NC State Press Conference
So you guys last year, nobody had any experience in the NCAAs. This year, obviously, you have that experience. Does that help you guys feel more comfortable?
LORENZO BROWN: I have to agree with that. It was a lot of fun for us last year when we came here, and I think that now that we have a lot of experience coming in, we'll be able to come in here and help our freshmen a lot.
C.J., when you look at film on Temple, what do you make of them, and how do you guys match up?
C.J. LESLIE: I think we know that they have a very good guard that we have to be aware of. We know he likes to get it and go, and he's capable of making big-time plays. We have to be aware of him at all times on the court.
That's the main thing is just to get in, and we want to get our break going is what we're mostly focusing on, is getting back in our fast breaks, is what we want to do.
C.J., talking about Khalif Wyatt, or Lorenzo, can you talk about what you see in his game and how hard he'll be to stop.
LORENZO BROWN: I think he's very crafty when he's dribbling the ball. He's one of the craftiest guys I've seen this year. My main goal when guarding him is to keep him out of the paint. I know he can shoot pretty well, but once he get in the paint, he can draw a foul or dish the ball to any of his players, and they're pretty good shooters.
If I can do that, it would help our team out.
Maybe a couple of you guys could answer. How much talk has there been either on campus or that you guys have heard directly about the 30th anniversary of what Coach Valvano did with the team in 1983, and is that any kind of additional motivation going into the tournament?
SCOTT WOOD: There's been a lot of anticipation. The "30 for 30" segment got everybody excited and ready for the tournament. Especially on Twitter and social media sites, you see guys commenting on it and how excited they are for State basketball to be back in the tournament and hopefully we can bring success like they did.
RICHARD HOWELL: It's definitely exciting to see that, definitely motivating us a lot more to go out there and play a lot harder.
Richard, can you address if you're helping if you see Khalif Wyatt come into the paint? He's the kind of guy that gets double-digit free throws almost every game, and that's really carried them when he's been cold. Is there like a team-wide, I guess, directive to make sure that you keep him off the line?
RICHARD HOWELL: Definitely. He's a big-time player. So Lorenzo can definitely do a great job on him, but at the same time, whenever we have the opportunity to, we're definitely going to help him. He's a big point guard, especially when he gets down in the paint, like Lorenzo says. So it's going to be a team effort against him.
For C.J. and Richard, Temple is not a real big team. How important is it to take advantage of that size advantage that State has tomorrow?
RICHARD HOWELL: I think it's real big for us to take advantage of that. They definitely lack in size, and that's something we want to use to our advantage.
C.J. LESLIE: Yeah, you said it right there. We definitely want to be very aggressive on both ends of the court as far as with the height and size matchup from both teams.