The North Carolina Tar Heels host the Virginia Tech Hokies on Saturday night at the Dean E. Smith Center in a monumental game for head coach Hubert Davis and his team. Here are quotes from this week that carry weight into this contest.

Seth Trimble’s Aggressive Mindset

• “The thing that I loved about him was he was thinking attack. He wasn’t coming off looking to pass,” Davis said. “One of the things that I’ve told him is when you come off a ball screen, you’re 100% thinking score, and then let the defense dictate whether you make a pass or you go to the basket. And Seth’s ability to be able to get downhill, he was able to score, draw fouls, just a huge difference maker for us.”

• “And I feel like now that Caleb [Wilson] has been out, he’s definitely been more of the go-to guy, and he’s had a lot more opportunities,” Henri Veesaar said. “I feel like he flipped a switch in the second half of Syracuse and that kind of just carried over, because he started being more aggressive, getting downhill, and that carried over into the next game.” 

• “The coaches have been on me,” Trimble said. “I know I said it; I’ve said this over and over again, but they’ve been on me just to go and just finish, you know, coming off the ball screen, go, look to score, you know, don’t look to pass. Don’t look to make a play. Go to score. And then things are going to happen from that. And then I’m going to be able to kick out, going to be able to hit Henri [Veesaar].”

Defensive Fortitude

• “We were ready – just being ready on the defensive end and making them score over us,” Veesaar said. “I feel like on the defensive end most of the time, most of the games, we control the way we play, and as long as we don’t make any [mistakes]…today we were talking, communicating the whole game. So that was really good.”

• “It was a huge point to try and slow down Mikel [Brown Jr.] and [Ryan] Conwell,” Trimble said. “They’re two incredible guards, two of the best guards in the ACC. So, if you can shut them down, you can put yourself in a good position to win. Now, we didn’t necessarily shut them down, obviously, but efficiency wise, they didn’t have the best game, and it made it difficult. So, I think we did a good job.”

• “[With] so many gifted guys that can score in many different areas, one of the things that we wanted to do is just make every catch, make every move, make every shot difficult,” Davis continued. “And I just felt like throughout the game, they got worn down and tired. And I think that’s why a lot of their threes hit front rim or air ball, because of the fatigue.”