Wade: I mean, just poor execution on our part. We get a seven point lead, give up and and-1. We can’t get the ball in bounds. Throw it to the corner twice. Guards don’t come get open in the middle of the court. Just a six-minute game, we work on it. Played one yesterday. We just, we didn’t execute. We didn’t execute. When you don’t execute, you deserve the results that you get.
After the first turnover, is there any thought process to calling a timeout and then trying to kind of give them a second to breathe and then try to figure out a play out of that one?
Wade: Probably, we probably should have, but I mean, we work on that every day. Every day we go over to the press offense, where we want to throw the ball and how we want to get open, we work on that every day. But after we were rattled, I mean, we didn’t want to throw it to Ben in the corner. So we threw it, after we were rattled in the first one, hindsight, we probably should have, but something we work on that we shouldn’t need to call timeouts on that.
And just your thoughts on the Darrion Williams foul at the very end there.
Wade: I mean, I haven’t seen it yet, so I don’t know.
But with a game like this, how do you kind of keep the group together with what is another tough game coming up on Tuesday?
Wade: I mean, we’ll pick up tomorrow and get back to work. But I’m disappointed in our effort today. Come back and off of what happened on Monday, and to play like that. Just, I can see it coming, I can see it coming, I’m disappointed.
You have a game like this that’s closed the entire time. It kind of mimics what you see in the NCAA tournament. How can you use this as a warning?
Wade: Shoot, we’re a long way from the NCAA tournament. This team, shoot, we lost to Georgia Tech. I mean, damn, you’re skipping way ahead, worried about the NCAA tournament. Let’s hope we can get to Dayton.
You talked about the struggles there in the second half. But it did seem like, after the technical foul for Darrion Williams, that the team did show a lot of fight up until the last 52 seconds. Your thoughts on the way the team responded there?
Wade: I’m not, I don’t think we responded very well to much of anything. I mean, I don’t see a whole lot of positives. We lost the game, we’re up seven with a minute and six seconds left. Poor coaching, poor coaching on my part, that we couldn’t bring that home. Something we pride ourselves on, and we looked like the Keystone Cops today out there at the end of the game. I mean, but we missed the front end of the one-on-one. Same situation we had at SMU, but we make a big defensive stop. That stuff always comes back to bite you. Stuff always comes back to bite you, every time. And we don’t have the discipline to understand that right now, and we’re not. So that’s why we’re gonna be on the bubble the rest of the year.
You mentioned discipline and disappointment. How do you get the players to maybe play with more physicality? They were mentioning a lack of physicality and toughness down the stretch. How do you get that to flip?
Wade: That’s just who we are. We’re soft, we’re a jump shooting team. That’s who we are as a group. Not saying we got soft players, but that’s who we are as a group. We’re just a jump shooting team, and I’ve had to embrace that. Miami, they have an identity. They’re gonna bludgeon you in the paint. They’re gonna be physical. They have an identity. We have no identity. That’s an indictment on this guy right here. We have no identity outside of making jump shots. And that’s a bad, bad way to have to play. We gave up 26 offensive rebounds at Pittsburgh. We gave up 20 offensive rebounds today. Tuesday, they’ll be able to pick how many offensive rebounds they get. Just pick a number out of thin air, and they’ll get it. I mean, it’s a tough way to play. We gave up, we spent all week working on free throw blockouts. Cuz they get one and a half a game. They got three on us today. At least three, three that I can remember. They may have had more, but we’ll have to go back and look. But they got at least three. I mean, it’s just who we are as a group, and unfortunately, we can’t change it.
Can you find an identity at this point, outside of the jump shots?
Wade: Pretty late in the season. Time is ticking.
You mentioned the points in the paint, you gave up 56, obviously—
Wade: I mean, Reneau, that’s what it’s supposed to look like now. That’s what they’re supposed to look like, what Reneau did. That’s what it’s supposed to look like.
I was just gonna ask if you had, like obviously you knew that they were elite inside. Was there a specific number that you were hoping to maybe stay under?
Wade: 54, I guess, but I mean, no. But I mean, look, they just, the closer you get it to the basket, the more you can offensive rebound, the more other things can happen.
I’m not trying to moral victory, but you had a great crowd tonight, and they were really highly energetic. This is kind of the basketball they’ve been pining for. How neat was it to play a meaningful game in front of a great crowd?
Wade: The crowd was great. I’m so disappointed for our home fans, man. We lost three ACC games at home, that’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing. I can’t remember the last time one of our teams lost three conference games in all. You can go look it up, but we may never have lost three conference games in all, anywhere we’ve been. You’d be hard-pressed to find a year we’ve lost three conference games at home. Maybe, maybe, maybe one other year in 12 years. But our fans are so much better at the effort and what we do. And our fans are top ten in the country, and we’re not paying that back. It is disappointing, it’s disappointing the way we try to pay it back. But the crowd was awesome.
What’s your thoughts on Matt Abel’s game tonight? You’ve talked about the fact that he’s been close, but—
Wade: I thought Matt was really good, had a great first half. Made some big plays in the second half, in the second half as well. He’s coming along, he’s doing a good job, he’s really, really coming along. Really proud of him, he does play with some toughness. He does play with an edge, he’s got some good stuff to him. And so, very, very, very pleased with him.
How hard was it with that rotation, just having Matt Abel kind of cook in the first half, and then Paul McNeil obviously getting hot in the second?
Wade: Yeah, I mean, it’s a good problem to have, it’s a good problem to have. But we need both those guys to play well.
How do you get over this loss, do you?
Wade: Well, I mean, another game Tuesday, important one. So, hopefully they’ll get past it a lot quicker, and I won’t. This doesn’t sit well with me, for a lot of reasons, I don’t wanna get into it in here. This doesn’t sit well with me, and I could see some of this coming. If you asked our guys and they were honest, some of the guys who made some major mistakes for us down the stretch, I called out in practice the last two days. I could see the slippage; I could see this coming. I could see multiple guys who didn’t play well today, I could see them not playing well. He was in practice (pointing to someone) yesterday. I was nose-to-nose with one of them who didn’t play well. I could see it coming; it’s like reading a coloring book, so easy to read. And we just got some guys like that, they’re easy to read. And so, I mean, it’s disappointing, but it’s just kind of who we are. So, I’ve tried to embrace it, I kind of rode the wave, and we were winning. It really wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, but I just kind of rode the wave, cuz we were winning. I knew when you start playing tougher competition, that stuff doesn’t work. When you play tough physical teams, that stuff doesn’t work. And hopefully, I mean, I guess if you’re asking for, maybe they’ll realize that some of what we say, when you get in these games, all that stuff makes a difference. And we just, we have very poor attention to detail.
Anything else?
All right, we’ll see you Tuesday.
