Postgame Quotes
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POSTGAME QUOTES
Virginia 107, VMI 97
November 16, 2008
Virginia Head Coach Dave Leitao
Opening statement
“It kind of felt like it was the NHL All-Star game. We were just fore-checking, cross-checking, back-checking. With so many possessions, it is a difficult style to play against. It affected everything that we do: our lineups, holding the big guys out because it would be very difficult for them to guard on the perimeter. Duggar Baucom does a great job– they play against you, things that you work on every day. They play you against yourself, and it was a difficult preparation for us — getting us ready to go against what we do every day, so I’m just glad that fortunately we won. We played well enough for long enough stretches and got out of the gate early, which I thought was important. We got a lead and maintained it through all of their comebacks. Obviously I can’t say enough about some of the guys, but the whole team, starting with Sylven Landesberg and Mike Scott and their performances. Sylven is a very talented player. I think the biggest thing with him is that he showed some poise and some wherewithal to make big shots and big plays at big times. Mike just controlled the backboards, particularly on offense. Sammy [Zeglinski] is growing up, and other guys that were in there had pretty positive moments for the most part. Hopefully each game we can learn and grow. I will take a win against this team any day.”
On addressing turnovers at halftime:
“Sixteen is a high number. We talked about the number of unforced turnovers that were a part of that 16 and those were the ones that we needed to eliminate. We talked about it again during the first TV timeout, and I think we only had four after the first TV time out. So we cleaned up our act, and that’s really what you have to be able to do.”
On the influence of VMI’s game versus Kentucky in the win:
“Obviously it was a little bit of a wake up call. Win, lose, or draw, what we saw out there really raised our eyebrows. Maybe the fact that they had to turn around, get back home yesterday, and get here today probably factored in a little bit from a fatigue standpoint. Hopefully our preparation factored in a little bit.”
On the impact of Sammy Zeglinski in the game:
“I was encouraging him, and I thought there were some times in the first half where he would break a double team and then kind of back up a little bit. My thing was, take it as far as they will let you go. Get to the foul line area, look at your options, jump, stop, make some plays. I thought he managed that a whole lot better as the game went on. This is really his first big experience in college and it’s not going to be perfect, but I was pleased that he managed the game the way he did.
VMI Head Coach Duggar Baucom
Opening Statement
“Credit Virginia. They handled our pressure, we thought, very well. [Sammy] Zeglinski had a great game from the point guard position. He handled our pressure very well. We were able to impose our will more on Friday night than we were today from a pressure stand point. We actually got out of the pressure for a little bit because [Zeglinski] was just dicing us up. Mike Scott was very special. Ten offensive rebounds that I think he probably turned into at least 20 points, if not more on some three point plays. They hit two timely threes at about the four-minute and that gave them a huge lift. I thought our guys competed, but we were out of sync offensively. I didn’t think we were near where we needed to be offensively we were too selfish and did not space properly. That’s something we need to work on.”
On Virginia’s lineup:
“Teams play smaller lineups against us. I hate that they started Sylven Landesberg. He had an awesome game against us. A lot of teams play smaller because we don’t have the option to go big or large. We’re going to play small. I’m sure having the two days to prepare [after watching the game vs. Kentucky] probably helped them to know what we were going to do a little bit.”
On missing the free throw that would put them up:
“Anytime you can get an ACC team down with six minutes to go, the mindset kind of changes a little bit. I thought still if we went down and made a stop. But down that stretch, I think we gave up a couple too many easy baskets.”
On Virginia cutting down the turnovers over the last 10 minutes:
“A lot of that was we backed off our pressure a lot and played some 2-3 zone. The last four minutes when we went back and did put pressure on them, they had a turnover. I think Zeglinski was a question mark coming into the game. He was kind of unproven. We don’t have ACC pressure, but part of our emphasis is to put pressure on the point guard, and for him to play 31 minutes and only have three turnovers against what we like to do I think is pretty good.”
On what caused the defensive shift:
“We play that way, but it was a little bit of fatigue coming back from Friday night. We hadn’t had much rest, which is no excuse. I’m the dummy that scheduled the games, but you know I thought early on we spent so much energy in the last seven minutes of the first half carving away at the 17-point lead and then we got in foul trouble again. We thought if we got out of the pressure we could avoid more foul trouble. We are playing a lot more freshman and they are a little more foul-prone than our veterans.”
Virginia Forward Mike Scott
On the key factors in your performance today:
“I think I just let the game come to me. My teammates were able to catch me in open spots, which allowed me to finish everything. “
On preparing for the game in practice:
“We always work on finishing through contact. I obviously need to get to the open area and finish and that is something I feel like we did effectively today.”
On your off-season preparation:
“I did a lot of conditioning with my father and also a lot of dribbling and shooting. I worked on finishing through contact, which is something I still need to improve on, but for the most part dribbling, shooting, and conditioning were my main focus. “
Virginia Guard Sylven Landesberg
On your first game as a Cavalier:
“In the exhibition game I still had some jitters. Today I felt like those jitters were all out of the way. I felt very comfortable and very confident.”
On being in the starting lineup today:
“I felt like I was able to get in my flow a lot quicker today. Going straight from pre-game to the actual game made it a lot easier to get going early.”
On your first game as a Virginia Cavalier:
“The coaches just asked me to go out there and be aggressive and that’s what I tried to do.”
VMI Guard Chavis Holmes
On coming to Virginia after VMI’s win over Kentucky:
“I think we got too carried away with the win at Kentucky and didn’t come out and play as hard as we should have at the beginning of the game and they jumped on us early. We just couldn’t catch up from that.”
On being down by 17 points in the first half:
“We’ve been in plenty of situations like that. We know that with the style that we play, we can come back from anything. If we’re shooting well and hitting [our shots] then that helps out our defense and the pressure just turns up from there.”
On playing an ACC team:
“We feel like if we play our game, we can compete with anybody. Just because [Virginia] is an ACC school, they’re no more vigorous. We just didn’t come out and play like we should have, and that is why we lost.”
Thoughts on the loss:
“The main thing that hurt us was rebounding. We can work on that in practice. We’re going to take a lot of positives out of this and a lot of negatives and this can only help us get better. It’s a long season and this is only one loss.”
VMI Guard Austin Kenon
On coming to Virginia after VMI’s win over Kentucky:
“Our confidence was high and we play to win. We knew that everybody plays the same; they compete just like we do. So why not just come in here expecting to win with our confidence high?”
On being down by 17 points in the first half:
“I never really thought we were out of it. Some rebounds hurt us, as you saw, but on the boards they killed us and hurt us. Towards the end we started to tire and they started to wear us down inside.”