Recap | Final Stats | Photo Gallery

Head Coach John Thompson III

On the promise of the team with Jessie Govan and Marcus Derrickson playing effectively...
Very. They're good. They played well tonight. I said it on TV and I'll say it in here, Jessie had six assists, four blocks, no turnovers, 20 points and Marcus does what Marcus does. I don't know what the numbers were for him, but Marcus is a presence. So both of them were a presence today and we need them to continue to do that because it gets real now.

On what caused UNCG's run in the second half…
Poor offensive decisions on our part. There was a stretch where I think we felt things were going pretty easily and we just got careless. One pass and a shot, we were forcing things and there was a stretch there were it felt like everyone who got the ball decided they were going to go 1-on-1 and our poor offensive decisions allowed them to cut the lead.

On adjustments to keep opponents off the offensive glass…
Leading up to this game, we knew that was one of their strengths. They are one of the best teams in the country [at offensive rebounding]. We watched tape, you do various drills, you yell at them and at some point they have to decide to go get the ball. As a unit, we have to decide we are going to go get the ball more than we have been.

On L.J.'s defense on Francis Alonso…
I can't remember if I said this, but L.J. is playing really well right now, really, really well at both ends of the court. He might sleep through Christmas with the effort that he puts out and for several games now, he's guarded the guy we think is going to hurt us the most and he's been very good at blocking and trailing and bringing a physical hardness to his defense. There is nothing loosey-goosey about his presence on defense. There is a hardness to him and then he comes down to the other end of the court and we put the burden on him to do a lot of scoring also. I also think they ran [Alonso] off of so many screens and I think we did a good job of showing when we should show and helping L.J. or whoever it was who was on him to give them a few extra seconds.

On the ability of Jessie and Marcus to create open shots…
One thing I think to piggyback on that is that these two guys are basketball players. I think a lot of people want to say they are post players… they are basketball players. Now sometimes they need to remember to do the things that a post player does, but they've been doing that and so them popping out and hitting shots is something that they both do. This isn't just today, that is the norm for the most part and Coach can get frustrated when they have a tendency to just float around out there and not get inside and horse a little bit and do the dirty things, but they've been doing that.

On what made R.J. White tough to guard..
Have you seen him play? He's really good, that's what made him hard to guard. I told our guys coming into this game, and I don't say this to offend anyone else, but he might be the best offensive post player we've played this year. As a staff that's how we felt going into it. He's someone that has a great feel for the game. You can't speed him up and pressure doesn't bother him. He can score on both blocks and over both shoulders and he's a terrific passer. He's been doing that for them, what he did today, that's what he's been doing. He's a really, really good offensive player.

On breaking UNCG's press…
We worked on it a lot leading up to it. You watch films of them and they give you that three-quarter court press the whole game after every possession. Some games they have been more aggressive with it and they've extended it to full court, but I just think the last couple of days we knew what was coming. I think their goal… and I can't speak for him isn't to create turnovers, but their goal is after you cross half-court have confusion. All of a sudden there's 10 seconds on the clock before you actually get into an offense and so we spent a lot of time on beating the pressure and then getting into whatever we are doing quickly. Sitting here now, I don't feel we were that good at it, but I'll take it. I'll go back and look at it because that's something we have to keep getting better at it.

Sophomore Center Jessie Govan

On big men getting open shots…
"It opens a lot for our offense. Our guards feel comfortable in throwing to us on the perimeter and they're confident in us to knock it down. We're going to keep trying to do that. Coaches put a lot of confidence in us to take open shots if we have it. We feel good about taking it and it's been going in lately.

On the win streak…
"I feel like we just stayed together. We could have put our heads down after we started 2-4 and said we don't care about the season. We came together and we know what happened last year and we don't want that to happen again. We knew we had to put together some wins and hopefully we can keep that going into BIG EAST play.

Sophomore forward Marcus Derrickson

On big men getting open shots…
Rodney and LJ draw a lot of attention on the offensive end. It's just basically hitting open shots. When we spread it and space it, we just need to hit open shots when available.

On his returning to the lineup…
I wasn't letting the game come to me. I was trying to force and hunt and force shots in. It just wasn't falling. This game, I just relaxed and calmed down, knowing I was going to get them. I just let the game come to me. When I had the open shots, I stepped up and hit them. A lot was credit to my teammates with Jessie and L.J. setting screens for me.

UNCG Head Coach Wes Miller

Opening statement ...
First of all, I thought Georgetown played well. I thought they shot the ball well. I knew going into the night that if we were going to have a chance we would have to shoot it really well, especially behind the line and we needed them not to shoot it well. I know they've struggled to make shots in some of their games this year ââ'¬" it wasn't a problem tonight. They stepped up and made some big ones, even guys that hadn't made a lot of them this year. I didn't think that we handled the moment really well. We weren't as aggressive as we've been during this nonconference slate of ours. We've been a good team here, coming into the game 9-3, and we've done some nice things, but we didn't have the same level of confidence. Even defensively, we were almost closing out passive and unaggressive. I thought we had to be the aggressor tonight if we were going to have any success.

But you have got to tip your hat to (Georgetown). They played really well coming off a huge win at Syracuse. I thought they kept it going and they should have a pretty good year in the BIG EAST.

On Georgetown's defense guarding #10 Francis Alonso …
We run a lot of stuff on the baseline and give him freedom to come off of screens. We didn't have a lot of success with that tonight. We need him to shoot the ball well for us to be a good team. Him and Marvin Smith. They were a combined 0-for-8 from three, so they did a nice job on Francis and a nice job on Marvin. I thought we were able to have some success on ball screens getting downhill. Once we got down to the paint, our decision-making and ability to finish wasn't necessarily what it could be. Their size is such a factor in that. I thought we missed a couple that we should have made and then I thought we missed a couple of pitchouts for open shots that we didn't' see. But again, their size is such a factor there.

On offensive rebounding success …
We are pretty aggressive going to the board and that's kind of who we are on a night in-night out basis. I thought our quickness there helped us a little bit. But when you're not making them, you got a better chance to rebound ââ'¬" there are more misses. And we weren't making many so we had more opportunities to get them as well. We have been a good offensive rebounding team to this point in the year. There aren't many positives for us tonight, but maybe that was one of them. I think we had 10 at halftime, so we were getting after them there.

On getting back to within single digits early in the second half ….
I was really searching for a lineup there in the first half and playing R.J. White ââ'¬" a preseason all-conference guy and all-conference guy for us last year ââ'¬" with two fouls just because I thought we had to make it a game at halftime. I thought if we could get it under 10 and get into striking distance, we'd have chance to make a run at them in the second half. We got it down to eight, so I kind of found a lineup and ran with it a little bit and it took us out of our normal rotation, but that group did a nice job. And then two threes on the last two possessions of the half just kill you. Instead of going in at eight or six ââ'¬" Diante Baldwin had a chance to get a steal, he deflected one ââ'¬" we didn't come up with the loose ball, they hit a three, we go down and don't score, they go down next possession and hit a three, we go down and miss a 10-footer and all of a sudden we are down 14 again. That hurt us. In the second half, we did come out of the gates with more energy and I thought we were just a little more confident. I challenged them at halftime just to say 'we have to be us first, we have to play the way that we play every day regardless of who the opponent is.' Again I thought maybe the moment and the name on the front of the jersey might have affected us a little bit.

On spacing issues caused by Marcus Derrickson and Jessie Govan hitting deep shots …
They are tough to guard when they do that. They do a good job of setting flare screens that turn into back screens on the top of the floor in their Princeton offense. You try to help on those cutters and when those guys can step out and make them, it makes them a tough team to guard. We did talk about forcing those guys to make shots in our scouting report, but we really didn't want Pryor to get going. He had accounted for so much of their 3-point shooting. We were really worried about L.J. Peak and he is more of a driver, watched him a lot in the summer time, but he has also accounted for a lot of their 3-point shooting. We closed out short to him twice in the first half and gave him good looks. When those big guys step out and make threes, they are pretty tough to guard. And they made some from the elbows and from 15 feet. I though Govan was excellent.

On UNCG's lack of aggressiveness from earlier games …
It didn't go our way early. I think we have to mature as a basketball team and I think really good teams, championship-level teams, when they don't make shots and its not going your way they just keep coming at you on a possession-to-possession basis. I thought when we missed some good looks early and it really affected us. We lost our composure, we lost our focus a little bit. That said, I think this team is going to be fine. We get into conference play, we have enough maturity. But we will learn from this and grow from this experience tonight. Georgetown is a fantastic team, we just talked about it. They were going to shoot it that well and we weren't going to shoot it that well, it was going to be hard to win. But we certainly could have handled this opportunity and this better.