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Virginia Head Coach Debbie Ryan
On tonight’s game:
“I thought that we did a fairly good job getting up and down the court, but I thought that there were pockets where we weren’t sure about what we were doing. The execution was at times perfect and the execution at times was just a little bit cloudy. They got up and down hard and they put themselves at the line and they just did what they were supposed to do.”
On Monica Wright:
“What I was pleased with Monica tonight is that she was able to make the transition for a few plays at the point so I could put her there at the point and that really messes a team up.”
On playing difficult teams:
You learn so much if you play somebody that’s at your level or above. You want somebody to challenge you and put you in a close situation, so you can see what kind of character your team has.”
On the freshmen:
“I really like the fact that all four of them went in there and they were not intimidated one iota they did what they do. I thought that Ariana Moore showed a lot of promise at the point, not as much of an organizer or a leader as Sharnee (Zoll) was yet but obviously you can see she’s very skilledshe shoots the threes, she gets to the basket, she knows where the ball needs to go. Whitny (Edwards) did a great job tonight also getting to the basket and playing some good defense and getting up and down the court. Chelsea Shine showed you that she’s got a big presence in there. She’s mobile, she’s athletic, and she just gets better and better with each day.”
On the starting lineup:
“I think we’re just looking for the right starting line up right now. This was a pretty talented team we were playing so I wanted a lot of ball handling at the start so I could see what they would do.”
Virginia junior guard Monica Wright
On expectations for the DT3 Team:
“We definitely talked about this team and their ability during practice a time or two and during our shoot-arounds, so we knew that they were capable. We talked about a couple of players- Kalika France, Jasmine Byrd, some of the players that are pretty good on their team so we knew about the team a lot beforehand and how good they were.”
On the changes in the starting lineup:
“After Paulisha went down we all got a feeling like, “we all need to step up now, we all need to do a little bit more and fill the role.” Coach Ryan mixed up the starting lineup a bit and she said it might not be how it is now. We started off well. Defensively, we started off well. We kind of slacked off as the half went on, it was a little shaky, but I fell it went how an exhibition game is supposed to go.”
On playing without Sharnee Zoll for the first time:
“Every single moment I was like, What would Sharnee do in this instance?’ When I felt myself yelling, I thought, I sound like Sharnee,’ especially in timeouts and media timeouts when she used to rally us and kind of yell at us when she wasn’t satisfied with what we were doing.”
On the freshmen:
“I feel like the freshmen did a phenomenal job tonight. I looked over the stats in the locker room and they were pretty solid. I feel like Chelsea Shine and Britny Edwards did a really good job rebounding and helping us on the boards and were really solid on defense.”