Story Links
Nov. 4, 2006
Virginia Head Coach Dave Leitao
On tonight’s game…
“Obviously when you play an exhibition you get a chance to evaluate. The guys look forward to it as they have been beating up each other for three weeks. It’s difficult to continue to evaluate our team because we’re banged up and the guys that we’re playing aren’t fully there. They need to rest and unfortunately we can’t rest them right now. We need to move forward. If you look at the other teams in the league, none of them will have as challenging a start as we will next Sunday. That gives us a pretty good dilemma in trying to prepare in the next week. As disjointed as we can be sometimes, it’s hard to piece things together because we’re so incomplete and that’s unfortunate right now. One thing I think we’ve done over the course of three weeks is we have a number of guys who can shoot the ball. We have to be able to continue to do other things well. That’s the majority of my concern–that we can impose our will collectively on defense or running or rebounding or whatever as we sometimes do in practice. We showed it at times today with our ability to shoot the ball.”
On John Paul Jones Arena…
“Big buildings can be a challenge for shooting because of the vastness. This building doesn’t have any of that. It’s an easy shooter’s gym. The lighting and ambiance is pretty good. It’s the same size–10 feet rims and all that and when you’re competing that’s all you’re really thinking about.”
On the turnovers…
“Twenty-four turnovers are too many. When you try to pick up the pace you’re going to turn it over. Some of those were turnovers of aggression, but the rest of them were turnovers of non-aggression. I’m much more concerned about that. Early on you’re going to turn the ball over, I understand that, until you get in sync. In our backcourt we’re not as blessed right now to take it off the bounce. Most teams have four or five guys who do that. Without that, we have to temper it a tad especially with J.R. and Sean. Either or both have to be on the floor all the time and that’s a hard thing when you’re trying to push the ball as much as we’ve tried early on.”
On Arizona…
“In order to win the game against Arizona, we’re going to have to defend. I think they are going to come in here with a bravado and a swagger. We’re playing against a team with a lot of tournament experience, a lot of guys who’ve won a lot of games and a Hall of Fame coach. They have all those things going for them and in order for us to be good that night, we’re going to have to play well in all the areas. If I grade everything out tonight, we didn’t play well but in one or two areas. We rebounded the ball well and at times we shot the ball well, but we didn’t defend over 40 minutes like you’ll need to next Sunday. We’re going to have to impose–the five guys, the seven or eight guys on the bench and the 15,000 people in the stands, will have to collectively impose the will of the basketball team on Arizona if we’re going to have the opportunity to win.”
Junior Forward Adrian Joseph
On leading the team in points…
“Being here for three years, I realize I have to step up and be a leader. At practice everyday, coach is making us shoot a lot of shots, so going out there, I just stepped out with confidence. I tried to take the shots in the game and tonight they were falling for me.”
On starting the season with a win in the exhibition game…
“It means a lot. We’ve got a lot of new players so we need to get them playing. We need to get them in the flow with the old players. It helps us with our chemistry and that’s what we are working on right now – team chemistry.”
On playing in John Paul Jones Arena…
“It is amazing to play in this arena for the first time with the crowd and all the lights. It is so much fun. It just makes you want to play and you feel so hyped.”
On preparing for next week’s sold-out game against Arizona…
“We’ve definitely got to prepare for this game because it’s a big game. They’re ranked in the nation so they are definitely a good team. We’ve just got to go out and practice and start preparing for them. We need to step it up and play much better than we did tonight.”
Senior Guard J.R. Reynolds
On holding back:
“I don’t think we played the way that we’re capable of playing. We didn’t do a good job on defense a couple times. I mean there were just a couple times we didn’t pass the ball and we got boxed out. And we just didn’t do the things we were supposed to do. And we didn’t play with the intensity that we needed to.”
On the Upcoming season:
“It was good to get all that out. It was great to play against somebody different. Now we know what we have to do and what we have to work on. I know it’s going to be a good year for our team and I think we’re ready for the challenge.”