Dusty May press conference after win vs. Wake Forest

You know, last year, they, going into the game, this isn't how they played, but last year they took advantage of our ball screen coverage and they had the personnel to do it. They had Efton Reid and he was just wiping Vlad out. They didn't have the mass to wipe the guy out on his drops. And so his rim protection, I thought, was probably the difference in the game.

We forced a team that doesn't want to shoot a lot of floaters and tough middies into floaters and tough middies because our guards' ability to sit down and defend on the perimeter. I thought our gap coverage improved as the game went on. And so without a doubt, we're much more equipped to win a Big Ten game today than we were yesterday because of the schedule.

Yeah, without a doubt. I think each time you win one of these, it gives you belief and confidence that you're going to find a way the next time you're in this situation. Hopefully we're not in as many as we were last year, but credit to our guys on last year's team. And then the returners obviously are poised under pressure is something that we can hang our hat on.

But once again, if you're in a lot of one-possession games, you're probably at our level, you're probably going to win half of them. And, you know, we don't want to be in a position where you're going to win half your games. So, we definitely need to find a way to separate and take advantage of our runs and have a little bit more than playing the last possession each game.

Yaxel Lendeborg didn't play his A-game tonight probably. What did they do to slow him in your opinion? Um, you know, they're a good team. They're scrappy.

They push off your spots. They challenge everything. I thought Yaxel Lendeborg generated some really good looks. Um, his 3-point shots, I think 3 or 4 of them, I thought they were going in and they just didn't drop.

Um, it's, it's a new environment for him. It's a new experience where we're not lean— we're not counting on him to carry us. He just has to be another spoke in the bike tire. We've got a lot of good spokes in our locker room, so we just gotta just stay with it and figure out ways to impact the game when the ball's not dropping.

He missed a couple shots around the rim. I mean, the ball is— this game's funny, man. You go up and you're at the rim. We'd like to have a little more power, but the ball just doesn't drop in sometimes, and you just gotta keep going and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

And I thought he learned that tonight, that we're not basing his performance on whether that 3-point shot's going in or whatever the case. So he made some plays to contribute to winning. Obviously, he's gonna play much better than he did night.

Yeah, absolutely. And, um, the one— I'm going to give Aday Mara credit. The, the two exhibitions and the first game, he struggled guarding on the perimeter. They, uh, the opposition's bigs had their way with us.

Um, I don't even think he played the first one, the last couple games, whatever the case. And even in practice, he struggled in that regard and— and the staff has challenged him and I thought he did an A+ job without looking at the film, an A+ job of contesting threes. He blocked a couple of them. He defended the drives and Spillers, man, he's quick.

He's got some game. And so he cut him off. He used his size, his length and challenged the shots. And Spillers is a borderline All-League guy, could be an All-ACC guy.

So for him to be able to sit down and keep his body in front of him is, uh, that's very, very refreshing going forward. But I didn't think he could play that much. I mean, he's capable of a lot, and I still— he's just scratching the surface, man. His spot is— obviously his stat line is impressive, but he made so many more invisible plays and changed so many shots.

Now some of our guards have to do a better job of getting in the fight when he tips the ball to go in and clean it up. I think we're anticipating that we're going to turn those into leak-out dunks, and so just another, another reason we have to change some habits and practice better. But Very proud of our guys for simply staying together and not getting rattled.