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Jan. 22, 2007
Recap | Box Score | PHOTO GALLERY 
POSTGAME QUOTES
Debbie Ryan, Virginia head coach
On the way the game ended:
“I thought we played well enough to win tonight in a lot of ways. We didn’t rebound the ball well enough tonight, and that was really the Achilles’ heel. I felt like, offensively, we executed fairly well. We didn’t always make shots, but we executed fairly well and we got balanced scoring. Defensively, in the second half, we just did not play very well. We did not rebound the ball very well. When Lyndra’s got four rebounds and Monica Wright is leading the rebounding, that is not a good sign for us. Kudos go to Monica, but at the same time, we have got to be better than that.”
On how letting this game slip away is a significant loss:
“Yeah, we were up by 14 in the first half and 12 in the second half. In ACC basketball and in any game of basketball with a three-point shot, with all the things that happened, the game is so fast now that no lead is ever sacred. We were a team that played a very good first half. That was probably the best half we’ve played all year. But, we have not been a good defensive team and that is something that we are working on. We are making great strides if we can play a whole half like that, but we did not carry it in to the second half like we should have and that was really the problem with the game.
On what Virginia Tech changed in the second half:
“They didn’t really switch anything; we just weren’t as good defensively. We were really fouling too much and putting them at the line. Diawara was getting good looks, for sure and they were trying to find her a little bit more. I thought we were positioning in the right place most of the time, but we just did not do a very good job. She made four-of-four shots all night so it really wasn’t bad, it was just we were not positioned correctly, we were not rebounding the ball, or boxing-out well. That was a big problem.”
On the timeout she called during Virginia’s last full possession:
“I didn’t like what we were doing. It didn’t look like we were really focused on what I wanted them to do, and so we called it and we ran a play. They stayed in a zone and Sharneé got really deep. She said she got a good look; she said she was on balance; it just didn’t go in. We couldn’t have asked for a better shot, really.”
On Virginia Tech’s last play:
“Well, she took a shot, she missed it, and we missed the big weak side rebound. I really can’t tell you what happened, I have not seen it on tape. I have to see it before I can make a judgment, although I do know she was standing there all alone.”
On if there is a tendency to guard the player taking the last shot rather than focus on the box out:
“Yeah, I can’t remember who was involved on Copeland, but there were several of their players in that area, too, it wasn’t just Copeland, although she was the one with the ball. Brenna said she was the one who was on the last shot, so I don’t know if she had come to help and she didn’t get back, or I’m not sure exactly what happened. Obviously the whole focus was on stopping her and not letting her score, but she was almost underneath the basket. She was way low, and I thought we did a good job defending that part of it for seven seconds, but she got the shot off and they were able to get the offensive board and put it back in. Sometimes when you’re in a game and you’re not doing something very well…we weren’t rebounding the ball very well, and that was the Achilles’ heel.”
On Virginia Tech’s resiliency after McGuire put Virginia up by 12 with a three-pointer:
“All the credit goes to them. I thought that they never gave up, they kept playing hard, and you’ve gotta give them a lot of credit. Even when Diawara went out, you’d think that would have changed the complexion of the game a little bit, and she goes out and we were still not able to pick up the offensive boards that we really needed.”
On the emotions in the locker room after a loss like this:
“Well, we were up the whole game and felt good about it. Although I felt like we struggled at certain points tonight, I still felt good all the way down to the end. The last several possessions they scored on too many of them. They scored on eight of the last 10 possessions, and we probably scored on several of the last ones, too, but just to keep the lead most of the way. The emotions are difficult when you lose a game like this. It’s excruciating, because it’s something that you just weren’t planning to do. At halftime I thought we were in a good position, and we had a good game plan. I thought we came out and did a good job of pushing the lead, but I had to call a few timeouts to get our attention because we were making bad decisions on offense – decisions I have not seen us make in a long time. Just very bad decisions.”
On Monica’s turnovers tonight:
“She was a little too fast tonight. She saw so many things it was almost like she was distracted. But, you know, she played her heart out, and she had 11 rebounds and 17 points and five-for-five from the free throw line. She had two big free throws to keep it from getting away from us, and you can’t say enough about a kid like that. It’s her first year. She’s going to get better.”
On Sharneé’s play tonight:
“She played great defense tonight, for sure, but I think she was a little off tonight. She was struggling with her shot, and she didn’t score much, but she still gets her seven assists. She’ll come in here and take the entire credit for the loss. She’ll say it was all her fault that we lost tonight, but obviously it’s not. She takes it very hard. She just cares a lot. She cares a lot about the program, she cares a lot about us, and she cares a lot about everything. She’s trying to carry this team and on a night like tonight I felt like she could get to the rack just about any time she wanted to, she just wasn’t finishing. But she was getting there. There will be other nights when Sharneé plays better. I thought she played a good floor game, otherwise…I mean, she had zero turnovers in 35 minutes.”
On the return of Coach Kay Yow for the NC State game:
“I am just happy to hear that she’s going to come back and be all right. But obviously the focus for us is going to be on winning the game.”
On the keys to beating the Wolfpack:
“I think our decision-making on the offensive end. It’s a matter of watching the video – that’s how we learn. Watching the video and make sure we make better decisions on the offensive end and playing better defense. [Tonight’s] second half was really the tale of the game. We played well, and then we didn’t play well. We have to realize that 20 minutes is a long time. We were up seven with three minutes to go, so we had plenty of room, we just made bad decisions.”
Sharneé Zoll
On realizing their loss:
“When the clock hit triple zeroes. That’s the first time I thought we were going to lose the game. It’s when I figured out we had lost the game. Even when we had 1.4 seconds left in the game, we drew up a play we do in practice. It’s worked out for us a bunch of times. Ninety percent of the time we make the shot, so I still didn’t think we were going to lose.”
On Tech’s winning layup:
“You can’t ask for a better game-winner.”
On what Tech did to win the game:
“Same thing that happened to us all second half: offensive rebounding on their part. We got the ball out of Kirby Copeland’s hands, which we wanted to do. And make them take a bad shot the first shot, and then we didn’t come up with the rebound. That’s how we lost our 14-point lead. They out-rebounded us and we didn’t box out on the defensive end. They got the boards, and that’s second and third chance points.”
On her feelings over the loss:
“I’m thinking of a word, but I can’t say that on TV. Poopy is a good way to put it. I wouldn’t even discuss it after UConn because they are a team ten-deep for the All-Americans. Virginia Tech is a great team, and I’m not taking anything away from them. They fought hard to come back. This is a game at home where we were up. I think the most we were up was fourteen at one point in time. We had done everything we had wanted to do in the first half. We let it go. It didn’t come down to officiating, it didn’t come down to coaching, it got down to us-the five players who were on the court at one point in time. That’s what it came down to. It’s frustrating because in practice we play so much better than we play in games sometimes. Our coaches harp on us about defensive rebounding and that’s going to win games. In the second half, we didn’t put that on the floor, so that’s what’s frustrating about this loss.”
On the student turnout:
“I think they got points for the Duke game if they came to our game. I’m glad they came out and supported us for one game. I hope they keep coming.”
On whether Tech did something to throw the Cavaliers off-balance in the second half:
“They played exactly how our coaches said they would play. We-the five players on the court at any given time-did not perform the way we should have. In the first half we boxed out and we played defense. We held their team to 21 points in the first half. Twenty-one points for a college team in the first half? They’re really good, too. We just didn’t do it. We were down defensively, and we allowed a lot of dribble penetration. We didn’t box out and we didn’t rebound, and those are things we executed in the first half, and I think that’s basically what it came down to. Tech kept their heads in the game and came together as a team. I give them a lot of credit.”
On former teammate Tiffany Sardin’s leadership:
“Tiffany Sardin is truly missed on this team for her leadership and the things she brought on and off the court. Not with points or anything with stats; we need somebody that’s just going to get in your face. Tiffany’s a quiet person, but once she starts yelling at you, you’re like ‘Oh, damn.’ You’re scared to mess up again. You think she might hit you. You’re laughing, but I’m serious. That’s what we need on this team; someone who will just get in peoples’ faces. We miss it-we definitely do, but we don’t have her here so we have to rally around each other, and just pick ourselves up. There’s no one else who’s going to pick us up. It’s twelve girls that we have and five coaches.”
On going on the road next:
“We let a lot go at home-conference and non-conference. Especially in the ACC you have to win home games. It’s really tough to win away, so you have to protect your house. So far we haven’t done that very well. Every game now is a big one. For the NCAA’s and the championship, whatever it may be, every game is big. All we have to focus on is the one we have next, which is NC State at State. We just have to play each game like it’s our last.”
Monica Wright
On her effort in the game’s last seconds:
“I dished off to Siedah (Williams) because Nee (Sharneé Zoll) had just gotten to the corner on the out-of-bounds play. I was just ready to go in there and score, because if we were going to win the game, I might as well just go all out and not leave anything behind.”
On her first experience with the UVa, Tech rivalry:
“Coming into the game we all basically knew it was going to be a fight and how much it meant in terms of school history. Coach Ryan definitely talked about how much we needed this game. It gives us more reason to bounce back from this and get them in their house.”
Lyndra Littles
On her offensive game today:
“It was frustrating because it [her shot] didn’t fall when I needed it to fall. I missed key points. I know I missed two free throws, and I missed a layup in certain times during the game when you can’t afford to miss chippies like that. It was very frustrating.”
On Tech’s Nare Diawara:
“Not so much intimidating. A lot of that was on my part. I should have played a little bit smarter-try to go up into her knowing that she’s six-foot-six. That would have been the smarter thing to do. It wasn’t intimidating because I kept going. It’s quite an experience.”
On another Tech meeting:
“Coming into Virginia, you know about the rivalry with Tech. It was stressed coming into this game-to do our part for the Commonwealth Challenge. To lose this game, I think everyone on this team takes it very, very personally, and it’s an excuse to go down there and beat them in Blacksburg.”
Beth Dunkenberger, Virginia Tech head coach
On the big win:
“I thought that was a great performance by our team. Obviously we were out of sync in the first half, I think we had 14 turnovers, but we regrouped at the half time. It was a great defensive performance by our team.”
“That was exciting!”
On Sharneé Zoll as an offensive threat:
“I thought Laura Haskins did a great job on Zoll. I think her (Laura) size bothers her (Zoll) a little bit and we talked about her (Laura) trying to stay between her (Zoll) and the basket and then Laura’s size would be a factor.”
On the final play of the game:
“I think our kids have as much confidence in Kirby as anybody. She took it aggressively to the hole and Brittany Cook knows what great players should do, she had her nose to the ball and knows that second shots often win the game. We talk about that quite a bit. It’s not the first one that’ll hurt you; it’s the second one.”
“Kirby went in with confidence which was what we needed. She drew a couple defenders and when Cook boxed out she got the open look.”
“We had nothing to lose there so we just want to make sure we get a good look at it, and we’re aggressive.”
On Tech’s turnovers:
“We had 14 turnovers in the first half, and I think a lot of them were caused by Virginia Tech. We were not being patient with the ball. Defensively we were in great shape. We held them. We just need to take care of the ball and give ourselves more opportunities and more possessions to score. Be a little more patient in our offense and once we did that we were able to score some points. The key is to move the ball around and wait for your opportunities, not try to create them off one or two passes.”
On the overall play of the VT team:
“We are a young team and we’re going to get better as it goes. That’s what we’re doing. We are finding a way to play great defense. Tonight our offense wasn’t all too hot, but our defense was great. To hold Virginia to 58 is great defense.”
“This team continues to get better and better and this is the direction that we want to head in, to a third ACC win.”
“We just want to make sure we keep everyone safe and sound. That’s the most important thing of all.”
Nare Diawara
On her contribution to the win:
“I just knew I needed to pick it up. My teammates need me.”
On playing defense against Lyndra Littles:
“I tried to move my feet. I had three fouls so I just tried to play defense and move my feet.”
Brittany Cook
On her game-winning shot:
“I knew everybody would be keying on her (Kirby). But, she took the ball to the hole aggressively and she got up a good shot. Everyone had their attention on her and I just went to the weak side and fortunately no one boxed me out.”
Kirby Copeland
On her contribution to the win:
“Well I didn’t have the best first half, so I tried to put the first half behind me and I told my teammates, ‘This is our game to win. We need to step it up. We need to keep fighting and keep up the intensity.’ We came out fighting in the second half and I think that’s what won us the game.”
On the missed jumpers by Cook and Kirby with two minutes left in play:
“Well I told Cook, ‘You got it, Cook,’ and she said, ‘You got it, Kirby.’ We just keep fighting. We couldn’t let that stop us. It was two minutes to go, we just keep fighting and put that behind us. Cook made the game-winning shot; little team work in the end.”
On Cook’s winning shot:
“I saw Cook collapsing down and I thought, ‘Please go in.’ It did and I looked up at the clock and there was a second left. We played good defense in the end.”