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March 19, 2007
Recap | Box Score | PHOTO GALLERY 
POSTGAME QUOTES
Debbie Ryan, Virginia head coach
On freshman guard Monica Wright’s shot with 16 seconds left:
“Monica wasn’t supposed to take that shot. As a matter of fact, I reminded them in the huddle to look at me. Monica just saw it and her will to win overcame her. We wanted to run a particular play and wait until the last five to six seconds, and then take a shot. As it turned out, we did get that shot.”
On Charlotte guard Traci Ray’s multiple three pointers:
“They hit every open 16-18 foot shot they had. I was very, very impressed with them. I thought that Amanda Butler coached an excellent game. She was ready for us in every way, shape, and form. I just thought that they played extremely well.”
On the last in-bounds play of the game:
“Lyndra was our first look. We went to her to win the game. I would have liked her to go to the opposite side and use the backboard-that’s what the play’s designed to do-but she got the shot that she needed to. She knew what to do and Monica’s pass was right on the money.”
On Charlotte’s eight point lead early in the second half:
“They came out and had the ball to start, and they scored on that possession. We miss, they score on the next possession, and we just were not there. We come over, and by the time they came over, Sharneé had already reamed them, so I just tried to coach them. That was a very key moment for all of us. We either play those 20 minutes to win, or we stay home tomorrow.”
On the team’s poise and seeming lack of fear:
“There’s no fear because we practice those plays every day. Coach Hoover, Coach Loyd, and Coach House have a number of plays that we work on to win the game. I asked them what they wanted to run, and they said, ‘We want to run this.’ We were going to run a different play if they went man-to-man, but we ended up going with the play that we started with, and were fine; it works well with both zone and man.”
On the team’s defense:
“We did a better job in the last 12 minutes, but we are still no where near where we need to be on defense. We work, and we work, and we work on it, but we are still not where we need to be. We did a better job guarding Traci Ray in the second half. We needed to take her out, she had her way in the first half with 14 points, but when we got Sharneé on her and Monica on her, she got distracted. She’s a very heady guard, so we needed to take her out of the game.”
On preparing for a game after an 18-day break:
“They were very upset after the ACC Tournament, but we took some time off. We practiced over the weekend before the selection show, and we’ve been practicing ever since. But it’s really hard to play after an 18-day break. You don’t have the ability to scrimmage like you do in a game. Your passes aren’t as crisp; your shots aren’t on. Defensively, you’re not quite there. The game pace is hard to simulate. Teams who have a lot of time off get their rhythms off and then don’t play as well in the first half.”
On Thursday’s opponent South Florida:
“They are a really good team. They should be in the field of 64. They’ve had a great year. We have our work cut out for us.”
On sophomore forward/center Abby Robertson:
“Abby was really solid tonight. Lyndra Littles and Siedah Williams got into foul trouble, so Abby came in and was very solid. At times, she got off her balance and tried to make a play that she normally doesn’t make, but the eight rebounds were key. At times she was like rebound, rebound at both ends of the floor. She played a very strong role for us tonight.”
Sharneé Zoll, Junior Guard
On the final play:
“I’m not going to brag, I called it. I asked Lyndra are you ready to bury it, are you ready to win this for us and she said yeah so I said let’s run `deception.’ We haven’t run that in a game all year, so it’s not like they could have scouted us, they scouted us really well, and didn’t know that play. It was a good call.”
On Charlotte’s last possession:
“I don’t know how it happened. Usually I don’t get charges called, because I fall before the person hits me; I get nervous because people are so much bigger and running so fast. I know I had to take it because Wright was behind me and the girl was coming at me at full speed. I just knew I had to take it. If I don’t take that charge, they score and that could be our season right there. I just stood there and took one for the team.”
On the two week break since the last game:
“It’s amazing to play. I didn’t think I was going to say that, but after 18 days, I felt like we were just practicing forever, like game time would never come; we would never seen fans; we would never see real referees. It felt really, really good, and I think you could tell in our energy because a lot of us were really excited. I know a couple of times I was chest bumping and jumping up and down; I usually don’t do that. That takes a lot of energy out of me; I’m old now. I was really excited to get to play. Our fans were great tonight so that helped us a lot.”
On Abby Robertson’s rebounding:
“Abby does that all the time in practice; she hustles her butt off and beats people to the ball. That’s what she did tonight. She has a good knack for where the ball was going to be, and it showed tonight. She showed her hustle, and she helped us win the game. It was a complete team effort.”
On the slow start to the second half:
“We needed to pick the game up because that’s not how we were going to lose. We worked too hard all season to play through ACCs, to play through our tough non-conference schedule, pre-season, postseason last year, the 18 days we had off in practice. We worked too hard to let it slip away from us and to not at least fight for it.”
Lyndra Littles, Sophomore Forward
On Virginia’s final play of the game:
“When Sharneé said let’s run `deception’, I got really, really excited, because I figured I was going to make it because I was anxious to go home because I haven’t been feeling well. We were both joking on the side `let’s make it so I can go home, get something to eat.’ I wasn’t that scared; I was fine.”
On her game-winning shot:
“I had all the confidence in the world, especially coming from my teammates and especially Sharneé. She said `we’re running deception, We’re going to hit this shot, and we’re going home’ and that’s it. That’s all I needed to know. I just had to hear it from my point guard.”
On Virginia’s ability to come back from a deficit:
“I think that’s growth throughout the season. We’re a young team but I think we’ve matured a lot through the season. We’ve had a lot of adversity thrown at us, and that’s only made us a better team. So when we get into situations like that, we have each other so we pull together and we find a way.”
Monica Wright, Freshman Guard
On her shot during Virginia’s second to last possession:
“I was just like we’e got to win, so by any means necessary. I didn’t know Coach Ryan was telling me to stop. I just knew that we had to win the game and I didn’t know how we were going to do it. After we called the time out, Coach Ryan said next time to pull it out and run something.”
On playing for Virginia’s seniors:
“I feel like this whole season is dedicated to the seniors because of how hard they’ve worked and how much time they’ve put into this program. I definitely wanted to work extra hard knowing that this could be the last game for the seniors.”
Abby Robertson, Sophomore Forward
On her rebounding:
“I was trying to get position, but I think I got a couple of lucky ones. That’s what I’m in for; I’ve got to get my boards, play solid, not play outside myself and levelheaded. That’s what coach emphasized tonight and I tried to execute that.”
Amanda Butler, Charlotte head Coach
Opening comments:
“I was very proud the way our kids played tonight. I think this is going to be a loss, albeit a very tough one, that’s going to propel us into next season, and that’s what we are already excited about. We got beat by a very talented, obviously very well coached, ball club. Debbie Ryan is one of the best there is and we have nothing to hang our heads about. I hope that Virginia goes right on from here and wins the whole darn thing.”
On Charlottes development over the year:
“We were not quite able to get up and run and press as much as we did a couple of months ago just because shortage of bodies. In some ways though we’re an improved team, because we had to learn to execute better in the half court, and I think that showed up tonight. We made plays and were able to control the tempo by making it a half court game on more than one occasion and do it successfully. We certainly lost something with our injuries, depth mainly being that, but we had plenty of practice to adjust. I,m really proud of our kids because we’re very young and they responded to all the adversity we faced this year in a positive manner, and we’ve gotten better as a ball team because of it.”
On Charlotte’s last play of the game:
“We have our best player with the ball in her hands in position to make the play with our best three-point shooter spotting up in the corner and one defender splitting in between them and the official decided that was a charge. I’ll take those odds any night. I don’t see any reason why we should pull that up and set up a play; we couldn’t ask for anything better than the odds in that situation most times. I really have a lot of trust with Sabrina Gregory with the ball in her hands, and with Traci Ray spotted up in the corner with her little hands ready to knock down another three.”
On Charlotte’s successful three-point shooting:
“We do quite a bit. We practice a lot on our midrange game. Our team has been very serious with their commitment to improve our field goal percentage this year. I’m sure to them it feels like we shoot a million of them in practice and outside of practice, but that’s what of the things that we do, and I think it makes us a tough team to guard. That’s one of the things that makes Sabrina Gregory, our leading scorer, so special is her consistency in that range; she really doesn’t miss very often. Her field goal percentage for a perimeter player is phenomenal but, again, that has everything to do with what she does when nobody’s watching.”
On winning road games in the WNIT:
“I don’t think it’s impossible. Certainly when you go into a hostel home environment like the one that Virginia has here, it’s going to be tough and you can’t do things like miss free throws or give up offensive rebounds. You have to play perfect in those regards, but certainly we feel like we were just a couple of possessions away from being a second round team who was able to pull it off. Certainly, you’ve got to give Virginia credit. Littles and Wright, those two jokers are tough to handle; they’re going to make the play nine out of 10 times. Zoll I think is one of the best point guards, if not the best point guard, that we faced this season – very composed, makes great decisions, never gets rattled, and knows who to get the ball to. I feel like we did give it our best shot, all but about five or six possessions where if we could have gotten a rebound or two that we let them have a second chance at I might be smiling a little bit more.”