 11, they seem to crank it back up. I need to find a way to get that energy from them when it is 0-0. They don’t quit. We have to find a way to get that fight when they come out of the gate.”