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Jan. 5, 2004
Virginia Coach Pete Gillen:
I have to give William & Mary a lot of credit, they played a tremendous game.Tony Shaver is a great coach and will do a great job at William & Mary.
We were very fatigued tonight. Playing four games in nine days is tough.We’re fortunate to have won this game. William & Mary did a great job and playedvery well and could have beat us tonight.
We were tired coming into tonight’s game. We knew that, and we dug down atthe end. We got scared when William & Mary cut it to one and made some big playswhen we had to and made some big stops when we had to.
We have to regroup, get some rest and get back to the basics and work on ouroffense before our game against Duke on Sunday. Duke always has great playersand a great coach, but I like our chances. We’ll go out there and give it ourbest shot and see what happens.
William & Mary Coach Tony Shaver:
I am very happy with our players and their performance tonight, as theyplayed with a lot of intensity. Coming into this game we were concered with twostats–rebounding and free-throw shooting. We outrebounded Virginia tonight 39 to31. We shot more free throws than Virginia, but didn’t make as many(13-of-24).
We had the game in reach at 64-63, and had three straight possessions to takethe lead, but we weren’t able to convert. Devin Smith made a huge threepointer and that was the key to Virginia’s success.
I’m extremely proud of our team. We’ve been making great progress with thistough schedule and I’m pleased with the way they have responded, but we willhave to make it pay off when begin conference play.