Senior Forwards Darrion Williams and Ven-Allen Lubin met with the media for their postgame press conference after NC State’s Overtime loss to #19 Kansas tonight. You can watch the video above, and read the transcript below.
Box Score
ACCDN Highlight Reel & Condensed Game
Watch Will Wade’s Press Conference
Lubin: Yeah, I think even though we didn’t get the results we wanted, I feel like we showed ourselves that we can compete with anybody. I think we did a really good job just maintaining their best player. Just trying to control their offense, to force them to take tough ones and try to go out there and do what we do on the offensive end.
So I think we did a really good job of taking some good steps on offense and defense, and we can’t really hang our heads up too low from the results. I can just look back at this, not from our mistakes down the stretch that it cost us the game, but I think we did some good things.
Talk about the final play.
Williams: I mean, play was for me. I missed it. I’m gonna make it next time, but it was just for me to shoot, basically.
Darrion. I wanted to ask you about Ven’s production. This is the eighth straight game scoring in double figures, and third double-double in the last six games. How much has that helped the team?
Williams: It was great. I think he’s the most, honestly, consistent guy we’ve got on and off the court of basketball. If you just follow him for a day, you’ll see what I’m talking about. He’s just selfless. He just wants to win.
Even if he’s not touching the ball a lot, you’ll never see him pout or anything like that. He just wants to win. I think we do a good job finding him, but he also does a great job of getting in open spaces, and when he gets his chances, he finishes.
Then he gets a lot of rebounds for us. Even if he doesn’t get them, he’ll tip them out. I think he does a great job of that. And he does stuff that doesn’t show up on the stat sheet that we all see. So I really appreciate him.
You guys really struggled from downtown today. What did Kansas do?
Lubin: I wouldn’t say Kansas really stopped us. I think it was one of the off nights that we had.
Then just coming into the game, it was pretty amped up. During warm ups, we were making shots, feeling good about ourselves. Just one of those nights, shots didn’t really fall.
So we had to find another way to put the ball in the basket, whether that was some free throws or getting the ball in the paint. Just not to rely too much on our three-pointers, but we know that we still are capable of knocking those down.
So we want to continue to have the confidence still in all of us to still shoot them.
What positives do you feel like y’all can take away from this?
Williams: I think just, shoot, playing harder than we did in some other big games. I think when we played at Maui, or we played at Auburn, when stuff got out of hand, we didn’t really necessarily fight back. We just kind of let what happened happen. So I think we did a better job of that. But we’ve just got to do a better job of finishing the game and finishing halves, and just playing consistent throughout the game, instead of just in spurts.
What was the game plan on Council? When you see him start to make some of those threes, what are you guys thinking as an opponent?
Lubin: The scouting report said to sag off him a little bit. Coach just saw that he wasn’t a really good three-point shooter. So we kind of wanted to dare him to take those shots. They would be good for us. Once he started knocking them down, we had to make some adjustments to at least step a little bit outside, contain, and contest the shots. But he was able to knock them down.
We weren’t really expecting that from him. And so we tried to make some adjustments along the way.
Darion, you transferred to NC State. I imagine this is the kind of moment you wanted to have. What do you think you’ve learned about this team through the non-conference schedule here so far?
Williams: We’ve gotten better the last couple of weeks, from the Seton Hall game to now. I think we’ve just grown together as a team, and just started playing harder. I have to be better for the team. I think I played pretty bad. So I think I’ve gotta be better, but my teammates trust me, and I trust my teammates.
We’re gonna stick together regardless of what happens. Obviously, these ones suck to lose. You wanna win these close ones, but I think we’re better for it.
And I just wanna thank the fans, 19,000 coming out. They helped us a lot throughout this game. Without them, who knows what it would have been. I appreciate them. But, I think I’ve just gotta be better, but I love this team.
For either of y’all, it kind of seemed like when you would go into those rough offensive stretches, Quadir (Copeland) would get either a nice feed to an open layup, or an open three or get a tough layup himself. Can you speak about the impact he has on this team?
Williams: I think he’s playing great. The ball is in his hands.
He makes the right decision, and he has a knack for getting fouled. He can get downhill anytime he wants. He’s very vocal with everybody.
He tries to keep everybody confident. He gets a little crazy out there, as you can see, kind of when he gets all excited. But no, I mean, he’s a great player.
He wants to win really bad. So I think that’s his best quality.
Darrion, I just wanted to ask you about Council, too.
Williams: I wasn’t expecting 9 for 15 from three. But I mean, he’s a great player.
He just got going. He’s seen the first couple go in. And any player at this level, you give him a few good looks, just gets him going.
He only made four other shots, so I think we could have done better in that department, obviously. But yeah, we just didn’t do good enough adjusting as a team. Coach told us what to do, but we just didn’t do it.
