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Nov. 30, 2005

Recap | Box Score

VIRGINIA HEAD COACH Dave Leitao

One of our goals today was to score 60 points. Looking at Northwestern film and what they are trying to do in their first five games, they weren’t giving up a lot of points. The highest total they had given up was 59. One of the things we told the team is that we wanted to get at least 60 or above to make sure it gives us a chance. If we play good defense our offense could take care of itself.

Sean Singletary did a tremendous job of pushing the tempo. At times he was a one-man fast break, putting a lot of pressure on them to get back and they were conceding the backboards and giving us the defensive rebounds and we still were able to get some easy baskets. When you do that, it adds a boost of confidence to everyone on the court.

Sean Singletary came off a game where he had nine turnovers and today he didn’t have any. One thing about Sean, which I’ve learned in a short time, if you tell him something specific about the game, he goes and turns it around and makes sure he corrects that particular mistake.

Overall we did a very good job for the second time in guarding that Princeton-styled offense and not getting beaten back doors. Playing to the scouting report–knowing who could shoot and who couldn’t shoot that well– and overall following a particular game plan. Obviously, other than that stretch at the beginning of the first half when we gave up the lead, I thought we did a great job.

NORTHWESTERN HEAD COACH BILL CARMODY

It seems like two different halves to me. They started out nicely and we were a little out of sync but then we settled down and I thought we defended pretty well. The second half they started in man and then went zone. I think we controlled the game a little bit in the last 10 minutes of the (first) half. The second half was a completely different story. We just didn’t seem to mount anything. Singletary came down there and hit a couple of threes off the left side of the key and it seemed like it just turned right there. Our kid (Vedran Vukusic) got his fourth foul and nothing good happened after that.

When we ran our stuff I think we got some pretty decent shots; sometimes the end result of running your stuff is an open three and we’re not a very good three-point shooting team. What am I running these things for when you get open threes? I think they played a nice game and took control of the second half. They guarded us better and pushed the ball down a little bit and we weren’t able to contain them. Singletary is good. Mamadi Diane is very good too.

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