By Brian Murphy, WRAL

NC State, Duke and North Carolina reached the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament in 2024 appeared poised for big things this season.

The Wolfpack and coach Wes Moore made it to its second Final Four before losing to eventual national champion South Carolina. Duke under coach Kara Lawson advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2018. North Carolina, led by coach Courtney Banghart, made it to the second round.

The teams made their appearances at the ACC Tipoff in Charlotte this week.

NC State

Quotable: “It’s kind of fun being a rock star in Raleighwood,” Moore said of the experience after NC State’s Final Four run.

Quotable II: “We love this atmosphere. We wouldn’t want to play for another team or another school. Just love and happiness over here. So yeah, that’s why I stayed,” Aziaha James said.

Said Saniya Rivers: “I’ll say the same. I love the team here. I love the coaching staff, love the fans. It’s a very family atmosphere. Especially being from North Carolina, I’m very happy here. You know, back home, close to family. I get to sneak home and get those home-cooked meals every once in a while. I love being here. I wouldn’t want to transfer anywhere else.”

Rivers: Wolfpack will ‘hungry and humble’ after Final Four run

Duke

Quotable: “I think, for me, every summer I want to come back better. As a coach, you challenge your players every year, you know, come back better, and here are the ways that I want you to improve,” said Lawson, who was an assistant coach on Team USA’s Olympic gold medal-winning women’s basketball team.

“That’s kind of hypocritical if you say that to them and you don’t do the same thing. This summer I feel like I grew as a coach. I feel like I came back better just in scheming, strategy, obviously reps in high-pressure situations, which we certainly had a lot of those at the Olympics.

“You know, relationships with players. I have great relationships with the national team players and our players aspire to play at that next level, too. So I’m just working with them hands-on in different drills or different tips that I can bring to them. It’s all-encompassing, I think, the growth. I never want to be a coach that doesn’t come back better in the offseason.

“I feel like I did that, and that experience was a big part of it.”

UNC

Quotable I: “Each group has its own vibe, and this group is much easier to score the ball. We’ve had a tough time scoring the past few years, and the ball stuck at times, right? We’re now playing off of close-outs better, and we’re playing off of space because the ball is moving better,” Banghart said.

Quotable II: “It was really mundane and boring work that people can sometimes get swayed away from, because a lot of times people want to work on the flashy stuff, step back shots, behind the back, fadeaways, that’s cool and that’s great, but for me, where my development needed to go was to those mundane things,” Ustby said.

Quotable III: “We had to make a lot of adjustments, especially late in the season. We didn’t have enough guards, and the guards that were playing had to play 30-plus or 40 minutes per game, and I think that was kind of frustrating for (Coach Courtney Banghart) because we did recruit a lot out of the portal. We had a lot of good players when the season started, but injuries, there’s nothing you can really do about that,” Gakdeng said.

Quotable IV: “You can feel it and you can see the difference that our whole offense, we’re able to play so much faster because people run the floor and push the ball up,” Donarski said.

Source: wralsportsfan.com