Wake Forest coach Danny Manning and players Bryant Crawford and John Collins talk with reporters after the Deacons’ win over Boston College in the 2017 ACC Tournament.
THE MODERATOR: We’re joined by Wake Forest.
Coach, a brief opening statement, then questions.
COACH MANNING: I thought this was an interesting ballgame. BC came out with a lot of effort, a lot of energy. I think Jim’s game plan was very good. They followed the game plan.
Again, this afternoon, their game plan was to come out and double-team John Collins every time he touched the basketball. I thought we did a good job of having patience, a little bit of poise, getting guys into open spots. I thought John did a good job of getting the ball out of the post to our shooters. We had some guys knock down some shots.
I thought we got good contributions across the board from a lot of guys. Happy to be moving on.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. Coach and John, with 24 minutes gone in the game, John had one shot from the floor. All his points were from free throws. A jumper, a dunk, other baskets that were a big factor. Was it anything you did tactically? How did you get open, John?
JOHN COLLINS: Coach just stressed me to play harder, post harder, cut harder. There’s really no change in game plan. Just told me to do what I’m supposed to do: play hard basically. I think I did that in the second half.
COACH MANNING: For us, that was BC’s game plan, to take him out. I thought he handled it very well early on. He got rid of the ball. He didn’t necessarily get assists, but he got hockey assists. He got the ball to the first open guy, then we got it to someone else for a wide-open jump shot. That kind of changed how they wanted to guard him in the second half.
In the second half, he did a good job of asserting himself, getting fouled, then scoring the basketball. He still finishes with 19 points. That’s right there for us.
Q. Bryant, they battled back and tied the game at 53. You guys ran off a 14-1 run to break it back open. Was that a matter of getting a challenge and answering it, or was there something different in that run?
BRYANT CRAWFORD: We came out flat after halftime. They came out and brung more energy than us. We had a bench player, Greg McClinton, come off the bench and give us a lot of energy, make a few big plays for us that turned us up on the defensive end, so…
Q. Danny, could you address that, how your team answered the challenge.
COACH MANNING: We responded okay. I think we can do better. We have to do a better job of staying in front of the basketball. We allowed far too many points in the paint. A lot of those came off of dribble-penetration with their guards.
But we were active. There were a couple times we strung together a few stops in a row that gave us a chance to create some separation.
Q. You had mentioned some of the passes that John was making. Those threes that Austin hit in the first half, which were big, were some of those a result of, Things aren’t working for me, I’ll move the ball around?
COACH MANNING: John caught the basketball. They committed two guys to him. Austin hit four threes in the first half. Shot very well. Had 12 points for us.
We feel like offensively we have guys across the board that are capable scorers. For us, it’s all about ball movement and player movement. We want the ball to find the open person. If you’re open, we want you to shoot the ball if you’re in your range.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
COACH MANNING: Thank you.
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