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Nov. 28, 2004

Recap | Box Score

VIRGINIA COACH Pete Gillen

“The key to tonight’s game was our defense. Richmond is a good executing team, but our defense was the difference.”

“Tonight we made a lot of perimeter shots, which we had not been making. We had a very good game tonight.”

Devin Smith had a spectacular game tonight. He’s the healthiest he’s been since being at Virginia. He has a lot of courage. He’s a very mature player, and his teammates respect him more than anyone on the team. He’s tough and he’s a leader and he backs up what he says.”

“We made a lot of threes today. You don’t want to shoot too many, but if you’re making them we don’t tell them to stop. We think we can be a very good shooting team from the three-point line. We’ve been working on it more at practice. When you make threes you’re a better team, as most teams are going to collapse around Elton Brown. We have three players (J.R. Reynolds, Devin Smith and Sean Singletary) that are very good three-point shooters.”

“Northwestern is going to be a tough game. They have a great coach in Bill Carmody and they run a tough system. It’s very different and tough to play against. They are hard to prepare for because they execute real well. It’s going to be a very tough game.”

“You have to hold serve at home, that’s very important but you have to win on the road. We have to show that we’re tough enough to win on the road. We’ll know a lot more about our team in the next eight to 10 days.”

RICHMOND HEAD COACH JERRY WAINWRIGHT

“First and foremost, thank you to coach Pete Gillen and Craig Littlepage for helping start this meaningful series for us and our alums. We’re a young basketball team and we were exposed today, but I still think we’ll be more than competitive as the season progresses. It was a great game and a good atmosphere.”

“I’m happy for Virginia. I hope they can take the confidence and energy they’ve used at home on the road. They shot the ball very well today.”

“Virginia did an excellent job taking away our two scorers and we didn’t have an answer. They beat us technically today. Virginia was well prepared, did what they were told and executed.”

“Virginia was really focused and moved the ball well tonight. I thought they made the extra pass and as they did, they got an even better shot.”

“I was too cautious tonight. I exposed a lot of our freshmen tonight. They gave me great effort, but I was just too cautious.”

“Going 0-for-7 from the free-throw line in the first half killed us. Those are turnovers. The game should have been a 9- or 10-point difference at the half.”

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