Story Links

VIRGINIA BASKETBALL
Postgame Notes
Virginia 78, Hartford 70

Virginia Head Coach Dave Leitao

On his team’s play:
“We continue to be inconsistent enough that it doesn’t allow us to put forth days and weeks and games together that we can grow from. You could attribute that to a number of different things, but the fact remains that we’re not where we need to be as a group. Obviously, Sean (Singletary) is our unquestioned leader emotionally and talent-wise, and this was another night when he was under the weather. When he’s not at his best, we are dramatically affected.”

On the play of Diane and Joseph:
“Thirty-five points and 21 rebounds you’d like to have that from any two players in combination, but I don’t think their overall performance was indicative of us continuing to play well and getting better.”

On Virginia’s turnovers:
“Turnovers are a concern, but they’re a by-product. A turnover occurs when you’re mind is a little sloppy. When we get sloppy mentally, we turn the ball over, we don’t box out, we give up offensive rebounds, we don’t run as hard, we miss people. There are a number of things that come into play. Turnovers are just one aspect of it.”

On the lack of inside scoring:
“I don’t think if the ball had gone inside more that it would have solved all our issues. I think we were very lethargic mentally and physically, and when you are that way a number of things get affected. They drove the ball at us a lot. They got a number of offensive rebounds. Seventeen offensive rebounds against a team that statistically is not a good rebounding team is a lot.”

On playing against zone defenses:
“We’ve played against a lot of zone defenses, and you can pick a game where we looked flat and you can pick a game where we looked very good against it. We could face man, zone, pressure and be real good against it or not very good against it. It depends on us.”

“The biggest issue right now is consistency. If we’re not consistent or don’t become consistent, then someone is going to take control of that for us, and that’s not good news.”

Hartford Head Coach Dan Leibovitz

On Hartford’s play:
“For us to be in a game like this and have a chance to win late in the game I won’t say it’s an accomplishment, but I’m proud of our team because Virginia is a team that has a chance to go places.”

On Sean Singletary:
“Sean Singletary was at times too much. He was pushing the ball on makes, misses, finding people. He changed the whole tenor of the game by being very aggressive. He didn’t have a good game scoring, but he dictated the flow of the game in the first half.”

On Hartford’s defense:
“The difference in the game was transition. When we were able to set up our zones, we were pretty sound defensively, but where we broke down was in transition. A lot of the first half threes and a lot of the breakdowns came from Virginia pushing the ball.”

On Hartford’s offense:
“We shoot a lot of threes always. We would love to be able to get the ball on the block. It just was tough for some of the guys on our team. Warren McLendon was pretty effective down there at times, but we’re playing young guys. Our starting center is a freshman, our starting four man is a freshman. We need to develop those players, but maybe tonight was not the best environment to have the game go through those guys.”

Virginia Junior Forward Mamadi Diane

On the second half:
“They definitely came out and hit a couple of shots which fired their team up. You could tell in their increased movement and how they were hitting shots and feeling good. We didn’t play as well defensively as we had in the first half, and we need to work on imposing our will on other teams.”

On the zone:
“We definitely try to get more movement and get into openings and that is something we need to do more consistently just to try to open up the floor and disrupt the zone.”

On the upcoming schedule:
“We have another game (Xavier) in a couple of days and then we get a break. With school being out, we have a lot of time to work on some things that we need to.”

Virginia Senior Guard Sean Singletary

On having more players available today:
“We had a lot of people playing and it was nice to get a win without much rhythm and much chemistry. We need to take it for what it is worth and build for the future.”

On his tough shooting day:
“I was just missing them. Sometimes you make them, sometimes you don’t. I just need to bounce back.”

On practices of late:
“We’ve had some good practices. We have a team with some veterans but for the most part we are still a young team. We’ve had some bumps and bruises along the way but the good thing is we came out of here with a victory and have a lot to look forward to.”

Print Friendly Version