March 11, 2006

ACC Men's Basketball Tournament
March 10, 2006
#3 Boston College 80, #6 Maryland 66

BOSTON COLLEGE HEAD COACH AL SKINNER

On general play of his team
SKINNER: That's who we are. We've had a number of games this year when we have 23 baskets and 19 assists. We're accustomed to moving the ball and we're fortunate to have guards who can pass it, but more importantly, forwards like Jared (Dudley) and Craig (Smith) who can pass and make plays as well. That's what makes the difference.

On Maryland's pressure in the second half
SKINNER: They were being overly aggressive on the perimeter, which allowed Craig (Smith) to be one-on-one in the post. We have guys who can deliver the ball and you (opponent) can't have it both ways. When they didn't turn us over, we could get the ball into the post. On initial ACC experience SKINNER: It's not over yet, so maybe I can give you a better answer in another day, or hopefully another two days. To be honest, tonight was another game in another tournament. The Big East was pretty intense. This was pretty intense. There are great coaches here and lots of talented players. It's very much what we expected.

On preparing for North Carolina with such a quick turnaround
SKINNER: We'll do a little work tonight, then get them (the team) prepared tomorrow morning. Basically, we just need to do the things we do and be ready to play the game.

BOSTON COLLEGE JUNIOR JARED DUDLEY

On how different Maryland looked tonight
DUDLEY: They're a totally different team obviously, without (Chris) McCray. Obviously we're different adding Akida McLain, who's played a lot of games since then, and Sean Williams, with a lot of blocks, as you saw today.

I just thought our execution coming in here and our mindset, remembering last year when we had a bye against West Virginia and the way we came out, this team is definitely different from last year. You could see it today the way we played, but definitely a lot of unfinished business.

BOSTON COLLEGE SENIOR CRAIG SMITH

On passing the time all day with the late game
SMITH: Basically we just try to stay off our feet, rest up, take a couple of naps here and there. But more importantly, we've got to watch film and stuff like that. It gets very long and it gets boring, but we've got to rest up.

On the play in the first half
SMITH: Basically, our game plan was to come out and be very aggressive. In the regular season, if you'd seen it, we let teams bring it to us, so we wanted to come out and bring it to the other team for once. We were just in a rhythm, and we got it going.

On playing North Carolina tomorrow
SMITH: It's going to be a big game obviously. It's going to be a road game for us. There's a lot of North Carolina fans. I'm very excited to get the chance to play in the semifinals tomorrow.

MARYLAND HEAD COACH GARY WILLIAMS

Opening remarks
WILLIAMS: First of all, B.C. is a good team, obviously. They played well in the last two months in the league. They've done a good job.

After last night, it was disappointing to come out and play like we did. In other words, it's one thing when a team can take some things away from you because they're good, and B.C. will take some things away from most teams. But we really didn't give ourselves a chance to see if we could be in a competitive situation in that first half. We didn't run our offense very well and we weren't aggressive enough on defense. We've been the last two weeks, I'd say, that type of team. It was disappointing to see that not show up tonight in an important game to us.

I'm proud of the team, though. In coaching you have to be careful not to let one game influence how you think about the year. We battled some things this year that we haven't had to battle in the past at Maryland. We came through it pretty tough. To get to where we're 9-9 in the 18 league games we've played and have the 11th-ranked schedule in the country, we've done some good things this year. I don't want to lose sight of that and I hope the players don't lose sight of that. Right now obviously we're very disappointed with how we've played. I've lost games before obviously and I'll lose some more, but I don't like losing when we don't put our best show out there, so that hurts a little bit.

Do you think you've done enough to get into the NCAA Tournament?
WILLIAMS: We've worked hard. I know I've worked hard and the players have worked hard this year. We've had to overcome some things. I hope that's good enough. It's a very difficult situation this year with the way things are and we're going to be just like everybody else; we're going to wait and see what happens on Sunday. That's all we can do.

MARYLAND JUNIOR D.J. STRAWBERRY

On Boston College's run to start the game STRAWBERRY: We just didn't come out like we had the past couple of games. We were giving up open looks and they were knocking them down early. When we got down early it gave them confidence. They continued to hit shots throughout the whole game and really didn't let us back in from that point on.

On Maryland's NCAA chances STRAWBERRY: I'm not sure where we stand, but I know this team has battled through a lot. We've worked hard and put ourselves in a great position to be in consideration for the NCAA Tournament. Hopefully we get in. We've played our hearts out, but ran into a Boston College team that outplayed us tonight. We didn't put our best basketball game together tonight, but hopefully we can still get in.